AI in HR: Navigating Economic Uncertainty and Workforce Shortages in Healthcare

Speaker A: Welcome to today's episode of People and Strategy. I'm your host, Mo Fattelbab, president of International Facilitators Organization. People and Strategy is a podcast from the SHRM Executive Network, the premier network of executives in the field of human resources. Each episode, we bring you in depth conversations with the country's top HR executives and thought leaders. Today we're recording from SHRM's 2026 Executive Network Visionary Summit in Indianapolis. This episode is part of an industry series on how HR leaders are using AI. Today I'm speaking with two HR leaders in the healthcare industry, where safeguarding patient information is critical. Healthcare HR professionals are navigating a perfect storm. Economic uncertainty, workforce shortages, evolving employee expectations, and now the rapid rise of AI. The question isn't whether AI belongs in healthcare hr, it's how to use it. Well, keep listening to get an honest look at how HR leaders are responding. If you're an HR professional trying to lead through change, this episode is for you. Let's get into it. For today's conversation, I'm excited to be joined by Jennifer Strauss, Chief People Officer at Adelante AH Healthcare in Scottsdale, Arizona and Jonathan Walker, Chro at Equitas Health in Ohio. Welcome, Jennifer and Jonathan.

Speaker B: Thanks, Mo.

Speaker C: Thank you,

Speaker A: thank you. Great to have you both. So let's start by discussing your paths to hr. Jonathan, you started out in business information systems. Uh, what drew you to the HR field and how was your background shaped, ah, by your leadership approach?

Speaker C: Well, I started in business information systems, really looking at processes and systems and how things work. Um, but eventually, while looking at it and going through those things, people are so important to that process. Um, in order for those processes to work, you need people attached. So then I became more focused and more intrigued by the people and how they're able to make these certain processes work. How do they go ahead and continuously improve? Um, because a system is a system, but you always need a person there to be able to do that. And really what I do is my leadership style is knowing, okay, there is somebody there who's able to look at the system, be able to say, you know what, this works, this doesn't work, and how do we get to that point? And it's more human focused as well. Um, a, ah, system and a computer and a software can only do so much. Um, you need that human interaction to be able to make sure that it's catered the right way.

Speaker A: And Jennifer, you started out as a technology professional before landing at Alante Healthcare. Uh, how did you fall into the HR space.

Speaker B: I think it was a fall into hr. I'm of the age where HR wasn't a major in college. It wasn't an option, it wasn't even a class at that point. So you didn't grow up and aspire to be in hr? And after being in the operations side of M A Business and technology and process improvement, much like Jonathan, um, I did that for the American Compensation association, which became world at work as their director of operations. So I got my HR certification there, my very first one in compensation, and joked, no one will ever hire me to do compensation. I just have book knowledge about it. And yet we relocated from my husband's job. I started networking with HR people thank thinking that's where the jobs are. And someone offered me a compensation job and I said, you know, I've never done this before, right? And they said, well sure, but you have the book knowledge, so now let's apply it. And kind of taking that step back in my career from a director level to an analyst level allowed me to go forward faster and learn all the other disciplines of HR and become the head of HR within two years from making that move.

Speaker A: That's a very fast rise. Congratulations. Um, so healthcare is currently facing the $340 billion pharmacy updates, physician burnout, and economic uncertainty. Jonathan, how are these factors impacting your role as an HR leader?

Speaker C: I would say it's impacting almost every single aspect. Um, I think being a nonprofit healthcare organization, a lot of those things really do trickle down to how we provide services, um, to our patients and clients. In addition to the funding that we have for the FTEs for our, uh, organization, um, a lot of what we have is grant funded. A lot of it is based upon 340B. So there's a lot of looking and pivoting to figure out how can we go ahead and diversify, how can we go ahead and try to automate and try to work with what we have, work with the amount of grants that maybe we have now, work with the, um, economic uncertainty, but, but then also try to at the same time figure out how do we go ahead and combat that burnout, what are some things that we can do? Um, so it's really having your hands tied, but then also trying to be very resourceful with what you have, um, while also trying to recruit, ah, for those providers that are burning out. Um, and I know that Jennifer probably has the same feeling as well, um, that it is very tough out there, uh, in the market to really look for a lot of providers, um, and Specifically physicians. Um, but we know that at the end of the day it's just always trying to pivot and trying to diversify and figuring out how to be resourceful in the things that we do.

