Joanne Smith, executive vice president and chief people officer at Delta Air Lines, shares how Delta is integrating AI into its hiring process and why she believes keeping human interaction in the process is essential for finding the right talent.
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00:00Because you hear a lot of people saying,
00:01AI is going to take my mommy's job.
00:03I know you all have probably heard about that
00:04from so many people.
00:05So how do you keep company culture strong
00:08while also saying, it's OK, this is going to help you,
00:11and here's how?
00:12Yeah, I think for them, I mean, there are certain job
00:14categories that will probably not
00:16be necessary in five years.
00:19And I think I'll just use my own daughter's experience.
00:24I told her she needed to get a degree in something that
00:26was going to pay for her to live in New York, right?
00:29My parents said the exact same thing,
00:30and I went to journalism, and I did not listen.
00:32That's when she was a journalism major.
00:34But she would love, but she was so mad at me,
00:37because, mom, I just love creative writing and all that.
00:40But so she went into MIS.
00:42Well, certain MIS jobs are just not going to be necessary.
00:45And she was kind of beating me up the other day.
00:47So I should have gone into more of that journalism.
00:49But I do think there are some jobs, but for the most part,
00:53that what our story is, and it's easy to have
00:57a mission of no one better connects the world.
00:59That's Delta's mission, no one better connects the world.
01:02And to connect the world, you have to be in it.
01:04So we're not remote.
01:05We are face-to-face.
01:07We believe in the power of face-to-face interactions.
01:10And so it's kind of core to who our culture is,
01:12face-to-face and human.
01:14And therefore, I mean, that's what we just,
01:16people are a little nervous about it,
01:18and some jobs probably will change and go away.
01:21But I think for the masses, I mean, 96%, 8%,
01:26it's just gonna shift and we're gonna upscale using Gen AI.
01:30Joanne, thank you so much for being here.
01:32I very much appreciate it.
01:34So as someone who just took a Delta flight here this morning,
01:36I can tell you that I have seen firsthand
01:39how Delta is using AI from a customer-facing side.
01:43And I know that you're also transitioning to using it
01:46or have already transitioned to using it
01:47from an employee and internal side.
01:49Can you talk to me about the best and worst use cases
01:52you've seen at Delta for using it?
01:54Well, first of all, thank you very much.
01:56It's really great to be in a small group.
01:58And we were talking about how this is a small community
02:01and so many of us are connected.
02:03And so it's really fun to be in a group of HR professionals.
02:06And so, I mean, the kind of the sky is endless
02:11of possible use cases.
02:12And I think the biggest challenge we have
02:14are finding the ones that we can implement.
02:18There are some big kind of secret ones
02:20that we can't talk about that are gonna take some time.
02:24We're getting building partners.
02:26But then there's a lot of little use cases
02:27that are just going to make what we do
02:31and with our partners ServiceNow is one of them.
02:35It's just kind of just the day-to-day jobs easier
02:38and get back to the old fashioned good work of HR.
02:41And I think that is kind of what my most exciting
02:44use cases are is when we can get the tools
02:47in our HR business partners hands
02:50to do kind of stuff that they have to hunt all over for
02:54and make decisions on when there's probably someone
02:58that has done it before and can benefit from that decision.
03:02And when the model learns and how much faster that can go,
03:06makes our HR VPs more strategic.
03:10So that is one of the exciting use cases now
03:12is just how do you get all that information
03:15that lies in the systems.
03:17I mean, we're on a customer facing side.
03:19I mean, we've been using AI for a long time.
03:22But one of the challenges I see is
03:25there's varying degrees of understanding of generative AI
03:29and the step change function and what it's capable of doing
03:33versus data science and analytics and machine learning.
03:39So that is something.
03:41So we're using one method of really
03:44not so much generative AI yet,
03:46but with our customer facing jobs, they're on the phones.
03:49So all of our policies or procedures
03:51we handle calls for KLM and Air France and Aeromexico.
03:54And some policies are a little different
03:57whether you fly that airline.
03:58Maybe it's as simple as a pet in a cabin.
04:00Might be different restrictions on an airplane
04:03with this size under the seat versus this size.
04:06So our agents used to have to kind of
04:10go through so many documents to find the right answer.
04:14So we've had roughly 6,000 interactions
04:18of making those answers better
04:20and faster, better service for our customers.
04:23Very cool.
04:24What do employees, do they come to you and say,
04:26hey, Joanne, I wish I had this thing
04:28that would make my life easier and can we use AI to do this?
