Gartner ReimagineHR Conference 2024 Sydney: Day 1 Highlights

We are bringing you news and highlights from the Gartner ReimagineHR Conference, taking place this week in Sydney, Australia. Below is a collection of the key announcements and insights coming out of the conference.

On Day 1 of the conference, we are covering sessions on the pivotal role HR leaders play in building reset-ready organizations; the good and the bad of AI in HR; and how to unlock employee productivity by reducing work friction.

• Gartner HR Survey Finds 39% of Australian Job Seekers Are Struggling to Find a New Job

Presented by Jessie Knight, Vice President, Research and Harsh Kundulli, Senior Director Analyst, Gartner

Organizations are on the cusp of a major reset, with expectations that new technology-fueled business models will unlock productivity and innovation, while AI-powered tools will reduce drudgery and unleash new capabilities. In this opening keynote, Jessie Knight, Vice President, Research and Harsh Kundulli, Senior Director Analyst at Gartner explored the pivotal role HR leaders play in building reset-ready organizations by making work better.

• “Organizations are seeking to reset their strategies to reflect emerging conditions, but most feel unprepared to execute.”  
• “HR has the opportunity to address three persistent gaps — in collaboration, skills and technology — that are holding organizations back from successfully resetting in pursuit of new strategic ambitions.”
• “HR needs to be an active and strategic coach to employees, giving them guidance on how to identify their collaboration needs, while reinforcing effective collaboration norms. Guided collaboration drives higher retention and overall profitability.”
• “To tackle skills gaps and prepare for what’s next, organizations must build collective intelligence – a more efficient pathway between employees who have critical skills and those who need those skills."
• “Rather than starting with AI and its capabilities, HR must lead their organization to a new approach – human-first AI. This starts with what the human is trying to do and then pursuing how technology can support that.”

Learn more in the Gartner press release: Gartner HR Research Finds Organizations Are in the Midst of a Reset; Most Are Not Prepared.

Presented by Emi Chiba, Senior Principal Analyst, Gartner

While many organizations are making investments in implementing AI in HR, the maturity and capability of solutions often lag expectations. In this session, Emi Chiba, Senior Principal Analyst at Gartner, reviewed what’s working, what’s not and what lessons have been learned from organizations that have successfully deployed AI and continue to improve its performance.

• “The three key AI investment areas for HR leaders are recruiting, HR virtual assistants and skills data. Recruiting is the most mature — many organizations are using AI throughout the entire recruiting process.” 
• “While virtual assistants are valuable, Gartner predicts that only 40% of employees would prefer to engage with a chatbot rather than a person for most HR tasks by 2028.”
• “The use of AI for skills data has evolved immensely, but there’s still a long way to go. The challenge is that the data HR needs for talent processes isn’t as detailed as what business leaders need for resourcing and staffing.” 
• “HR needs to focus on value when investing in AI — for candidates, employees, managers and the overall organization.”
• “Organizations must move forward with AI, while understanding that capabilities are likely evolving more quickly than HR leaders anticipated. Experiment, iterate and improve.”

Journalists can receive additional information and/or request an interview with the Gartner expert by contacting Emma Keen at emma.keen@gartner.com.

Presented by Kamil Donaldson, Senior Principal, Advisory, Gartner

Efforts to engage and motivate employees often miss a huge barrier: work friction. Gartner research has shown that two-thirds of employees "hack" their way around work, wasting hours each day on unnecessary and frustrating activities. In this session, Kamil Donaldson, Senior Principal, Advisory at Gartner, examined how employee experience leaders can remove work friction to drive key talent outcomes.

• “Most employees experience work friction every day. This includes anything that makes work unnecessarily hard, such as processes that are out of date or struggling with different places to find information.”
• “Employees who experience high work friction are less likely to stay with their employer. They are also less engaged, put forth less effort, have lower performance, and worse, mental wellbeing.”
• “Organizational changes exacerbate meeting overload for employees by creating more need for collaboration. Empower employees to avoid low-value meetings and remove overload with pre-meeting requirements and in-the-moment productivity alerts.”
• “Process changes often lag strategic changes, creating misalignments. Justify keeping, not removing, processes to align with changing strategies and incorporate process audit into strategy change planning.”
• “Well intentioned organizational changes create new, unforeseen employee challenges, which can be limited by engaging them in change implementation. Determine the best situations for their involvement and establish qualifications for doing so.”

Journalists can receive additional information and/or request an interview with the Gartner expert by contacting Emma Keen at emma.keen@gartner.com.