Keeping Care at the Center of the Future of Work

“A core part of Hyatt’s mission is caring for people,” said moderator Kim Quillen, business editor at the Chicago Tribune. This can become more difficult in an AI-driven world, where efficiency sometimes seems to take precedence over human connection. How can organizations care for people and help them do their best as technology reshapes work? 

During a fireside chat at From Day One’s Chicago HR conference, Kristin Oliver, the CHRO of Hyatt, discussed a people-first approach to an AI world, including how leaders can build agility and comfort with new technology, and prepare for a workforce that increasingly works alongside machines.

Helping People Be Their Best

“We care for people so they can be their best” is Hyatt’s mission, guiding both colleague and customer relations through the same equation: empathy + action = care, says Oliver. “How do you understand what people want, what they need, and then how do you act upon it? In doing those two things together, that’s how you show care for someone,” Oliver said.

Care for people is, in some ways, intrinsic to the hospitality industry. But, “we’re in this era of rapid change and AI and technological advancements. How do you bring that human touch?” Quillen asked. 

This is where AI’s hyper-efficiency can become a benefit. “We’ve got to find a way to use AI to free up time so that we can spend more time on genuine human connection,” Oliver said. This is especially important in an industry responsible for customers’ comfort and building meaningful experiences.

This culture of care is embedded into Hyatt’s enterprise leadership program, Elevate 2030. “It has three pillars: Elevate Our Brands, Elevate Our People, Elevate Our Technology. And so, the enterprise leadership is also a statement of what we need to do from a human perspective to make that happen, to bring that strategy to life,” Oliver said.

The program encourages experimentation, nurtures growing talent, and fosters cross-department collaboration. Employees complete self-evaluations tied to specific mindsets and behaviors, which they then discuss during mid-year conversations with managers. The organization also launched a speaker series wherein leaders discuss their own experiences and talk about the behaviors, she says. The first session had more than 1,000 online attendees. “I think people are hungry for it. Eventually we’ll work it into our hiring practices, our performance management, our succession planning, and training.”

The Changing Role of HR

Collaboration between IT and HR will become more important than ever as technology continues to change how we work, says Oliver. “We have to deeply familiarize ourselves with [AI] as leaders. We have to experience it ourselves so that we really know how it’s going to shape things, because we’re going to be responsible for determining what are the impacts on skills, on jobs, on org design, [and] on culture.” Oliver did this herself by experimenting with an AI executive coach to help with decision-making. She cautions that AI doesn’t always get things right, but it can do many basic tasks quite well, allowing humans to step in and refine the work. 

“Modern workplaces increasingly blend human talent with artificial intelligence, and that means that in the workplace, humans and smart systems are both sharing responsibilities,” Quillen said. The challenge is honing a strategy that allows workplaces to take advantage of the best of both. 

Oliver says AI’s strength is its speed and efficiency for simple but time-consuming tasks like writing reports. Human workers “are the people that exercise judgment. We are the people that bring creativity. We are the ones that show empathy and are perceptive, and those are all very important skills.” 

At Hyatt, encouraging AI adoption has meant moving beyond counting licenses and tracking usage to helping employees understand how the technology can make their work easier. Oliver emphasized the importance of starting with employees’ actual challenges: “If somebody has a problem and you can show them how AI will solve this problem, they’ll be much more interested in learning it.” Hyatt’s approach includes sharing real-world examples of AI use during leadership meetings and introducing structured OpenAI training to help employees build their skills. The goal is to give people the tools and confidence to see how AI can make a difference in their day-to-day work, without fear of it replacing roles. 

One of the most obvious ways AI can support HR is through the recruiting process, as its high-speed and high-volume nature pairs well with the tech’s automation capabilities. But its ability to let candidates tailor and submit applications quickly can also challenge HR. “The volume of what we’re dealing with and how we have to sort through it to get to people that are the right fit for our job and our company—it has muddied the waters,” Oliver said. “We can outsource some of the process, but not the responsibility.” She still looks to internships and apprenticeships to really get to know and test candidates to see if they are a fit for growth within the organization. 

Oliver identifies a few major human skills as integral to succeeding in the workplace of the future: “The world is changing fast and it just keeps speeding up. So the ability to adapt and change, learn, be open-minded, experiment with things, [and] have a growth mindset” will be crucial, as will be the ability to judge and think critically, including and especially about AI-created solutions. 

The innate human ability to care should remain front and center in HR and leadership, as it does in Hyatt’s mission, says Oliver. “Talk to people. See what they really value about the company. See where there are problems or areas of friction that you could make [better]. And then try to turn that into decisions. Try to make it true. You’ve got to act consistently with it. You don’t want it to just be something on the wall. It’s about how you bring that to life.” 

Katie Chambers is a freelance writer and award-winning communications executive with a lifelong commitment to supporting artists and advocating for inclusion. Her work has been seen in HuffPost, Top Think, and several printed essay collections, and she has appeared on Cheddar News, iWomanTV, On New Jersey, and CBS New York.

(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)