Speaker A: Jennifer, one thing you mentioned on the local level is that the city of Phoenix has passed ordinance that you can't provide healthcare services in city parks. How has this impacted providing services?

Speaker B: It has impacted a lot of our sister organizations more than us because that's not our primary mission. We do a lot of farm worker healthcare out in the farms and things, but for our sister organizations that's made it very, very difficult. Um, so what some of us are doing is switching to having mobile medical units. And so we then have our own self contained vehicle that can be parked adjacent to a park where, where people may need services. Or we've adopted some parks and formally sponsored them to get around the ordinance and be able to still provide services to people in need. Just doing it inside a structure.

Speaker A: Um, Jonathan, you said how you prompt AI will make or break what's provided out. What tips would you give HR leaders when building prompts for AI?

Speaker C: There are a couple different tips I think I would really emphasize. I, um, really would think of it as how would you give your uh, report or even teammate, ah, an assignment. Um, the more general it is, the more vague the response will be. It really is making sure that you uh, are as descriptive as possible. Um, in HR context always matters. Um, so it's always making sure that we're looking at, okay, what is the audience, um, what is the intention? Um, is it for people, leaders? Is it for executives? Is it for employees? Um, is it for union folks? Is it for non union? Um, is this for a job aid? Is this for um, a policy? Is this for um, just a newsletter, um, things like that, uh, that provide that and then also letting them know, okay, the system needs to know. How do you want this to look? Um, those are some of the tips I would have. Uh, because really the more descriptive you are, the better the output and the less back and forth. Um, but I always say trust but verify. Um, we know AI can hallucinate at times, so we want to make sure that we're always looking at it and making sure that everything is correct, that everything is truthful and it does have the intent you have.

Speaker A: And at uh, Equitas, your HR team is currently using comp analyst for financial services. How has this use of AI helped your team, Jonathan?

Speaker C: It really has helped the team a lot. Um, I know that especially talking about the Resourcefulness and really talking about trying to be, uh, efficient. Um, one of the things that comp Analyst does is it does provide us information regarding the market. Uh, it uses AI powered, um, networking to show us what's out in the market right now so we know where we're at and how do we stand, how long it may take for us to uh, on average fill a role. Those things help us strategize and make sure that we're being a little bit more resourceful on how we're really divvying up our manpower, um, and how we're able to go ahead and tackle problems. Um, what I like about it is that it does that and then some. Um, it's able to provide us information on job descriptions, it's able to provide us benchmarking that maybe we wouldn't be able to do on our own. So it's able to provide those pieces that really make it a lot easier, uh, for us to have a better and consistent, um, process when it comes to compensation.

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Speaker A: Uh, now, Jennifer, when you arrived at adelante healthcare in November 2025, uh, there was zero use of AI in HR. Now, at every full team meeting, everyone shares what they used AI for. Since you last met, uh, what's one use case that stood out to you

Speaker B: again? There's been so many that I did start from that place of shock the first time. I asked, what are you using AI for? And I got silence. Just crickets in the room. And that was, wow. Okay, well, we have all these tools. We have Copilot, we have Claude, we have the business license for ChatGPT. Why aren't you using those? We have one built into our HRIS system. Um, and the more than we encouraged people to experiment. We heard great things. This week alone, we are Trying to plan for changes for one, one that might happen in eligibility to Medicare and our, uh, 340B pharmacy and things like that. So we're doing contingency planning. So put in there, what cost savings ideas do you have, Claude, for us to save on personnel costs without having a reduction in force. And so it drew from all of the documents that we have, all the things we've been working on, all of our benefits that we have in our policies. And it came back with very insightful recommendations that again, like Jonathan said, you have to go through and say we, which of these are relevant to us and which ones aren't. But it gave a great starting point within a 10 minute span to then share with other executives and say, here's all things that we can put on the table. And that used to take hours of research and thought and reviewing documents and doing Internet searches to come up with something that you can do in a fraction of the time now.

Speaker A: And I'm curious, how much cost savings do you anticipate based on this exercise?

Speaker B: It's really hard to tell. It gave us a bunch of levers and helped quantify what each of those levers could look like. And then it actually ranked which ones would be most disruptive or dangerous to employee engagement. And here are the ones that we would suggest you start with and then progressively make harder choices. So it did help put things in perspective and assess risk.

Speaker A: So, Jennifer, what do you think was behind the initial resistance holding employees back from using AI?

