AInsights: Executive-level insights on the latest in generative AI….
In my work at ServiceNow, we constantly host executives in our global innovation centers. AI is the number one topic everyone wants to explore. And in those meetings, I’m often asked to share use cases that go beyond innovative workflows to demonstrate how organizations are using AI to reimagine operational and business models entirely.
I wanted to share some interesting examples with you in this edition of AInsights.
The world’s largest mining company used ChatGPT to analyze its leadership framework and improve employee experiences.
Vaughn Sheahan, BHP. Credit: itnews
Like all companies, BHP routinely analyzes its leadership framework to refine and update. Traditionally, it engages consultants to manage the usually six-week project. As an experiment, Vaughn Sheahan, the head of organizational development and analytics, decided to test pilot the project with ChatGPT.
The team fed the AI a 90-page “culture baseline assessment” in PowerPoint format, a Board paper on culture that described the company’s aspirations, HR policy documents, and the current capability framework.
Sheahan told an audience at the Microsoft AI Tour conference in Australia that the experience was eye-opening.
“What we were able to do through chat is start to explore how we might need to shape leadership in BHP to better reflect where we need to go and what we need to do,” Sheahan said.
The chat sessions were also productive.
ChatGPT provided process improvements and highlighted gaps and opportunities. It also improved the language, which was also a desired outcome of the project.
“One of the critiques we have in the way we write these documents is they’re HR-centric and our frontline teams don’t get it, so you say to ChatGPT, ‘Express that or rewrite that in a way that a worker can relate to it and engage with it,” Sheahan shared.
Said another way, ChatGPT demonstrated the ability to translate exec-speak into relatable language. We could use more of this!
Sheahan continued, “And at the end of that process, we stepped back and actually asked it, ‘Do you think this is actually the right thing for BHP to do, and do you think that these leadership capabilities are things that are actually going to unlock performance in our business?”
For such an abstract, deeply analytical question, it’s easy to see why generative AI is not only capable, but also still requires human, expert intervention to review the output and ensure its integrity and value-add
“[The] response that came back absolutely blew my mind in terms of its ability to look at it,” Sheahan said.
ChatGPT offered a conditional ‘yes’ response to the question. But it also pointed out gaps that required addressing.
“We were legitimately missing those points [from the framework],” Sheahan admitted. “Not only did it pick up the things that were missing, it said a framework is one thing but it’s the implementation that matters.”
BHP is now exploring additional opportunities in human resource applications.
Sheahan shared a typical HR transaction as an example of one use case.
“If you think about the current state, I’ve got a query, I raise a case, and hopefully within 24 or 48 hours I get a response,” he explained. “But if you’re like me, you haven’t written the [question] particularly well, so I don’t get an answer back, I get a question back, and that triggers another 24-to-48 hour cycle.”
In my work, this is where I demonstrate the capabilities of Now Assist , our generative AI solutions that address this exact scenario, as well as others in IT, finance, customer service, operations, and more.
Sheahan continued, “If you think about the experience of our workforce around that, it can be quite frustrating, so there is a huge opportunity to improve the way our workforce interacts with HR to get what they need in a far quicker, more human way.”
Exactly!
Additionally, BHP sees AI playing a critical role in optimizing and personalizing critical moments of truth across the employee lifecycle.
This starts with machine learning and AI, along with human counterparts, analyzing those moments, the experiences they deliver, and moments that may be missing. Then, AI and human creativity can not optimize and personalize those moments, but also explore new ways to deliver more meaningful experiences and outcomes. That’s experience innovation right there!
BHP believes that genAI can also augment the performance of HR personnel.
“We have plenty of employment relations lawyers, [and with assistance from generative AI], not only are they quicker at providing advice but maybe their advice is better because it’s fed by precedent data around what is the right course of action with cases similar to this,” Sheahan explained.
He called this concept an example of “precision leadership.”
Hopefully the team used the enterprise edition to preserve its private data from getting absorbed into public learning models!
