Forget chasing the latest software—the biggest challenge in the AI era is the human equation. Carlee Wolfe, Associate Vice President of Leader Development and Organizational Effectiveness at Hyatt Hotels Corporation, is tackling this head-on. She sees the future of talent management not in code alone, but in a powerful partnership between technology and organizational values.
In her session, “Workforce at the Crossroads: Redefining Talent Strategy, Skills, and Leadership in an AI Era,” Wolfe provided senior HR leaders with the essential strategies needed to drive transformation through courageous experimentation and strategic care.
1. The Core Strategy: Care, Courage, and Equity
Wolfe argues that AI adoption cannot be successful if it is driven by efficiency alone. It must be built on a foundation of care and courage.
- The Care Equation: According to Wolfe, Hyatt CEO Mark Hoplamazian, defines Care as Empathy + Action. In practice, this means HR must genuinely listen to the needs and fears of employees and the business, and then take proactive steps to address them. This ensures the human element is not lost as technology accelerates.
- Courage to Experiment: Leading in this uncertain time requires the courage to move forward despite the unknowns, rather than waiting for perfect certainty. This means actively testing and trying new AI tools, even if the process isn’t flawless.
A critical part of this foundation is AI Equity. Wolfe warns of “tool equity gaps,” where unequal access to AI tools creates performance disparities and fosters resentment among employees. HR must champion equitable access to technology and skills development company-wide, not just for the executive level.
“If I have access to something and you don’t,” Wolfe explained, “think of the difference on that performance scale. I’m moving faster. I’m learning faster. Where are you? Same as you were before.”
2. Beyond Efficiency: The Augmentation Mindset
To move past employee fears, HR must shift the focus from automation to augmentation—showing how AI makes jobs more fulfilling and human. This requires knowing precisely where to prioritize speed and where to demand intentional human care.
- Coding for Speed: On the administrative side, AI dramatically boosts efficiency. Wolfe shared how a Hyatt colleague used ChatGPT to generate code for a data dashboard that would have taken months to build, turning it into an afternoon task. This exemplifies AI’s power to augment skilled professionals.
“This is where it starts to pair really, really well,” Wolfe noted, emphasizing that AI doesn’t replace skilled professionals but empowers them to achieve more.
- Balancing Logic with Empathy (The Housekeeping Rule): Efficiency isn’t the only metric for success. AI can determine the most efficient path for a task, but the human must apply judgment based on experience and care. For your HR team, this means defining where your professionals should intentionally deviate from the “optimal” route to deliver superior service. The machine provides the data; the person provides the context and the “heart.”
- Actionable Solution: When deploying new AI, benchmark human roles using the formula: Empathy + Action = Care. Ask: How does this tool free our team up to listen to a business leader (Empathy) and then immediately take a personalized step (Action)? This ensures AI supports your mission—to care for people—rather than overriding the human judgment that your organization is built on.
3. Redefining Talent: Curiosity and Democratized Development
The new talent landscape demands a new skill set and a new approach to development:
- Hiring for the Future: HR must stop solely hiring for current job descriptions and instead prioritize “AI curiosity and learning agility.” In customer-facing roles, the human touch remains non-negotiable, requiring HR to strategically identify what can be augmented and what must be preserved.
- Democratizing Development: Traditionally, intensive coaching is reserved for senior leaders. Wolfe reveals that Hyatt is testing with AI coaching bots to scale personalized development and insights to employees at every level, ensuring growth opportunities are accessible to everyone, not just those at the top.
4. The Concluding Mandate: Execution Needs Heart
Wolfe concluded the session by challenging Workforce and TA leaders to develop a new, critical leadership muscle: the balance between relentless Execution and intentional Heart. While the pace of change demands speed and results, Wolfe insisted that “execution also needs heart,” which she defines as creating intentionality and pause.
- The Strategic Call: Create Intentional Pause: Wolfe urged leaders to stop assuming their quick decisions are always the best ones, recognizing that Execution requires a conscious effort to integrate humanity. To ensure strategic initiatives reflect “care” and not just speed, HR must deliberately build “pause” into its processes.
- The Talent Question: When racing to fill new roles, TA leaders must pause to ask a critical question: “What potential are we missing?” This redirects attention from external sourcing to internal talent, encouraging investment in emerging skills within the current workforce instead of immediately outsourcing.
The Final Challenge: Keep It Human
Wolfe urged every HR professional to embody this dual mandate by using the “heart hands” practice to create a moment of intentionality in every decision. This personal commitment to the Execution vs. Heart balance is the measure of future-ready leadership. She closed with a challenge that reframes success for the future-ready Workforce and TA leader, moving beyond metrics and towards a human measure of success:
“How did you make the future a little more human this week?”
By balancing the speed of code with the intentionality of the human heart, HR leaders, as demonstrated by Wolfe, can become the strategic architects needed to successfully navigate the crossroads of the AI era.