04:30Is there a top thing that they say to you with that?
04:33Well, I think the employee needs are always,
04:37we live in the airline business.
04:39So one of the best benefits and why people are attracted
04:43to the airline business is travel.
04:46So we make the world accessible.
04:48And what they'd like to do is be able to predict
04:51because as an airline employee,
04:52you go behind the revenue paying customers.
04:55But they wanna do is predict,
04:57am I gonna get on the flight with some certainty?
04:59And some of the things that happen last minute
05:02at an airport, some folks move their flights up early,
05:06they go standby, they stand by for an earlier flight
05:09that moves that employee down that pecking order.
05:12So if we can be more predictive in our travel benefits
05:16for our employees, that's a huge benefit.
05:19But again, I don't know that that is yet generative AI.
05:23I mean, that is using machine learning and AI,
05:26but what employees aren't asking us yet,
05:29but they will is I've got these skills,
05:33I need those skills to get this job.
05:35And how can learning models be adapted to me
05:38and my personal learning style?
05:40That's game changing.
05:41Speaking of skilling, because I'd love to talk about that.
05:44How are you using it currently to upskill your employees
05:48and attract new ones to the company?
05:51So for the past two years, we have been using the time
05:54and we're a business that doesn't really
05:56have a lot of attrition.
05:58I mean, we're pretty stable.
05:59We have modest growth every year.
06:02Pandemic kind of changed that like this,
06:05but typically, we are modest growth, not a lot of turnover.
06:11So we use the pandemic as a time to look
06:14at all of the inventory of the skills
06:16for the 450 plus jobs that we have at Delta.
06:19I mean, some jobs, pilot, mechanic, flight attendant,
06:23but then there's varying degrees of mechanics.
06:25And then for our strategic jobs, our merit positions,
06:30there are so many different,
06:32and revenue management analyst is different
06:34than a airport customer service analyst is different.
06:37So we've been using this time to really inventory
06:39all of the skills required for the job,
06:42then actually have built a skill space
06:45for you to input what your skills are.
06:48So the skills first approach that we've been on
06:50for the last year is really taking off
06:52and we're now developing a talent hub.
06:54So you can see these are the skills I have,
06:56this is the skills I need.
06:58It's much more transparent.
07:00How do I get from job A to job B?
07:02The future when we're able to actually use our own data
07:06and our own policies, our own culture values
07:10and build that information internally,
07:13then the power of learning,
07:16how can you use generative AI to adapt my style of learning
07:21and what skills I need to the content.
07:23I mean, we have hundreds of thousands
07:24of learning and development on ramps every year.
07:28I mean, people are using our systems,
07:31but they're not customizing it
07:33and to the way that AI is gonna allow us to customize it.
07:36You know, I was at our Most Powerful Women Summit
07:39in California last week
07:40and we had this great conversation about AI
07:43and using it to hire a diverse workforce
07:45and who is doing it, how they're doing it.
07:47Are you looking at that at Delta
07:49and has it helped, has it hurt?
07:51How do you look at bias in AI?
07:54Yeah, I mean, that is one that I think we're all struggling.
07:56So I know that there are some experts here at the table
07:59and I'm probably way far down,
08:02you know, I'm not that expert at it.
08:04You know, we used it for, you know, years ago,
08:06we were, you know, dabbling a little bit more with AI
08:10in the interview process.
08:11We interview all of our candidates face-to-face,
08:15but we're dabbling a little bit with AI,
08:17but I mean, the regulatory issues are gonna be,
08:19you know, something of a challenge,
08:21but also, you know, our value,
08:23we are a deeply rooted values company,
08:24so we never will take the human, you know,
08:27out of that human resource hiring
08:29and human is gonna be in the loop,
08:31but we can't possibly go through two million applications
08:34for 10,000 jobs without use of some AI applications,
08:38behavioral assessments.
08:40So we do rely on our partners a lot,
08:42as many of us in the room,
08:43at least maybe not many of us,
08:44Delta as limited capital and as HR leaders,
08:49I'm sure we've heard this story,
08:50it's always tough to kind of debate
08:52with your customer service people
08:54who's gonna get the capital,
08:55and so we have to be able to depend on our partners,
08:58thank you very much, some of you are here,
08:59to kind of build those solutions within those tools
09:02that we will be using.
09:04Interesting, where do you think is the biggest pitfall
09:07that you see of using AI and implementing it at Delta?
09:11Well, you know, I can't speak,
09:14right now at Delta, and if my boss was listening right now,
09:18and he might say, we need to learn it, right?
