GenAI in Hiring: Why Values and Ethics Must Always Guide Technology
A board must ensure the organization’s key activities are ethical, ESG-compliant (beyond a certain size) and filtered through its purpose and values.
Talent acquisition strategy is no exception.
“Integrity and ethics are the number one priority for boards,” says Amrop Board Member Oana Ciornei. “When I studied computers, it was about technology: limitations in terms of capacity, storage, processing. But now it is the other way around.” Executive up-skilling and re-skilling should be pushed by the board, she says, “because otherwise you will end up installing algorithms, unable to determine why a certain decision is not ethical.
Your company is publicly accused of an AI-related hiring error. How fast could your board respond?
“For example, customer service fails to recognize, or rejects someone. You should be able to explain why. This is a big challenge. If you are not inserting transparency and care into your AI deployment, everything will collapse.”
The Amrop Global Board is no exception. “We must prove we have qualitative processes which are sound and respectful, full of integrity,” says Job Voorhoeve, Leader of Amrop’s Global Digital Practice. “Amrop’s global values, such as ‘Ethics’, ‘Caring’ and ‘Inclusion’ must lead the way in our use of AI. This is the basis of trustworthy professionalism."
Oana Ciornei also emphasizes how Amrop’s values determine AI guidelines, forming and informing its internal task forces. “That’s why we said, bottom up, top down for 'Inclusion'. Is 'Curiosity' sufficiently reflected in our research? Has there been enough focus on 'Ethics'? Screening everything through the values makes the decision framework easy.” She compares it to Plato’s ‘second navigation’ — helping organizations move from mechanics to meaning. “Values will guide you through the models, the AI agents and technical aspects. You’ll know whether something is right or not.”
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I Am Not a Robot: AI and Leadership Hiring
Part III - The Board and the Horizon
No firm is an island. AI is a social responsibility.
Large, publicly listed, or financially regulated companies —especially in the EU — are required to follow ESG rules. But even smaller firms and startups are feeling the pressure from investors, clients, and regulators to adopt the right Economic, Social and Governance practices. It’s not just a matter of compliance but one of credibility. And boards are at the forefront of events.
“Consider an executive’s decision-making,” says Costa Tzavaras, Amrop’s Global Programs Director. “Improve the bottom line by X percent. Replace X percent of our workforce with AI. But should we? And what does that say about the company? If we can eliminate 50% of our workforce, do we have to think about other ways of compensating people? How realistic is retraining half of the world’s population? There is absolute value for AI. But we need a parallel conversation. If companies are driving a cost-cutting and growth agenda, what happens to the societal agenda? The endgame is unclear.”
Jamal Khan is Managing Partner of Amrop Carmichael Fisher in Australia. For him, factory automation is reassuring. “We didn't suddenly have heaps of unemployed people. On the whole, we find new jobs. I ask managing partners of accounting firms: what will your graduate juniors do? They’re normally doing the transactional, processing work, and that's how they learned. That will be automated within a year or two. They naturally then become supervisors and oversee that work. So they'll progress more quickly.”
“If you use much more automation technology in different parts of the company it’s even more important that the human beings running it understand how and when to use it well and engage the people around them,” says Amrop Board Member Mikael Norr. “I don't think that will disappear, because these would be totally autonomous companies without any people working in them, and it’s hard to see how that could happen or work.”
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