Mining giant BHP used “ChatGPT” instead of consultants to analyse a leadership framework that needed updating, finding it up to the task and able to make meaningful suggestions.
BHP’s Vaughn Sheahan.
The use case is one of a number that BHP is pursuing under the banner of generative AI technology. All the use cases being explored fall broadly into people management or leadership augmentation.
Head of organisational development and analytics Vaughn Sheahan told the Microsoft AI Tour conference that BHP’s leadership framework needed updating “to reflect some new cultural aspirations that we have.”
“Normally this is a job you’d farm out to consultants, it’s a six-week project,” Sheahan said.
“We thought, ‘Why don’t we give it a go using ChatGPT?”
Sheahan said that a 90-page “culture baseline assessment” in PowerPoint format, a Board paper on culture “and what we wanted to achieve”, HR policy documents and the capability framework itself were all uploaded.
“What we were able to do through chat is start to explore how we might need to shape leadership in BHP to better reflect where we need to go and what we need to do,” Sheahan said.
“The chat started with some fairly basic processes that we’re reviewing, where are the gaps and opportunities. It then moved to improving the language because one of the critiques we have in the way we write these documents [is] they’re HR-centric and our frontline teams don’t get it, so you say to ChatGPT, ‘Express that or rewrite that in a way that [a] worker can relate to it and engage with it.
“And at the end of that process, we stepped back and actually asked it, ‘Do you think this is actually the right thing for BHP to do, and do you think that these leadership capabilities are things that are actually going to unlock performance in our business?
“That’s quite an abstract, deeply analytical question – and its response that came back absolutely blew my mind in terms of its ability to look at it.”
Sheahan said that ChatGPT offered a conditional ‘yes’ response to the question, pointing out that success would depend on how the framework was implemented, but also on filling some key gaps.
“We were legitimately missing those points [from the framework],” Sheahan said.
“Not only did it pick up the things that were missing, it said a framework is one thing but it’s the implementation that matters.”
Sheahan said that as a “20-year [workplace] culture expert”, the analysis capabilities of ChatGPT were better than anticipated.
It appears the miner – like other large enterprises and governments – is using a private or dedicated instance of ChatGPT, with Sheahan saying a “sandbox environment” had been set up to run its experiments.
“It allows us to test and play in a really safe environment,” he said.
“Our job there is to really show people that this thing can do something that [they] don’t think it can.
“Many of our executives would have heard the hype, but until they see it and experience it, it’s just hype.”
Scoping the opportunities
The use case is one of several that BHP is exploring in its human resources area.
Sheahan said that three “big opportunities or buckets of work” around generative AI had been identified.
“The first sits around this idea of managing those everyday HR transactions,” he said.
“If you think about the current state, I’ve got a query, I raise a case, and hopefully within 24 or 48 hours I get a response. But if you’re like me, you haven’t written the [question] particularly well, so I don’t get an answer back, I get a question back, and that triggers another 24-to-48 hour cycle.
“If you think about the experience of our workforce around that, it can be quite frustrating, so there is a huge opportunity to improve the way our workforce interacts with HR to get what they need in a far quicker, more human way.”
The second opportunity, he said, is in using generative AI to “shape, personalise and customise” all of the elements that go into creating workplace culture and internal capability.
The aim is to “help leaders and employees achieve their full potential by optimising and personalising critical moments across the employee lifecycle,” an accompanying slide stated.
The third is more about helping HR personnel themselves to “not only be more efficient in the tasks that they do, but ultimately more creative and better at their jobs” – particularly by being able to offer “superior strategic advice”, when sought.
This, he indicated, could take the form of a “copilot” or AI-based augmentation offered to certain types of HR personnel.
“[For example], we have plenty of employment relations lawyers. [With assistance from generative AI], not only are they quicker at providing advice but maybe their advice is better because it’s fed by precedent data around what is the right course of action with cases similar to this.”
Sheahan said that generative AI could ultimately power a concept of “precision leadership” within BHP, particularly when it came to people management.
“In mining, we have the concept of precision maintenance where we really understand the best way to maintain a truck based on data and experience and all those things,” he said.
“We have the opportunity to take that same mindset [to employee development]. What is precision leadership and how do these tools help leaders to be their best in that moment because we know so much of people’s experience at work comes back to their boss.”
Ry Crozier attended Microsoft AI Tour in Sydney as a guest of Microsoft.