“We always wonder how to use generative AI, but the first question is why?” says an HR director

All summer long, we’ve been interviewing employees, civil servants, self-employed people, and business leaders about their relationship with generative artificial intelligence. How do they use it, how do it change their professional practices? Today, Mathilde Le Coz, Director of Human Resources.

Mathilde le Coz was recruited 20 years ago by Mazars, an audit, expertise and financial consulting firm which employs 5,000 people in France. After starting her career as an auditor, she finally joined the human resources department, which she has been managing for three years now, because she “loves people”she said, and that she has “an appetite for it”.

At Mazars, says Mathilde le Coz, generative artificial intelligence is at the experimental stage.

“The challenge is not to ask ourselves whether we’re going to do it or not. We’re going to do it! The objective of this experiment is to list very clearly all the business actions that we’re going to have the AI ​​do, and not our teams do, which ones are relevant. So I’m waiting for a list of tasks, where my teams will tell me what works or not…”

Mathilde le Coz

Human Resources Director at Mazars

“Afterwards, we will be able to give instructions to the teams, to encourage them to change their operating method on certain tasks, to work with generative AI or not. Because people say it’s great, but it’s not instinctive for everyone to know what AI can do for us,” adds Mathilde le Coz.

“There are some in the administrative part, for example to draft company agreements, framework agreements, a teleworking charter, specifies Mathilde le Coz. Generative AI will help us, not to write it entirely for us, but I will be able to ask it for a pre-model, so as not to start from a blank sheet. We have identified other use cases, in recruitment, in talent management, to be much more efficient and waste less time.”

How much work is produced by generative AI? What are the productivity gains for the teams that use them? This is what the experiment conducted at Mazars must determine. But for what purpose, asks the group’s HRD?

“It’s true that we wonder a lot about how to use AI, but for me, the first question is why? Why do I want my teams to be more productive? Is it to go faster? Is it to hire less tomorrow? We talked about it in the team: l‘help with generative AI, underlines the HRDwe tell ourselves that it will save us time on boring tasks, and that we can use this time for greater comfort. We work a lot sometimes, and I would like my teams to work a little less.”

“Objective number two is to focus on high value-added tasks. If recruiters spend less time writing job descriptions or job offers, they will be able to spend more time with candidates, showing them around our premises, having coffee with them. We can always be more productive, but we need to know why.”

Mathilde le Coz now defines generative AI as an additional tool at the service of her teams. The important thing, she says, is to go about it calmly and thoughtfully.