Al Adamsen, who served as a senior consultant at Ernst & Young; director of employee insights at Gap Inc.; vice president of North American consulting services at Info hrm; and HR Analytics practice leader at Kenexa, an IBM company has racked up an array of diverse experiences that enabled him to develop a unique perspective on the worlds of HR and HR tech.
For the last few years, Adamsen has brought experiences to bear as a renowned advisor, educator and thought leader in the areas of talent strategy, workforce planning and analytics, talent measurement and organizational change.
In 2008, he founded the Talent Strategy Institute to help leaders inside and outside HR understand the future of work and how talent strategies can be built to create culture, mitigate risk and drive desired business outcomes. Two years later, he founded the People Analytics & Future of Work Community and Event Series (PAFOW), which provides “enlightening and inspiring learning experiences” for those in the people analytics profession.
Adamsen’s mantra is “People Data for Good,” which he describes as the “responsible, ethical and virtuous use of people data and analytics for the benefit of individuals, teams, groups, organizations and society at large.” Over the past 25-plus years, he’s witnessed HR technology evolve from largely transactional and process-driven to empowering the worker and providing a greater level of insight.
He says that the COVID-19 crisis had changed everything and it will continue to guide the HR technology priorities for the foreseeable future. He also says that everything from understanding workforce capacity, people’s thoughts, feelings and ideas are going to be within the realm of HR tech and analytics, specifically.
HR leaders are central to the many task forces and committees that have been formed to deal with the crisis, and those types of governance structures are likely to be sustained once the crisis has passed, hopefully with HR as the facilitator. When it comes to HR tech specifically, the need to aggregate and analyze data across not only the employee lifecycle but also through employee experiences is going to become non-negotiable.
Adamsen’s says HR has a unique opportunity to facilitate talent governance and the worker experience. He expects those who are more expert at understanding workforce capacity, capabilities and worker experiences are going to be increasingly valued, while those who are not able to provide insights that advance discussions about the future of work will fall by the wayside and someone else will step in and assume that role.
HR tech is going to be more about understanding human experiences within organizations, as opposed to just managing what was formerly known as HR processes.
Adamsen says that the ability to learn and adapt is critical, and a commitment
to being kind and compassionate, creative and courageous is non-negotiable.
Mistakes happen, but you still need to celebrate your teammates. To that end,
Adamsen adopts what he calls an “abundance mentality,” focusing on what’s right
instead of what’s wrong.
