As a recruiter working across HR, organisational development, change and leadership, I’ve noticed a clear shift over the past year. Conversations about digital transformation are no longer centred solely on technology. Increasingly, they’re focused on people.
Whether organisations are investing in AI, automation, new platforms or customer experience initiatives, the question is no longer just, “What technology do we need?” It’s become, “How do we bring our people with us?”
As AI becomes embedded in more organisations across Aotearoa New Zealand, I believe that question is only going to become more important.
Technology isn’t the Biggest Challenge
AI adoption is accelerating, but many organisations are discovering that implementing the technology itself is only one part of the challenge.
The harder work is often around people: building capability, creating clarity around governance and expectations, supporting leaders, redesigning work and achieving lasting behavioural change.
This is not unique to New Zealand. The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Reportfound that 86% of employers expect AI and information processing technologies to transform their business by 2030. When looking at barriers to AI adoption, 50% of employers identified a lack of skills, while 43% pointed to a lack of vision among managers and leaders.
That is a significant reminder that organisations can invest heavily in technology and still struggle to realise its value if their workforce and leadership capability are not evolving alongside it.
There is a similar picture here in New Zealand. MBIE’s work on addressing barriers to AI uptake in New Zealandhighlights a shortage of AI expertise at multiple levels, from technical specialists through to managers, executives and workers. It also cites research showing that 43% of non-users identified a lack of expertise as their main reason for not adopting AI.
For me, this reinforces an important point: AI readiness is fundamentally a people readiness challenge.
Why People Professionals Matter more than Ever
One of the strongest trends I’m seeing is the growing demand for HR, organisational development, learning and change professionals who can work alongside technology teams.
Forward-thinking organisations are involving these specialists earlier in transformation programmes rather than bringing them in once a new platform or system is ready to launch.
Their role can span organisational design, workforce planning, policy development, capability uplift, training, adoption strategies, leadership readiness and employee experience.
This matters because introducing AI can affect much more than individual tasks. It can change workflows, responsibilities, decision-making, capability requirements and, in some cases, the structure of entire teams.
The people implications therefore need to be considered at the same time as the technology, not afterwards.
AI Readiness is more than Digital Skills
AI readiness can sometimes be interpreted as simply training people to use tools such as Microsoft Copilot or other generative AI platforms. That’s certainly part of it, but genuine workforce readiness goes much further.
An organisation can give its people access to the latest technology and provide training on how to use it, but that does not automatically mean employees understand where it adds value, how their roles may change, or what is expected of them. Readiness also means creating the right environment for people to experiment, learn and adapt, while giving them clarity around how AI should – and should not – be used.
There is also a broader workforce question to consider. As AI changes the mix of tasks people perform, organisations need to understand where capability gaps may emerge, which skills will become more important and how existing employees can be supported to develop them. The AI Forum’s 2026 AI Blueprint for Aotearoa reinforces this need, identifying AI literacy, skills development and upskilling the existing workforce as important priorities for New Zealand’s AI future.
For HR and people leaders, this shifts AI readiness from a technology training exercise to a much broader workforce strategy. From the conversations I’m having with organisations and candidates, four areas are becoming particularly important: leadership readiness, job redesign, behaviour change and capability uplift, and operating model design.
Leadership Readiness
Leaders are increasingly expected to navigate conversations about productivity, job redesign, ethics, governance, future skills and workforce impact.
They also need enough understanding of AI themselves to make informed decisions and have credible conversations with their teams.
Recent research from McKinseymakes this point particularly well, suggesting that AI adoption is beginning to outpace leadership readiness. Organisations moving faster are encouraging leaders to actively use and understand AI so they can better reimagine work, build trust and guide their teams through change.
This isn’t about every leader becoming an AI expert. It is about having enough knowledge and confidence to understand what the technology means for their people, their operating model and their organisation. Crucially, leaders also need to be able to communicate the impacts to their people.
Job Redesign
As technology takes on more routine, administrative and process-driven tasks, organisations have an opportunity to rethink how work is structured and where people create the greatest value.
This does not necessarily mean reducing roles. More often, it means reshaping them.
We are already seeing leaders ask questions such as:
Which tasks can be automated, augmented or eliminated?
How do we redesign roles to focus more on judgement, relationship management, creativity and problem-solving?
What new skills will be needed in the future?
How do we create career pathways as work evolves?
These are workforce questions just as much as they are technology questions.
The World Economic Forum reports that employers expect 39% of workers’ existing skill sets to be transformed or become outdated between 2025 and 2030. While AI and big data skills are among those growing fastest, so too are human capabilities including creative thinking, resilience, flexibility, leadership and lifelong learning.
That combination is important. The future workforce will not simply require more technical capability; it will require people who know how to combine technology with the distinctly human skills that organisations continue to depend on.
