Building an AI-Enabled Workforce

How HR and L&D can build the manager and workforce capability that turns AI deployment into real business impact.

Thank you! Your submission has been received!

Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

With insights from:

No items found.

"In my work with multinationals across the globe, the pattern is consistent: organisations invest heavily in AI tools, yet adoption loses momentum at the team level. The bottleneck is rarely the technology. It's the leader."

Aurelie Litynski

Positive Work Culture Expert, Speaker & Author at Happitude at Work

"From the data I work with, managers score well on the strategic side of AI adoption - the slide decks. But they consistently fall short on developing their people's capability to adopt AI day to day in terms of responsible tool usage."

Bernardo F. Nunes

Data & AI Transformation Specialist

"Employees don't need to understand how AI works. They need to know how to use it. Skip the terminology, skip the theory. Put people in front of a real problem from their own job and let them build something."

Christopher Weggler

People Operations & Innovation Director at commercetools

" When psychological safety is combined with practical experimentation and peer learning, AI stops being a "scary thing that will take my job" and becomes an opportunity to grow with the organization."

Daria Rudnik

Team Architect and Partner at AI Leader’s Compass

"As AI accelerates individual output, the response in many organizations is simply to load more work onto people. That is not a technology win. That is a design failure, and it is a burnout risk."

Dr Dieter Veldsman

Chief HR Scientist at Academy to Innovate HR

"Start with the business metrics, not the tool. Ask, 'What are we trying to achieve, and where could AI change that outcome?' Then test every initiative against one question: Can I clearly connect this to the business outcome we're trying to deliver?"

Dr JooBee Yeow

Founder of Learngility & People and Org Director at Notion Capital

"AI only unlocks value when people actually change how they work. This means that AI is not a technology or a training problem, but rather a systems problem that requires redesigning the conditions that make new behavior the easiest path."

Dr Marna van der Merwe

Research & Insights Lead at Academy to Innovate HR

"A lot of organizations get stuck operating in a short-term lane, rolling out tools quickly without working through what that means for the business model behind them. Teams end up with access to AI but no context for how to use it in their day-to-day work."

Milica Sapic

Talent and Organisational Development Manager at Publicis Sapient

"Prompting sits on the tech arm and it's the easy part, and you can learn it in an afternoon - but judgement is the intersection, and it's a career-long build. Tool proficiency without the human side produces a lot of confident nonsense at scale."

Missy Strong

Senior Lead - People Experience at Pigment

"Tool investment without human capability building produces better-equipped teams who still make the same judgment errors."

Raymond Lansheuvel

Head of Benelux at Lepaya

"When it comes to workforce upskilling, sustainable behaviour change requires more than awareness training. It demands targeted interventions that tackle the real barriers: mindset, leadership, culture, and capability."

Marlene De Koning

Director at PwC

"The technology arrives quickly. The human capability to use it well takes longer. Most organizations are trying to close a business performance gap with a technology investment when the answer is almost always a people investment."

Samer Rashid

VP International Expansion at Lepaya

Learn from our experts

"In my work with multinationals across the globe, the pattern is consistent: organisations invest heavily in AI tools, yet adoption loses momentum at the team level. The bottleneck is rarely the technology. It's the leader."

Aurelie Litynski

Positive Work Culture Expert, Speaker & Author at Happitude at Work

"From the data I work with, managers score well on the strategic side of AI adoption - the slide decks. But they consistently fall short on developing their people's capability to adopt AI day to day in terms of responsible tool usage."

Bernardo F. Nunes

Data & AI Transformation Specialist

"Employees don't need to understand how AI works. They need to know how to use it. Skip the terminology, skip the theory. Put people in front of a real problem from their own job and let them build something."

Christopher Weggler

People Operations & Innovation Director at commercetools

" When psychological safety is combined with practical experimentation and peer learning, AI stops being a "scary thing that will take my job" and becomes an opportunity to grow with the organization."

Daria Rudnik

Team Architect and Partner at AI Leader’s Compass

"As AI accelerates individual output, the response in many organizations is simply to load more work onto people. That is not a technology win. That is a design failure, and it is a burnout risk."

Dr Dieter Veldsman

Chief HR Scientist at Academy to Innovate HR

"Start with the business metrics, not the tool. Ask, 'What are we trying to achieve, and where could AI change that outcome?' Then test every initiative against one question: Can I clearly connect this to the business outcome we're trying to deliver?"

Dr JooBee Yeow

Founder of Learngility & People and Org Director at Notion Capital

"AI only unlocks value when people actually change how they work. This means that AI is not a technology or a training problem, but rather a systems problem that requires redesigning the conditions that make new behavior the easiest path."

Dr Marna van der Merwe

Research & Insights Lead at Academy to Innovate HR

"A lot of organizations get stuck operating in a short-term lane, rolling out tools quickly without working through what that means for the business model behind them. Teams end up with access to AI but no context for how to use it in their day-to-day work."

Milica Sapic

Talent and Organisational Development Manager at Publicis Sapient

"Prompting sits on the tech arm and it's the easy part, and you can learn it in an afternoon - but judgement is the intersection, and it's a career-long build. Tool proficiency without the human side produces a lot of confident nonsense at scale."

Missy Strong

Senior Lead - People Experience at Pigment

"Tool investment without human capability building produces better-equipped teams who still make the same judgment errors."

Raymond Lansheuvel

Head of Benelux at Lepaya

"When it comes to workforce upskilling, sustainable behaviour change requires more than awareness training. It demands targeted interventions that tackle the real barriers: mindset, leadership, culture, and capability."

Marlene De Koning

Director at PwC

"The technology arrives quickly. The human capability to use it well takes longer. Most organizations are trying to close a business performance gap with a technology investment when the answer is almost always a people investment."

Samer Rashid

VP International Expansion at Lepaya

Thank you! Your submission has been received!

Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

Related guides

View all guides

July 16, 2026

,

July 16, 2026

Building an AI-Enabled Workforce

Discover practical strategies for building AI capability at the two levels where it matters most: the managers leading adoption and the workforce using the tools.

Guide

Innovation & AI

June 23, 2026

,

June 23, 2026

The Leadership Strategy Memo for 2026

Discover insights and frameworks on building leadership effectiveness, and high-performing teams.

Guide

L&D Strategy

March 31, 2026

,

March 31, 2026

The 2026 L&D Strategy Guide

Discover how to step beyond training delivery and become a true driver of business performance in 2026.

Guide

L&D Strategy