09:21I think he knows it,
09:22I think the biggest issue is we gotta have
09:25a level of understanding and change management
09:28that's gonna be required,
09:29because the pitfall to me is,
09:33you don't wanna go chase the shiny objects
09:35and get on this train of AI,
09:37but then, you really have to understand
09:40what it can do for you,
09:41and what you wanna bypass on,
09:44you know, don't feel like you have to rush to it,
09:47and then, but I think the understanding
09:49is how do you make people's lives better,
09:51how do you make our employee experience better,
09:53how do you make the customer experience better,
09:55we're not looking at it as a productivity initiative,
09:58people say, oh, you know, this means,
10:00AI means you're cutting heads, no,
10:02we're looking at ways to work differently
10:04and make the experience better.
10:06I think that's what I was exactly gonna ask about,
10:07next is the fear,
10:08because you hear a lot of people saying,
10:10AI's gonna take my job,
10:11I know you all have probably heard about that
10:13from so many people,
10:14so how do you keep company culture strong,
10:17while also saying, it's okay,
10:18this is gonna help you, and here's how?
10:20Yeah, I think for them,
10:21I mean, there are certain job categories
10:23that will probably not be necessary in five years,
10:28and I think, I'll just use my own daughter's experience,
10:32I told her she needed to get a degree
10:34in something that was gonna pay
10:36for her to live in New York, right?
10:37My parents said the exact same thing,
10:39and I went to journalism, and I did not listen.
10:41That's when she was a journalism major,
10:43but she would love, but she was so mad at me,
10:45because mom, I love creative writing and all that,
10:48but so she went into MIS,
10:50well, certain MIS jobs are just not gonna be necessary,
10:53and she was kinda beating me up the other day,
10:55so I should've gone into more of that journalism,
10:57but I think, I do think there are some jobs,
11:01but for the most part, that what our story is,
11:04and it's easy to have a mission
11:06of no one better connects the world,
11:08that's Delta's mission, no one better connects the world,
11:10and to connect the world, you have to be in it,
11:13so we're not remote, we are face-to-face,
11:15we believe in the power of face-to-face interactions,
11:18and so it's kinda core to who our culture
11:20is face-to-face and human,
11:22and therefore, I mean, that's what we just,
11:25people are a little nervous about it,
11:26and some jobs probably will change and go away,
11:29but I think for the masses, I mean, 96, 8%,
11:34it's just gonna shift, and we're gonna upskill
11:37using Gen AI.
11:38Yeah, what advice would you give
11:40to the people here in this room,
11:42I think, specifically around people looking to build
11:45or buy with AI models, I'm sure a lot of people here
11:47are thinking about that, how are you looking at it?
11:50So I think for right now, as HR,
11:53we are buying license agreements,
11:55but the real power of being able to use it with your own,
11:59like, again, the large language learning,
12:01will have to come when you're building it,
12:04and so maybe not right now,
12:05but we're thinking about future for building,
12:08but we're not gonna get that overnight,
12:12and so you'll buy the things that will be
12:15just really transactional opportunities
12:16to make things go faster and slightly better,
12:19but if you really wanna make a,
12:21I use learning and development a lot,
12:23if you really wanna start customizing to your data,
12:28to your policies, to your culture,
12:30you're gonna have to build some of that internally,
12:33because we're firewalling off everything else,
12:37but I think it's gonna happen,
12:39and it's just, for HR at least,
12:42we're not gonna get the capital prioritization right yet,
12:45so we're gonna depend a lot of the build,
12:47I mean, excuse me, of the buy.
12:49All right, and last question for you, Joanne,
12:51what keeps you up at night relating to AI and HR,
12:54what do you think about before you go to bed?
12:58You know, I'm not, I think what's the threat in society
13:03is like, I think that there are some real pitfalls there,
13:09that we've gotta be, I'm reading about countries
13:12that are doing education for students to understand
13:17what's real and what's not,
13:19so I think I'm more worried kind of societally,
13:23you know, like what are we teaching our students,
13:26and how do you start to prepare for it?
13:30And I would say, I'm excited about the opportunity,
13:34I think that embracing it, it's very Darwinism, right,
13:38you gotta adapt, die, right,
13:41so this is gonna happen,
13:42this is gonna be more disruptive than the internet,
13:46it's not gonna happen overnight,
13:47but we're all gonna have to adapt.
13:49Perfect, well thank you so much, Joanne, I appreciate it,
13:52and now we're gonna join for our table discussion
13:55and open up to everyone, so thank you all.