“AI Is the Next Big Thing, We Have to Be Part of It”

She manages 4000 employees in Mauritius and 500 in Vietnam. Yashmee Dewoo, the Human Resource Director at Accenture Mauritius, shares her perspectives on Gen AI and the evolution of the work place. 

You are an HR Director managing 4000 employees in Mauritius and 500 in Vietnam for software technology company Accenture. What’s your perspective on Techverse 2024, which is about AI / GenAI? 

First of all, we have to say that the journey started a couple of years ago, with the introduction of IoT (Editor’s note: The Internet of Things), and then different aspects of technology. Working in a technology business, you become immersed in it. As the evolution happens within technology, the evolution happens within HR, because you need to have your people partner with the business so that they can go along as well. The queries that we used to have from our people have now changed. When they do something in tech, they have an answer in two seconds, and they expect that we do it in one. As we further progress into this journey, we will have to adapt, and the take away over the last three days was exactly this. It’s about how we get along, what changes we make, and how we become more efficient in the way that we deliver to the business. At the same time, fundamentally, it’s not forgetting the human, because we’ve all learned for the past three days that we’re not going to be able to replace the human. Yes, we can use ChatGPT, we can use OpenAI, and these are the tools that are going to accompany what we do, but they’re not going to become us. 

You can either jump on the wagon or pretend that it is not there. If you pretend that it’s not there, then you’re failing in your mission.

Given that you are from a technology company, are there any key features that differentiate your job from the job of an HR Director in other companies?

I think our jobs within Accenture are different because we are exposed to numerous tools and we use less and less paper. Our processes are very clean, streamlined, and anyone, at any point in time, can picture where we’re at, how we’re delivering and what we do, on a daily basis. Working within a technology company empowers us to use those tools to make our jobs better. For example, when I talk to my colleagues from local companies in Mauritius, they’re miles away from what we are doing. For example, for us, if somebody needs to sign a contract, there is no paper contract anymore. The person gets a link, it’s a virtual contract, it’s signed, it feeds into our system, and the candidate is then hired. It makes our job much more streamlined, and the processes much easier. 

How do you anticipate the impact of GenAI on your department?

It’s going to make our lives easier. We’ve all come to terms with the fact that we’re not going to be replaced, but we’re going to do our work more intelligently. For example, repetitive admin tasks that we have to do will be done by GenAI. We’ve had a chat bot for quite some time, and employees can come and ask questions rather than us having to answer multiple emails during the day. They can ask the bot, and the question is answered. This enables us, again, to be more intelligent partners, and frees up the time that we would have spent dealing with minute tasks. We can now strategically use these slots to become better business partners. 

Much focus has been laid on training in terms of GenAI. How are you planning this?

We’ve already started, and GenAI training is now compulsory for all our employees. All the tools are available via our internal systems, and all those who join us have to get on board. We’re monitoring that we reach completion before the end of the financial year, and that everybody within the company has, at least, a basic understanding of what GenAI is.

Since you’re the HR lead, how do you keep a human touch amidst all this technological process? 

We’re still here, we’re still partnering. We’re still ‘à l’écoute’, as we say.  We ensure that whenever there are critical situations, we still bring the empathy, we still bring the sensitivity. We do not forget that one of our HR pillars is being truly human. We do not forget that behind the machines, there are other people.

What would be your message to the HR community at large in the country, or even beyond, in this GenAI era? 

It is time to embrace it. You can either jump on the wagon or pretend that it is not there. If you pretend that it’s not there, then you’re failing in your mission. Jump on it, and face what’s happening. Have the right training to use the tools as they are meant to be. AI is only going to make our job easier. We’ve got to accept the fact that we are in an evolution, and that, like the internet, AI is the next big thing. We have to be part of it.