Speaker B: I think it was a couple different things. One was fear of will this take my job? Will I become less valuable to the organization if some of my job could be done by AI. So I think there was that. There was also a knowledge gap of they didn't have the training or someone to show that or feel necessarily safe to say, hey, I don't know about this, can you teach me? So I think it was kind of that change in leadership, um, the change in the environment that made them feel like, oh, okay, I should be doing this, or I can transition from doing it in my personal life to doing it in my work environment. And it's going to be a safe space for me where whether it's I make a mistake or I know my job is secure and I feel good about this and I'm going to get to do things that I haven't been able to do before that were on my someday list because now I have more time to do those.

Speaker A: Are either of you requiring AI, uh, competency for new hires?

Speaker B: We are not Requiring it. Um, at this point it's been something that we've talked about asking in interviews, especially for some positions that are more technologically heavy, um, or even in our providers. Ah, just asking philosophically at least, where are they on the use of AI and are they willing to experiment, be curious, um, change the ways that they've been doing things?

Speaker C: I think that we're in our infancy of how to navigate it. Um, I know that right now we're working on, um, a wholesome policy. So I think once the policy and procedure is set up, I think those are the questions, uh, of how do we move forward in addition to lesson plans and making sure that, you know, yes, they may have some competency, but let's go back to the basics and make sure it's competency for the business and not just personal.

Speaker A: And Jonathan, you're using ChatGPT to create standards to compare material and reduce time to update material. How are you using AI as a strategic partner for this task?

Speaker C: That's a good, that's a good question. Um, one thing that I like about ChatGPT, it does have some capabilities, uh, to create projects. And within those projects I was able to create templates. Um, with those templates I'm able to go ahead and use it as, okay, we need to make sure we have a consistent voice, we have a consistent message. Everything is consistent, um, over time. Human resources, I think, sometimes is notorious for having stuff created by different people. Um, so it has different themes, it has different things that they feel is more important than others. What this does is it creates something where all you do is just give the current document and state, please put it into the template based upon human resources communication style. And then from there, after you've given it all the information it will bring you and provide you that consistent document with the language that you're trying to use. So it really is creating the consistency, um, it's creating consistency in job guides, in uh, FAQs, even in policies and procedures to ensure that when somebody is looking at those documents there is a consistency in the voice. And it is HR's voice, which HR's, ah, voice times is the organization's voice. Uh, so it's really making sure that we're saying, okay, this is how we're going to speak, these are the words we're going to use. Um, and it keeps consistency because consistency breeds trust.

Speaker A: Consistency breeds trust. I love that. That's a quotable. Thank you.

Speaker B: I also love how you can take that and kind of take that one team, one voice that you're talking about and overlay that with, from the marketing team, a brand or style guide and say, use these colors, use these taglines, use this look and feel. And here's the guide on how to use our logo. And it will follow that where when you're doing it on a human basis, you're going to get everyone's different skills with Microsoft PowerPoint or whatever that might be, and it's not going to have that same look and feel.

Speaker A: Good stuff, good stuff. So, Jennifer, your team uses AI to analyze large data sets to identify trends such as healthcare spending or pharmacy usage. How does this process work?

Speaker B: Um, in a variety of ways and sometimes by trial and error. And like Jonathan already said, it is about the data that you put in and how you ask the questions that you what do you want it to do with that data? So one of the best examples we had recently was our employee engagement surveys and putting in not only the current one, but the former one, putting in, uh, spreadsheets about our retention or turnover data and saying, now look at all, all of this and find me themes and look at my absenteeism data. And you can put all of those things in together and say, now find me some things I can action on. And how should I prioritize these? It will come out with. Here's some highlights that we're seeing across all of these different data sources that may not have been looked at together in the past. And now you can action those.

Speaker A: Okay, that is great. And I'm very interested in this next one. Jonathan, you shared that AI can be used to provide coaching to facilitators on meeting management. How does this process work?

