Transcript
Mark:
Welcome to PeopleTech, the podcast of the HCM Technology Report. I’m Mark Feffer. My guest today is Victoria Myers, the Global Head of Talent Attraction at Amdocs. They provide a lot of the technical infrastructure the businesses use to communicate and generally get their work done. Not long ago, she led a survey about AI and how it can help employees’ careers and improve their learning. That’s what we’ll talk about on this edition of PeopleTech.
Hey Victoria, welcome. Let’s start with you briefly telling me about Amdocs. What’s the background of the company and what do you do?
Victoria:
Sure, so Amdocs is a technology company, first and foremost. We are innovators in the media and telecommunication industries. The average consumer probably doesn’t know who we are because we’re really behind the scenes of the services that they do use every day. Our platforms and technology are part of the largest telecom and media companies globally. We are also at the forefront of helping companies move their systems to digital, so digital transformation projects. We’re a global leader in delivering software and service solutions, specializing in creating next-generation communication and media experiences that are truly amazing. So just to break that down into layman’s terms in a way, what we’re often known for is our billing platforms. It’s not all that we do, but it is something that we’re very well known. So when you get your bill from T-Mobile or AT&T, how the company determines what to bill you is a billing system and Amdocs created that. That’s just one example.
Mark:
It’s interesting that you, not long ago, conducted a survey about AI in the workplace, could you tell me about it?
Victoria:
Sure. So we did a survey, it was across the US but largely Dallas, Atlanta and Seattle were part of the hubs that we focused on, and the survey hit on a lot of different areas from talent mobility, culture and benefits like work-life balance, things of that nature as well as AI in work and 30% of the respondents were really talking about how they want AI-based tools to empower their career growth, as an example.
Another would be that a lot of respondents, and I don’t remember the exact percentage, but a lot of respondents want to explore how AI could help them in their current jobs. So it’s really an eyeopener because I think initially when AI started being talked about with ChatGPT, really was what launched it, the initial thoughts that a lot of people had or we thought people would have would be fear, and instead it’s actually been, the survey that we did really was an eyeopener to show that it was less about fear and more about how can this help me? Very interesting.
Mark:
Another thing that’s interesting actually, I think is just the fact you did the survey. What prompted you to do it? First of all, it doesn’t seem like it’s right in Amdocs’ sweet spot, but it’s also an interesting question. So what was the genesis of the idea to do the survey?
Victoria:
Well, we’ve done surveys almost, I wouldn’t say every year, but the last few years and so part of that is because we want to see what’s going on in the marketplace. We want to have an idea of what we’re already thinking about, working on and deploying and implementing aligns with what’s going on and what candidates or employees in general would be looking for. So that’s kind of part of it. It was just one of the things that we do on a regular basis. As to how we decided to also look at AI, again market trends and so we’re trying to get a feel for, you start to hear about what’s going on and you think okay, is this something that we need to look into? Let’s put this into the survey. So some of the things that we surveyed on, again, internal mobility, talent, mobility in general. Well, that’s something that we look at at Amdocs and we’re very passionate about, so we wanted to see what’s going on in the market, but AI as well.
Mark:
Now, the survey found that 28% of employees want AI to train them in new areas. Does that mean that 72% don’t want to rely on AI for that? How’s that-
Victoria:
No, it was more, I think that particular question was more of these options. Where would you be looking for AI to benefit you, and 28% responded.
Specifically in that area. There were a handful, there were another percentage that responded in another area.
Mark:
I don’t know if you know Wiley or if you saw it, Wiley not long ago did a similar survey and they found that 59% specifically prefer human instructors over AI, which kind of syncs up with what your survey found, but I just wondered what your reaction was overall or what your thinking is overall to what workers are thinking about AI’s role in their learning and their skills development?
Victoria:
Well, I think it’s still being explored. I think this is why, we as a company, even are looking at how can AI benefit the employee and the workers are thinking the same way, how can AI benefit me? And we’re at the forefront of that or at the beginning, I guess, would be the better way to put it, of exploring those topics. Where can it benefit? How should we implement that? Is it something we should do? All of these are the discussions that many organizations are going through and you have to be careful. You don’t want to overstep what your employees are going to be open to. We at Amdocs are going to be looking at doing what we’re calling a hackathon internally so that we can explore, as an organization, exactly those types of topics. Is it things that we want to develop for our end customers? Is it things that we want to develop or use AI for our own processes and operations?
And I think when you specifically go into employees in general and learning, where can it benefit? Is it by, I put out there, as a person and say, I want to learn cloud. Could the AI then go grab all the different type of learning offerings and then provide it up to me as a generalized solution? I don’t know. This is what we have to explore. This is what we are exploring as a company, mind you, as well and we are looking to put out some additional, a whole career marketplace for our employees and part of it has some AI aspects to it to do just that.
Mark:
Amdocs technology using AI, I assume, but correct me if I’m wrong, proactively suggests new internal roles for an employee. Do employees really care if AI is doing this or if AI is behind any solution or are they just really looking for a good outcome?
Victoria:
So just to be clear, the technology that we’re using is actually from a vendor called Eightfold. Eightfold is an overall platform, but they utilize AI to provide job matches, career opportunities, et cetera. Now, with any platform like that, and I hope I’ll circle around to answering your question, any platform like that, even if AI is involved, the AI does not make the decisions. So whether it be on the employee side, I’m job searching, the AI matches me to what it assumes could be based upon my skills, my past resume and experience. It’s assuming these are the types of roles that I would be interested in, but you can always run a search, just like any kind of search you would run on any site with either the keywords or the location or those types of things. And you could still get a keyword search type of response or answers for that criteria.
