Welcome to PeopleTech, the podcast of WorkforceAI.News. I’m Mark Feffer.
Today, I talk with Chelsea Pyrzenski, the chief people officer of WalkMe. WalkMe’s about learning, and they’re helping a lot of people learn about transitioning to AI. When it comes to AI, employers often have one set of concerns while employees have another. They may not always overlap, even when executives think they do. We’re going to talk about how employers are getting their workforces up to speed, where their points of view diverge, and more… On this edition of PeopleTech.
Transcript
Mark
Welcome to people tech, the podcast of WorkforceAI.News. I'm Mark Feffer. Today I'm talking with Chelsea Pyrzenski, the Chief people officer of walking Walkins about learning, and they're helping a lot of people learn about transition to and not when it comes to AI. Employers often have one set of concerns, while employees have another. They may not always overlap. Even when the executives think they do.
So we're going to talk about how employers are getting their workforces up to speed, where their points of view diverge, and more on this additional people to.
Hey, Chelsea. So we're talking about a survey that that what we did, it really was about transformation and training of employees or companies to use AI and get the most out of AI and I guess. The first question I want to ask is. Are employers keeping up with all the training that's necessary to implement AI and to leverage it?
Chelsea
Yeah. You know what's interesting is that our report really found a huge gap between our executive confidence and AI transformation and employee readiness. So what we're seeing is about 79% of executives say that they're on track, but then only 28% of the employees feel prepared. And what that really comes down to is two major factors. So first, you know leaders. Often underestimate the complexity right of their own tech. Stack what they're thinking right now that they're using is about 36 or 37 applications, but they're actually using 625, which is a staggering 1600% discrepancy. And so really, right now, what organizations are doing is they're bringing in new AI. They're bringing in new business transformation. But what they're failing to really do is do structured. Training. They're training to really have real time support or unified applications that help with the digital adoption or allowing their employees to be ready or confident.
Mark
Why don't disconnect though? As you say it's it's a pretty big one. How come they're in different worlds like that?
Chelsea
You know, it's it's interesting. I think that right now a lot of executives, they don't understand or don't see how much they have within the tech stack. And so This is why digital adoption and what walkway does is so critical is because we actually go in there and we streamline and remove the friction that they're actually seeing or that's allowing the employees to. To have less productivity. And So what we're seeing with digital adoption is that we're actually going in there and finding. Now, where's that friction at? Where are the employees struggling? How do we streamline that? And then how do we educate on the very technology that they're using? So with this transformation, they're just not doing the adoption piece. They think that the transformation is enough.
Mark
Do they have to learn? I mean, what's, what's this training involved? I think I think people hear AI training and they think, oh, we're going to make you a data scientist. But what's it really about?
Chelsea
It's really about being able to reduce the redundancies in the workflow. So like, let's say you're working with like in work day and you need to, you're you're in operations and you need to make a change and an employee file and you have to do. 10 different clicks. With this transformation, or with this adoption, you're moving the 10 clicks to maybe one or two. And so it's reducing. The confusion and it's allowing more productivity and to get work done faster.
Mark
And and how? Do employees feel about all this? Aside from the disconnect with executives? It's a it's a new way of working for a lot of people.
Chelsea
Yeah. And I think that's why there's a lack of confidence with the with the 28% of employees feeling prepared and it could be overwhelming. So I think there's two different schools of thought, like how do I view it? Here's a technology tool. It's supposed to make things easier, but how am I optimizing the use of it? Am I using the right tools with it? Am I putting the right prompts into it? And am I optimizing that that that, that tool? So so I. Think that there's another school of thought with that where employees are nervous of AI and therefore that's going to take their role, whether it's going to take, you know, part of their position or they're they're going to be redundant and removed from the organization. So there's a fear of that as well. So the training aspect is the most critical in in terms of the adoption.
Mark
And and and do employees get that or are they sort of resisting just for the sake of resisting?
Chelsea
Yeah. You know, I think that it's again in. Two different schools of. Thought some are really embracing it and finding it as a way to be more productive at work and then some others are just really resisting it. They don't want to learn that it's change management and it's a whole new way of thinking and they might be stuck in just doing what they're doing. They're confident with what they're doing and it's just a whole new technology that. They don't want to learn.
Mark
I'd like to go back to the executives for a minute because I I really am fascinated by this, this gap in in assumptions or perceptions. What's the story with that? I mean, could you talk again in a little bit more detail about why executives? And employees seem to be, you know, in these different realities, almost about even the number of applications that are being used, not, not just what needs to be learned or what the business issues are.
Chelsea
I think it's just because it's. So new right, I think. Leaders often underestimate just the complexities of their own tech stack. There's so. Many. Out there, they're not involved. The day-to-day of using it and the frontline like employees. Are and So what they what they believe is that work is getting done and that they are optimizing their tech stack and then they're not necessarily in the nitty gritty as a tech leader or let's call it CISO or a CTO. So when you're looking at a CFO, they're not necessarily looking at the entire tech stack of how things are getting, how work is getting done.
Mark
You mentioned before that a lot of the companies were one of employers. They go through transformation and they kind of think they're done. They're they're ready to to rock on, but they're neglecting the training. And what are they thinking? They can just implement this technology and everybody's immediately going to know how to use it.