Speaker C: I knew you'd be very interested in that. MO So a lot of AI, what it can do is a couple different things in the before, during, and after process. Um, before, uh, when you have an agenda, um, you can go ahead and put it into AI and state that this is what the intent is. This is the context. Do I have the right folks involved? Based upon information that you provided it before? Um, you also ask, okay, these are the agenda items. Is this, I'm looking for this? Is this being seen, uh, and reflected in that? Um, and when you know that you're like, okay, I can adjust it appropriately, make sure the right folks are there now when you're during it. Um, there are certain things, such as decisions and other things that you can add on, uh, to a meeting that'll go ahead and provide a transcription, um, and can also provide action items. And then afterwards you would take that information and then be able to put that into, uh, AI and just state, based upon the agenda and based upon these action items, was there any gaps missed? Was there inconsistencies? Was I not clear in terms of what I was trying to get across? What are some next steps so I can make sure to close that gap and make sure I tie everything up in a nice little bow.

Speaker A: Okay, that's good. I used it once with an executive team to say, here are the issues. What agenda do you recommend? And I love the agenda that it gave me. I modified a couple of things and I ran with it and I thought, you know what, it's a 9.5 out of 10. But I could have delivered a 10 out of 10. All right, so, um, Adelante, uh, healthcare uses ambient AI to document medical encounters and patient visits. Uh, Jennifer, how has this use of AI improved the patient experience?

Speaker B: Well, when AI is focused on taking notes from the conversations that are happening, it allows the doctor to step away from being behind the computer and just have a conversation with the human and ask questions that they weren't asking before, pay 100% attention to that person. So they're going to hear things that they may have missed before. Um, so that's one way it improves the patient experience. The patient saying, wow, my doctor's actually listening to me. They're not just clicking away or writing notes on a piece of paper. Um, that's one way. It also allows our doctors to save time in the process, so they're getting to spend more time with the patients. They're not late for appointments, which is a pet peeve of everyone's if you go to the doctor and have to wait. So they're more efficient in their time management. That ultimately also translates into more patient appointments that are available so more people can get in to see the doctor because their time spent there is more efficient. And lastly, for the doctors themselves, it's a better work life balance. They're not taking their charting home with them. Um, they're not staying late to complete that. So there's been a rise in their work life balance and in their overall job satisfaction for the ones who have embraced it. But interestingly, not all of them have embraced that yet.

Speaker A: Mhm. And uh, it seems to me that that would also lend, uh, to a better bedside manners in terms of doctor patient relationship, which might reduce lawsuits. Have you guys gone that far down the path?

Speaker B: We haven't gone that far down the path. Um, luckily, knock on wood here, that hasn't been a primary issue for us that we're really doing this to just increase the quality, quality of the encounter, to close gaps in care that might not have been noticed before because the focus wasn't 100% on um, that conversation. So I think that's what's really been revolutionary for us.

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Speaker A: So now I'm curious how you both use AI in your personal lives. Jonathan.

Speaker C: A little bit, um, every single day. Um, it really does help me organize my thoughts sometimes. Um, it will help me, um, I use it, uh, and I think it's built into the phone, you know, so it's really just begging to be used. Um, so I use, uh, helps me make decisions sometimes if I'm thinking about, you know, what type of food, you know, um, if I have any thoughts that I really want to jot down and I'm just kind of putting it down there. And as a neurodivergent individual, it helps me really structure my thoughts so I'm able to understand, okay, this is really what I'm, this is what I'm saying, but this is what I truly mean. And I really use that a lot in my day to day to say, okay, what do I need for my to do? This is my to do list. Um, obviously I also look for reviews sometimes as well and I use it as an aggregate scraper. Uh, so if my dog needs a groomer, I'm able to go ahead and look and see what some of the reviews are and get really an abridged version so I can use it for a little bit of everything. And I think that that's what uh, I think really helps you feel comfortable with it.

Speaker A: What about you, Jennifer?

Speaker B: Two things come top of mind is one, I recently moved and bought a new house. And so now the AI tools will let you visualize what a piece of furniture would look like in your space, what a piece of art would look like on the wall in your space. It's very easy to see that before you make a purchase decision. Also helped me incredibly with a front yard redesign without having to hire an architect and then uploading the 300 page manual from the HOA to say, now is this plan going to be approved or not approved? And it ran it up against that data to say, here's where you've missed. Go back.

Speaker A: And did it get approved?

Speaker B: It did.

Speaker A: Okay. Amazing, amazing. So let's talk about the future of HR leadership in healthcare. Uh, for HR leaders in healthcare who are just beginning to explore AI tools for their team, what would you tell them to prioritize? Jennifer, let's start with you. And um, then we'll go to Jonathan.

