SAP’s Future of Work Trend Report identifies three major areas relevant to work that are undergoing massive changes with the spread of artificial intelligence (AI): future of workforce, future of people practices, and future of HR.
Here Christian Schmeichel, Chief Future of Work Officer at SAP SE, discusses these transformations.
Q: The second half of 2024 has begun, and SAP is positioning itself as a business AI company, including offering an AI assistant for its business software. What do SAP employees think about the company’s increased focus on AI?
A: AI is no longer a new topic within SAP’s workforce. According to an internal study from late 2023, 80% of respondents are optimistic about AI. This has been confirmed. It’s also because we are a software company. There are certainly industries where the workforce is more cautious about AI, but this is less the case at SAP, partly because we place a high value on privacy and data protection. Our employees also see the great opportunity that SAP has with business AI to unlock the next stage of development for our portfolio. This excites many.
Q: As chief future of work officer at SAP, your team is responsible for predicting and managing changes in the workplace. How is the spread of AI currently influencing the future of employees?
A: The race for the future has intensified with AI. Our customers want to know how their workforce structure needs to evolve and what steps they need to take as a company to ensure current and future employees have the skills and qualifications needed to collaborate effectively with AI.
Global megatrends such as climate change and the entry of younger generations into the workforce are additional challenges that interest us at SAP. Like other companies, we are also exploring scenarios to determine what skills we will need in 5 to 10 years, how roles and activities will change, and what level of AI and robotics will be required in different teams. It’s not easy for anyone to imagine where we will be in five years, which keeps things exciting.
Q: What impact does the further spread of AI have on daily work?
A: Unlike other technological changes in the past, the current development in the context of AI is a fundamental shift in the interaction between humans and machines. I believe that learning to work with AI, including learning to delegate tasks, is necessary. We already see generative AI being used in all areas of work, and the topic is becoming very tangible. This ranges from research and data analysis to creating reports, presentations, and meeting minutes. It may turn out that we will take on tasks with a completely different focus in the future. For example, we may do tasks that cannot or should not be entrusted to AI because they require decisions that are currently beyond its capabilities, such as creativity, strategic thinking, or moral judgment.
Q: Can we speak of a shift away from purely role-specific work towards skill-based tasks?
A: Certainly. Depending on the role, whether it’s in development, sales, consulting, or more, there are specific, typical applications of AI. However, it also involves developing a certain mindset that involves a lot of self-reflection: what am I best at and what can I do better than AI in the future? Where can I best apply my skills? I believe this will become increasingly important. With a stronger focus on widely applicable skills rather than rigid role profiles, there is a certain fluidity in the organization. Employees will become increasingly flexible and will not need to switch roles or departments to take on tasks that match their skill set and interests. I see this as a great opportunity to increase job satisfaction.
The second major area involves the corresponding digital application skills. These include practical skills, such as giving a prompt in a way that AI can provide what is needed, as well as knowledge of ethics and compliance.
Q: Such comprehensive changes in a short period of time demand a lot from employees. How can the right people practices support them?
A: An important first step is to be aware of the changes that are happening. We live in an era where there are ever faster and more impactful technological changes happening. Employees need a toolbox to successfully face this massive change they experience every day. Topics such as mental health have been important at SAP for some time, and we see that practical techniques for stress management and adapting to changed work situations are in high demand. However, the use of AI also offers great opportunities to promote a good work-life integration.
Q: How does the application of AI today and in the future affect HR work?
A: There are already numerous exciting use cases for AI in HR that aim to make processes more efficient. For example, in recruiting, AI can generate job postings faster and create tailored interview guides. In the area of learning, there are already good opportunities, such as providing personalized information and individual training.
In addition to possible efficiency gains, AI will help the HR department become even more strategic in the future. Transactional tasks can increasingly be automated and taken on by AI, giving HR professionals more time for strategic tasks. For example, more focus could be placed on providing personal advice for employees, which is currently often hard to do given the many daily demands on HR professionals.
Q: What does the use of AI mean for the work of the People & Culture organization at SAP specifically?
A: The goal is to fully leverage the potential of AI as part of our transformation to best support our leaders and employees with their daily work. At the same time, it’s about continuously improving the efficiency within certain areas of the People & Culture organization. There is great interest among our employees in working with AI applications. To date, more than 50,000 employees have used the generative AI experience lab tool and submitted over 5 million prompts. It can now be said that AI is seen not only as a collaborative tool but also as a partner for work. Thinking “AI first” is an important aspect for continued success and to achieve our goal of becoming the No. 1 business AI company.
Furthermore, forward-looking HR work aims to create an attractive work environment where employees can do their tasks with a high level of motivation and enjoyment. In the age of AI, it will become increasingly easier to recognize in a timely manner how the workforce is doing and where there may be issues to act accordingly. Survey and feedback formats developed and controlled from the People & Culture organization should, with the help of AI, allow for results much faster in the future, helping to respond promptly to developments and needs within the workforce.
Q: How does the spread of AI influence your own work?
A: As chief future of work officer at SAP, I am excited about the opportunity to be at the forefront of the major changes that AI brings to HR work — and in the People & Culture Board area at SAP, we are actively driving the topic as a showcase for our own SAP solutions. For my role, this means actively shaping the influence of AI on the development of our workforce and the entire HR department alongside my team. This includes strategic workforce planning, modern work methods, and impulses for the further development of the HR organization to guide the future of work at SAP toward an exciting and digitalized future. AI will fundamentally change the work of employees, and the next few years will certainly be some of the most innovative in HR and the larger technology world. This is a great opportunity to significantly shape the development of the working world at SAP.
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