Now, same with a candidate searching on our job site. The AI does drive, again, looking at if you’ve entered your resume, you’ve entered your experiences, it can pull your information and try to determine okay, I think these are going to be the best matches for you, but you can always do it your own searching. Now as to whether the employees like it or not, I think you’re going to have some that are like, This is cool. We’re using AI. Fabulous. It’s matching me.” And you’re always going to have, some employees that are like, “Eh, I want to do it the old-fashioned way,” which you still can.
Mark:
It leads me to what might be my cynical question, I always wonder about this, and given your sort of perch with looking at the survey, I’m wondering what your reaction is. There’s all of this talk from AI providers that AI is going to free up employees to undertake more strategic tasks and do more valuable things with their time and I’m wondering, it sounds like a glittering generality, it’s kind of squishy. How do you feel about that? Is that really such a big deal or are you looking for more concrete advantages to AI?
Victoria:
No, I think it is possible, and I’ll give an example. We are looking to implement internally, and this would be developed by Amdocs by the way, our Amaiz Program, so Am for Amdocs, Ai for AI, so Amaiz, spelled A-M-A-I-Z. And Amaiz, it was in-house developed. It could be utilized potentially for our customers in certain aspects, but in-house what we’re looking at is tickets. So when you have either your IT or HR department, your operations that has to answer tickets, are there certain tickets that could be handled by an AI because you’ve got the data, you know what the answers are, are you able to then free up your team to dig into the more complex tickets versus just answering the basic questions that an AI system could do for you? So that’s one example where potentially an AI could free up your team to work either more strategic or harder, complex types of problems and have the AI answer generic issues.
So I think there is, and that’s just the beginning, that’s just one way that we’re looking internally to implement an AI to assist us. Really, the hackathon, which we’ve now postponed a little bit, but the hackathon is for us to generate more ideas, again either internally for our operations, where else could we utilize AI, or externally with our customers and the types of things that we develop for them. I think for us as humans is how do we limit ourselves? Open the box. Don’t think inside the box, think outside the box, open the box. Where could you use AI and how could it benefit you?
I have another example to share. So my team is talent attraction. That means that we’re doing social media posts, we run campaigns through our CRM tool to engage with different talent and often when you’re writing social media posts, you have a general idea of what you’re wanting to say, maybe it’s even a post that I’ve posted before, but now I want to reword it. Why spend hours with writer’s block when I can run that through a generative AI, giving it proper prompts and let it spit out in seconds a rewrite of something I’ve done before. So that saves me time. That’s just another way that I’m okay with that, I’m okay with it rewriting something and putting it for a social basic LinkedIn or Twitter feed.
Mark:
Now, the survey aside, what do you hear from candidates about employers using AI? They like it, they not like it, is it a mixed reaction?
Victoria:
Same. Yeah, I think it’s the same. It’s the mixed reaction, and I think a lot of companies have been worried about exactly that as to why they have or have not implemented AI in their processes. I think you have to reassure the candidates to know that there’s still someone making a decision behind the scenes. That, again, kind of like we were talking about before, the AI system we implemented, Eightfold also works with our applicant tracking system. And so we don’t want candidates to think that an AI is making all the decision. The AI essentially is making recommendations. Here’s the candidates that look like they could potentially be the best match for your role based upon the skills, location and whatever those other criteria are. However, recruiters are still involved in the process, so recruiters are still looking at resumes. Recruiters are still able to go run a search in the system just like you would anytime before.
It’s just the first step is what does the AI see as that potential best match and then you go from there. So I think there’s still a great opportunity there, and I think candidates just need to understand what is the process and where is AI fitting into that process.
Mark:
I wonder if you could help put AI into perspective for me in terms of where it is and how it fits. I think a lot of people say it’s become something of a buzzword, as much as anything else. All of a sudden all tech solutions seem to be driven AI or AI based. What’s really going on do you think?
Victoria:
Well, it’s been around for a while. A lot of companies have been looking at machine learning and AI capabilities for quite some time. I think what’s interesting is why this time is it really taking hold? I don’t know that it’s necessarily this time just going to be a buzzword because again this has been something that a lot of companies have invested time and resources in for years. I don’t know if it’s just the timing was right, or perhaps it’s the fact that the ChatGPT tool really did well and it was something that they gave a free version that gave a lot of people the opportunity to go test it out and see what this can do and it did well. And so now, as some things happen, everyone’s jumping on the bandwagon and others are either quickly getting theirs out to market or starting to develop their own types of tools. It’s very interesting. It’s interesting to see how this has taken such a fast track this time around, and I don’t think that it’s just going to be a buzzword. I think this is actually taking off this time.
Mark:
Well, Victoria, thanks so much. It’s great to hear your thoughts on all this, and it was great to talk to you, and I hope you’ll come back sometime.
Victoria:
Oh, that’d be wonderful. Thank you, Mark. I really appreciate that you invited me to come to your podcast and speak with you today.
Mark:
My guest today has been Victoria Myers, the Global Head of Talent Attraction at Amdocs, and this has been PeopleTech, the podcast of the HCM Technology Report. We’re a publication of Recruiting Daily. We’re also a part of Evergreen Podcasts. To see all of their programs, visit www.evergreenpodcast.com. And to keep up with HR technology, visit the HCM technology report every day with the most trusted source of news in the HR tech industry. Find us at www.hcmtechnologyreport.com. I’m Mark Feffer.
Image: iStock
