From Big Tech to Staffing: Hays’ CPO on Accountability, HR Wellness, and Practical AI

Summary

The recruiting world is transforming at high speed—AI is reshaping workflows while markets stay volatile.

How do you keep teams resilient and deliver results?

Jess Smith, Chief People Officer, Americas at Hays (formerly at AWS, Amazon, and Meta), shares how Big Tech agility translates to a global staffing leader with 10,000+ employees across 23 countries. Jess breaks down how Hays is building “the Hays of the future” in the Americas—rethinking org design and tooling while putting people first.

She outlines an accountability-first culture with above/below-the-line thinking to create stability in constant change, how managers coach teams from finger-pointing to ownership, and why HR must protect its energy during emotionally heavy transformations.

On AI, Jess gets practical: balancing budget cuts with expectations, piloting over promises, guarding candidate experience, and planning for training, prompt fluency, and time-to-value. E

xpect usable coaching prompts, an AI evaluation checklist, and clear guidance for HR leaders navigating relentless change.

Timestamps

[00:45] – Guest intro: Big Tech lessons, “human capital strategist,” and agility in action

[01:59] – Inside Hays: global footprint, Americas growth, and services from placements to RPO/MSP

[03:36] – Navigating constant change and AI’s impact on recruiting

[05:34] – Building an ownership culture: accountability and above/below-the-line thinking (and how to coach it)

[08:13] – Protecting the people team: HR wellness and emotional labor in transformations

[11:06] – Practical AI in HR: expectations, budget pressure, and what to pilot now

[13:41] – How to evaluate AI tools: candidate experience, training needs, and time-to-value

[18:41] – Parting advice: self-care amid a once-in-a-generation shift

Takeaways

- Build accountability with above/below-the-line thinking to create stability during change.

- Coach teams from blame to action: What did you want to happen? What could you do differently? What’s your next step?

- Protect HR’s energy—plan workloads around high-emotion moments and normalize recovery.

- Set realistic AI expectations: pilot with clear success criteria, especially under budget constraints.

- Evaluate AI on experience, readiness, risk/compliance, training and prompt fluency required, and true time-to-value.

- Teach ambiguity tolerance and role clarity so teams can pivot without losing momentum.

AllVoices brings all your employee relations work together in one place. No more jumping between spreadsheets, emails, and legacy systems just one place to document and manage reports, cases, investigations, and performance conversations. It helps you run a more consistent process, takes busywork off your plate with AI, and makes it easier to spot trends early, so you can work proactively, not just put out fires.

See a demo at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.allvoices.co/