Summary

In this episode of The Human Element, Barb talks with Heather Oxley, CHRO at Perficient, about what it looks like to run HR for a firm whose entire business is helping other companies transform. Heather walks through three areas where she's deploying AI across the talent life cycle: project staffing, learning and development, and recruiting. Her central argument is that the value of AI in HR isn't primarily about cost reduction — it's about bringing clarity to the decisions that define the function. She also names the one thing AI should never touch.

Chapters

00:00 Host Intro: HR at a Firm Built on Transformation
01:30 Heather's Role at Perficient and the AI-First Mandate
03:30 AI in Project Staffing: Beyond Skills and Availability
09:00 The Leapfrog Moment for Smaller Teams
12:30 Learning as Career Navigation, Not Content Delivery
17:00 90% Voluntary Adoption in Two Weeks
19:30 AI in Recruiting: Where the Legal Stakes Are Highest
22:30 Closing the Candidate Black Hole and Debiasing Panels
24:30 The Fork in the Road: Cost Reduction vs. Decision Clarity
26:00 Lightning Round: The Line AI Should Never Cross

Takeaways

1. AI in recruiting should augment human judgment, not replace it, especially as legislation in New York, California, and Colorado continues to evolve.
2. Using agents to close the loop with every candidate who doesn't advance is one of the highest-value, lowest-risk uses of AI in HR.
3. The fork facing HR leaders today is cost reduction vs. decision clarity, and most organizations are defaulting to cost.
4. Moments that matter (offers, terminations, promotions, hard conversations) should always involve a person, not an agent.
5. The HR leaders who matter in this era are the ones who prove the function can be as agentic as any other part of the business.

Connect with the Guest
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heatheroxley/
Website: https://www.perficient.com/

Sponsor

Wisq is the AI platform for HR. We built Harper, the world’s first AI HR teammate — designed to handle the judgment-heavy work that has historically consumed HR teams: job changes, performance concerns, leaves of absence, onboarding, and employee relations issues. Where HCM bolt-ons and chatbots deflect the easiest questions, Harper resolves full cases, end-to-end. The result is an HR function with the capacity and strategic bandwidth to focus on the work that moves the business.

Companies get Harper live in weeks, not quarters, with implementation support built on deep HR domain expertise. Wisq serves HR leaders at leading companies across industries, helping them raise the bar on employee experience and expand what their teams are capable of.

For more information, visit https://www.wisq.com.

• (00:00) - Host Intro: HR at a Firm Built on Transformation
• (01:30) - Heather's Role at Perficient and the AI-First Mandate
• (03:30) - AI in Project Staffing: Beyond Skills and Availability
• (09:00) - The Leapfrog Moment for Smaller Teams
• (12:30) - Learning as Career Navigation, Not Content Delivery
• (17:00) - 90% Voluntary Adoption in Two Weeks
• (19:30) - AI in Recruiting: Where the Legal Stakes Are Highest
• (22:30) - Closing the Candidate Black Hole and Debiasing Panels
• (24:30) - The Fork in the Road: Cost Reduction vs. Decision Clarity
• (26:00) - Lightning Round: The Line AI Should Never Cross