As our Beyond Recruitment CE Liza Viz discusses in her recent article, Revolution, Evolution and the Rebirth of Job Types, we are entering a period where job categories themselves are evolving, with entirely new hybrid roles emerging alongside the transformation of existing ones.
The challenge for organisations is not simply adapting to new technology, but proactively designing the workforce they will need alongside it.
I encourage you to read Liza’s full article here: Revolution, Evolution and the Rebirth of Job Types.
Behaviour Change and Capability Uplift
Technology implementation and technology adoption are two very different things.
Just because a tool is available does not mean it will be used consistently, confidently or effectively.
Successful transformation programmes focus heavily on behaviours, habits, incentives and culture. They recognise that sustainable change occurs when new ways of working become part of everyday practice rather than something employees have been told they should be doing.
Employees therefore need practical, role-relevant opportunities to understand where AI can genuinely enhance their work.
This is not about turning everyone into data scientists or AI specialists. It is about helping people identify opportunities to work differently, make better decisions, automate repetitive tasks and spend more time on higher-value activities.
It also means giving people permission to experiment, learn and sometimes get things wrong.
McKinsey’s research into change management in the age of generative AImakes an interesting distinction here: simply giving employees access to AI does not fundamentally change how an organisation works. Creating value requires employees to participate in redesigning how work gets done and to continually develop their skills as the technology evolves.
For HR, learning, and change professionals, that creates a significant opportunity to shape how AI adoption happens in practice.
Operating Model Design
In some instances, organisations are discovering that simply layering technology on top of existing processes is not enough.
In fact, new technology can quickly expose inefficiencies, duplicated activity and outdated workflows that may have existed for years.
This creates an opportunity to rethink structures, decision rights, workflows, team accountabilities and service delivery models.
Rather than asking, “How can AI make this existing process faster?”, organisations can start asking a more fundamental question: “If we were designing this work today, how would we do it?”
That is where organisational design capability becomes particularly valuable.
The Rise of Hybrid Talent
From a recruitment perspective, one of the most interesting developments is the growing demand for people who can bridge technology and organisational change. This is also creating new opportunities for workers. The AI Forum’s latest AI productivity research found that 55% of surveyed organisations said AI had created new career opportunities, while also driving demand for skills across areas such as data, governance, and digital transformation.
Professionals who combine expertise across areas such as change, workforce transformation, learning, organisational design, capability development, and stakeholder engagement are becoming particularly valuable.
They may not be the people building the AI models or implementing the technology, but they understand enough about technology to translate what it means for an organisation and its people.
These individuals can connect strategy with execution, understand both the commercial and human implications of transformation, and help ensure investment translates into genuine organisational outcomes rather than simply technical implementation.
Candidates with these combined skill sets have been constantly in demand by our clients throughout 2026, and I expect demand for these hybrid skill sets to continue growing as AI adoption matures.
What I’m Seeing in the New Zealand Market
Across New Zealand’s public and private sectors, organisations are increasingly recognising that successful transformation sits at the intersection of technology and people.
Demand continues to grow for professionals who can build AI literacy, lead change, support workforce transition, redesign organisations, coach leaders and connect strategy, technology and culture.
Increasingly, these capabilities are being viewed as essential rather than optional.
There is also an important recruitment implication here. Organisations may not always find everything they need neatly packaged within a traditional job title. Some of the strongest candidates are those whose experience crosses established functional boundaries.
That requires organisations to think differently about how they define roles and assess talent. Instead of looking solely for someone who has held an identical position before, there is an opportunity to consider the combination of capabilities needed to solve the organisation’s future challenges.
At Beyond Recruitment, we are seeing this first-hand. As organisations seek talent that spans people, process and technology, our HR consultants are increasingly partnering with colleagues across our IT, Technology, Transformation and Digital practices.
By bringing together our respective networks and expertise, we can identify candidates whose experience sits across these increasingly interconnected disciplines. We’re already seeing the value of this collaborative, cross-functional approach in the appointments we’re making for our clients.
Bringing People and Technology Together
Technology will continue to evolve rapidly, and the AI tools organisations are using today will undoubtedly look very different in a few years’ time.
What will distinguish successful organisations is not simply which tools they implement, but whether they have built the capability, confidence and culture needed to continually adapt as those tools evolve.
For those of us working across HR, leadership, organisational development and change, people capability and technology capability can no longer be viewed separately. The organisations that get this right will bring the two together from the beginning.
Ultimately, transformation is not about systems alone. It is about people having the confidence, skills and support to adapt, learn and find better ways to work.
Over to you: What conversations are happening in your organisation about AI, workforce readiness and the future of work?
I’d love to hear what you’re seeing in your organisation and share some of what I’m seeing across the market too, perhaps over a coffee! You can get in touch with me here.