Chelsea
Yeah, that's the sentiment so far. And so, you know, when we when what we're seeing in the report as as as leaders or are launching these new AI tools or these new transformation. Tools that they see it as a productivity, they see it as a way to optimize work to get work done faster to get work done well. And so the piece of it is that they're really thinking about digital transformation. Digital transformation is a strategic process. It's using technology to really, fundamentally change how businesses operate and deliver value to their customers. But it's the what? Against the why behind the you know, the major tech driven change, but the key of what they are failing to do is around the digital adoption. This is using tools effectively this is the. Out that really makes transformation stick. So without digital adoption, even the ambitious, you know, digital transformation projects can fail because if employees aren't trained, supported or engaged with these new tools, so ROI just won't be there. When I think about digital transformation, it's about, you know, changing the business, but. Digital adoptions enabling the people. So it's the it's one subdivision and 1 ensures execution.
Mark
And what what are the consequences if if you just deploy AI solutions and and tell people, you know, go in and use them, but don't really train them? I don't wanna does that mean companies suffer? I mean, where will they see the problem?
Chelsea
The biggest risk is really lost productivity and it's already happening. So like in 2024 alone, enterprises lost about $104 million due to digital inefficient. Fees that includes, you know, unused tech failed. IT projects employees spending too much time trying to navigate clunky systems. So on average, workers waste about 36 working days per year. Just dealing with the technology frustrations. And as we know, that time could be really spent on high impact. Work. And so we were talking about this earlier, like employees were relying on 10 or more applications just to complete one single task. And that string is is real for for employees. So I think the biggest take away is that leaders must prioritize work enablement. We've been talking about that right with the, with the trainings and the support and and then the unified applications. But we need these streamlined workflow workflows to really reduce complexity and then ensure that technology is helping employees do their jobs better, just not creating more friction or just another tool.
Mark
I also wanted to sort of look behind the curtain at at walk me. Are you folks using AI at all in in your product or are you incorporating it?
Chelsea
We do. We do have walk me for walk me and we we do have AI across our tech stack as well and and we utilize it in our day-to-day.
Mark
Tell me in the product, how does it how? Does it work?
Chelsea
Yeah. So if I think about it from an HR perspective, so we utilize ours within our tech stack of of of work day, which is now going to be SAP and it's to streamline how we utilize applications of changing job descriptions, things of that nature. We also utilize it. For for recruiting, so it's within our our recruiting application to help. Us really look at. Candidate capabilities and and skill set gaps around talent development. We utilize that as well for performance management, but across our technology stack we have things like workstation where you can ask AI in real time. So you can actually pull things. So if I'm an employee and I want to know what our PTO policy is, I would just go to our workstation. Type it into our AI tool and it would pull up the like the form to pull up the policy and it would allow us in real time to be able to quickly navigate our tools and systems.
Mark
I want to ask you, you work with a lot of, you know, companies. Obviously you've got your finger on the pulse of of HR, I think, and how they're they're working with with rock me, you hear a lot in the media about HR thinks this or HR thinks that about AI and about the transformation that's going on. I'm wondering about your observations. What? What do you see in HR's reaction to the new technology and its application?
Chelsea
Yeah, I think within our industry and within our network, we're really excited about AI. We see AI being able to help organizations work smarter, not harder. And also for employees to have to work smarter, not harder. And so we see it being able to be a productivity tool for us. And be more innovative. I mean, we've used it just alone within our HR organization to really optimize and increase the way that we're really building out our talent and teamwork agenda. And so for 2025, AI has been a really huge, I would say support tool for us and thinking more innovative.
Mark
And does it make you dream a little bit about possibilities? You know what? What you could ultimately do with the product services, you could ultimately offer and you know, what's the direction you'd like to see that go?
Chelsea
There's a couple different buckets, so like tone acquisition, we talked about like the resume screening. But even like. Chat box or candidate engagement? You know, answering FAQ and scheduling interviews? Kind of. We're moving out some of that tactical pieces that today recruiters are doing when they should be focused really on finding top talent. But also at the predictive hiring, which we talked. About a little bit. Which really assesses. Candidates and who are most likely to succeed or stay long. Term and then talent development is. Really, where I think it's exciting, so personalized. Learning paths skills. Taxonomy and mapping mentorship matching you know anything around employee experience, so sentiment analysis. Like we do org health surveys and. We've been throwing these some of the the analytics. To chat to BT and seeing it being able to pull out like reports or themes or areas where we need to focus on our targeted initiatives. So it's really, I mean it's it's really exciting because it's unlimited of the amount of things that we can do within the HR space as we start to, as you say, Daydream about the future of it.
Mark
Thanks very much. This is this is actually enlightening and it it puts a great perspective on things and thanks for your time.
Chelsea
Absolutely.
Mark
My guest today has been Chelsea Pyrzenski, the chief people officer at Walkme, and this has been people tech, the podcast of WorkforceAI.News. We're part of the WRKdefined Podcast Network. Find them at www.wrkdefined.com. Need to keep up with the technology in HR, subscribe to workforce AI. Today, with mistrusted source of views in the intern tech industry from www.workforceai.news.
I’m Mark Feffer
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