HR STRATEGY
rganisations have reached a crucial tipping point, according to Deloitte’ s Global Human Capital Trends report. The“ traditional playbook” for growth and change is struggling to keep up, with leaders focused on staying competitive in this shifting landscape. Yet this requires maintaining a“ human edge,” over just cultivating rapid technology adoption. Karen states that in this year’ s report, what really challenged her way of thinking was the“ definitive shift in where competitive advantage actually comes from”.
“ The assumption has long been that staying ahead means adopting AI faster than your competitors,” Karen Pastakia, Global Human Capital Practice leader at Deloitte, says.“ What our research tells us is that technology like AI is increasingly replicable. What is not replicable is your people. Human adaptivity, creativity, and judgment are where real differentiation happens now.” And Karen believes that the data backs this, further explaining that organisations that take a primarily tech-focused approach to AI are“ 1.6 times more likely to fall short of their ROI expectations compared to those taking a human-centric approach”.
As a result, the goal is no longer just to automate. It is to intentionally design work so that humans and machines bring out the best in each other.
Navigating the cultural debt This intentional design requires leaders to ask a difficult question: how does a business’ s culture shift when technology is integrated into every part of the workforce? While organisations race to outpace their competitors, many are overlooking AI’ s impact on human-tohuman behaviours. This misalignment and distrust accumulate what Deloitte calls a“ cultural debt”.
“ What we’ re finding is that organisations have largely focused on how their people work with AI, but far fewer are asking how AI is changing the way people work with each other and with machines,” Karen explains.
“ And that’ s really where culture starts to quietly erode. Workers are navigating genuinely tough questions, about what counts as effort, about trust, about fairness, and in many cases, their organisations simply aren’ t giving them answers.”
This lack of clarity creates a vacuum where suspicion thrives. Without addressing the human fabric of the organisation, trust and cohesion erode just when they matter most.
56 July 2026