Speaker B: I think the foundation starts with a, uh, culture that has some guardrails for what to do and what not to do. So giving the playing field of what that is, encouraging experimentation and curiosity. Try it out. And always remember that you have to have a human element. So you still have to, like Jonathan said, trust but verify. Go through, look at it, um, and make those human edits that only a person can do to know if it's right or wrong, if it fits the situation or how it's going to land, and learn from each other. So hear what your co workers are doing, try it out, sit next to them, kind of that. See one, try one, teach one concept, bring that to the use of AI in the workplace and start small and build from there.

Speaker A: Lovely. What about you, Jonathan?

Speaker C: I agree with a lot of what Jennifer has said. Um, and I would kind of hop in a little bit and remind folks, go slow. Sometimes going slow instead of going in, um, headfirst at 100 miles an hour is sometimes what you need to do to sit there and understand. Okay, what is AI making? Uh, sure that everybody, um, even if folks have used it for a while or there's folks that are beginning, everyone is on the same page, we help them understand what is AI, how is it used, what is it going to be used for in the future? What is our stance? Um, how do we make sure that it's responsible and then be able to start talking about prompts and upscaling and workshops. Um, and I think one thing that always needs to be known is that it's there to enhance, it's not there to replace. I think some folks forget that there always needs to be that human interaction. There's, uh, always has to be somebody behind it. Trusting but verifying. Um, so what it does is it may change your role, um, but it won't take your role. And I think that that's the big thing that I think needs to be said as you're moving forward. Because as long as you're talking about that, there's a lot more trust in the system of trying to move forward with the process.

Speaker A: So would it Be a true statement to say neither of you have replaced any roles with AI.

Speaker B: Not a one.

Speaker C: None.

Speaker A: None. Super. Last but not least, uh, what's one thing AI will never be able to replace in the healthcare industry? Jennifer?

Speaker B: Compassion.

Speaker A: M.

Speaker B: And that's so important in healthcare. You know, what's routine to us in the medical world is not routine to the person who's experiencing it for the very first time. And so having that step into their shoes, think about what they're feeling and express that concern, that empathy. AI is never going to be able to do that and make someone feel heard and feel cared for.

Speaker A: Jonathan

Speaker C: It'll never replace the human elements, and that includes, uh, compassion and empathy, but also the trust, um, being able to have somebody that you can see face to face, especially in the healthcare industry, also with any type of social services, you need to be able to look at that person and there's just that connection, there's that understanding the lived experiences. It will never replace that. Um, even though it may try, there's always a piece there that's not going to be able to really understand those folks. So it will never replace the human itself. What it will do is replace all of the administrative drag in the back. So then there's more time to be able to provide those human elements.

Speaker A: All right, and closing question for both of you. What is one piece of advice that has shaped your work or personal life? Jennifer

Speaker B: this is a tough one because there's. I've been fortunate to have so many great coaches, mentors and leaders throughout my career that it's hard to pick just one thing. But I think as I've aged and matured, the one piece that sticks with me is that winning is not about competition, it's about collaboration. And so it's what can we accomplish together? What can we all buy into? Truly that win, win and not, oh, we've all compromised and none of us are happy with this, but that we walk away knowing we heard each other, we understood each other, we came to this agreement and it's about how we felt going through the process. Not just that end result.

Speaker A: Thank you, Jonathan.

Speaker C: One thing I always tell folks, um, I even tell my team this, is that curiosity is key, um, when it comes to human resources, being curious about different processes, different laws, um, how does it connect here, how does it connect there within an organization, how does everything tie together? So, um, then you have a, a better understanding overall of what I do here affects this department, but also affects these folks, which affects the downstream effects for patients and clients and things like that. Sometimes that gets lost. Um, because folks feel, okay, we're the administrative hub, or we need to be a little bit more transactional or transformational, but we don't see the things outside. Be curious, ask questions. Um, the more you know, the better, uh, you feel about your decisions, but also better about the decisions that you make for the organization as a whole. Um, because then you know that you're making the right decision and, um, you're moving in the right direction.

Speaker A: And that's where we'll end it. For this episode of People and Strategy. A huge thanks to Jennifer and Jonathan for your valuable insights. Thanks for tuning in. You could follow the People in Strategy podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Also, podcast reviews have a real impact on podcast visibility. So if you enjoyed today's episode, leave a review to, um, help others find the show. Finally, you could find all our episodes on our website@shrm.org podcasts and while you're there, sign up for our weekly newsletter. Thanks for joining us and have a great day. M.

Speaker E: Sherm.