The roll-out of artificial intelligence (AI) across Irish business is continuing at a breakneck pace but doing so in a way that keeps employees happy is critical. Those that take care and work with employees on such roll-outs tend to find far more success.
This has proven particularly relevant for Cisco. With 96 per cent of employees responding positively in the Great Place to Work Trust Index, employee engagement is central to how the company approaches AI.
“There is a lot of AI enablement at Cisco,” says Keith Griffin, Cisco fellow and site leader for Cisco Galway, “not just in terms of the products we develop but in the tools provided to us. It has to be a contributing factor overall [in Cisco’s high trust score].” Cisco has been involved with Great Place to Work for 13 consecutive years and has found it to be an educational experience.
“The first few years we were finding our feet. At the beginning, we just took part. Then we started building around what the feedback could be used for. We got into a systematic approach of listening sessions, taking surveys, and breaking it down,” says Griffin.
“It’s really simple. We listen to what’s in the survey, identify the trends, and act on them. It’s hugely helpful.”
As a leading tech business globally, it’s understandable that Cisco was an early adopter of AI technology. What’s more interesting is that safe deployment has been at the heart of its use of AI from the start.
“It’s an area we have focused on for over a decade, seeking to set ourselves up in Ireland as a place where we develop AI. Cisco was early in safe and appropriate adoption of AI technology,” says Griffin.
“We carry out things like responsible AI assessments on technology workloads – that includes any tools we would use. That means if an employee is using an AI workload approved by Cisco, it means it is safe for them to use.” Internally the company has a tool called Bridge IT, which is in the process of being rebranded. This approach to internal AI use is one that Griffin considers particularly important.
“It’s extremely difficult for any of us in technology to keep up. We have taken a lot of our internal IT tooling and supported them with large language models and other AI workloads. There’s a lot of sophistication,” he says.
“To be successful you have to look at it by role. If you work in legal, user experience, or are an engineer, your needs will be different. What we’re doing is enabling roles with appropriate technologies. We’re seeing a lot of results in adoption. The tools are being used across the company and people see it as an enabling technology.” That use of internal tools has also helped Cisco with the AI it is designing for its clients, with staff gaining a better understanding of what the human needs are when it comes to the technology.
“The team was recently designing an AI agent for elder care and one of the things they were asked was to slow down the speech for responses. We saw a huge adoption,” says Griffin. “If you just make that robotic, you won’t get adoption. You have to build a level of empathy into the design.”
That is why Griffin believes that using AI from an HR perspective is vital as it helps employees to understand the wider use cases for the technology, while also making Cisco more mindful of what its own people need.
“As an industry we’ve got to be careful that we don’t alienate future employees. It’s about the right use of technologies. That comes back to those principles of responsible AI to make sure there is fairness,” he says.
“We’ve got to ensure as companies adopt AI that they are debiased and fit for purpose. Hope is not a strategy when it comes to generative AI. You have to have guardrails in place and test the use case deeply.” Debra Popplewell, people director for Heineken Ireland, says she recognises the need for such protections. That’s why getting employee feedback through both Heineken’s internal surveys and the Great Place to Work Trust Index is important to her when using AI in HR.
“Our results are strong and improve year on year, particularly in communication, the clarity of direction, and empowerment of colleagues. Our colleagues tell us they feel informed, included, and trusted to take ownership,” she says.
“We have empowerment and accountability scoring at 88 per cent for us. That is important in the context of AI where it can feel scary for people but our colleagues feel empowered to work responsibly in that AI world.”
HR has been an area where Heineken Ireland has made strong practical use of AI through its People Pal tool.
“It’s an AI-powered HR system. It gives colleagues instant answers to everyday HR questions that they may have. They can access that through Microsoft Teams,” says Popplewell.
“They can pop into Teams, open People Pal, ask the question and add whatever nuance they need. They are given an instant answer with a link to the policy and any other details they might need.” The motivation behind the deployment of such a tool is in ensuring that all staff in Heineken Ireland have a smoother experience.
“We were just trying to make things easier. Rather than having to pick up phones while in the field, being able to access [information] easily and consistently is important,” she says.
“That has allowed us to lessen the HR inbox for our people, to allow them to focus on the more human-centric conversations that people need.” The intention is to remove friction from day-to-day tasks, allowing people to concentrate on “the things that matter”.
Popplewell says that by focusing on putting the employee experience first, Heineken Ireland is able to find the best ways to use AI.
“Our focus has always been on how to create a better employee experience not to replace human interaction. If people can just find an answer for themselves and it works, they just go straight there,” she says.
“The adoption has been super high. The colleagues have bought into it very quickly. Our people are still here to help with human support for more complex or sensitive needs.”
