Let’s be honest, most CHRO groups out there are bad. They are expensive, filled with vendor pitches, and loaded with “fluff” resources that are outdated by the time they are published. That’s why I put together Future of Work Leaders. A CHRO group for people leaders who are moving beyond traditional HR to focus on the future of work and employee experience. No pitches, no selling, no fluff.
The community is focused on discussions, candid Q&A sessions, and sharing of resources and insights. Members include Lego, Novartis, PwC, Saks Global, and dozens of others. I’m just in the process of planning our annual in-person forum which will be at the end of March. if you want to learn more and request an invite go to Future of Work Leaders or email me directly Jacob[at]thefutureorganization[dot]com.
Preparing a global team for a world that changes by the minute can feel like a race against time, particularly with 80% of jobs expected to be impacted by AI by 2030. While many leaders feel the pressure to innovate, few have a clear roadmap for keeping people engaged as the ground shifts beneath their feet.
In this episode, I sit down with Tracy Platt, Chief Human Resources Officer at Newell Brands, to explore how the powerhouse behind icons like Sharpie and Coleman is tackling this head-on by building AI literacy and a high-performance culture.
Listen to the episode here on Apple Podcast & leave a review!
The Rise of the “Invisible Shelf”
Shopping is shifting from a simple search to a curated solution, a trend Tracy calls “agentic commerce.” AI agents now do the heavy lifting of researching and comparing products for the consumer. For brands, this has created an “invisible shelf” where the primary audience is often a machine, not a person.
To win in this environment, Newell Brands is moving beyond traditional marketing to actively “market to the machine.” This involves optimizing product descriptions so they are easily “pullable” by AI agents like Amazon’s Rufus or Walmart’s Sparky. This shift is a direct driver of their talent strategy, which prioritizes a new kind of knowledge worker.
Instead of tracking “vanity metrics” or simple activity, the organization has pivoted to measuring outcomes and innovation. This ensures employees aren’t just “staying busy” but are using AI to innovate products faster for a marketplace that literally changes by the minute.
“Sneaky” AI and the End of the Hated Performance Review
Building AI literacy doesn’t always require boring classrooms. While Newell Brands has made training mandatory for executives, they are “sneaking” AI directly into the workflows the rest of the workforce usually avoids, like the labor-intensive performance review. By using AI agents to prompt employees about their wins, goals, and career interests, the process has dropped from two hours of paperwork to just 30 minutes of meaningful reflection.
This strategy isn’t just about efficiency; it’s about stripping out the “nonsense-oriented work” that acts like weights on an employee’s ankles. By automating the “laboriousness” out of the day, employees stop seeing AI as a threat and start seeing it as an “unlock” for their creative potential. True performance is no longer measured by the activity of completing a form, but by the results achieved once the busy work is gone.
Goodbye to Vanity Metrics
For years, management was often about the “vanity metric” of seeing an employee at their desk. But as AI takes over the routine activities of the workday, simply being present is no longer a measure of value. To operationalize a high-performance culture, Newell Brands is pivoting the entire organization toward outcome-based accountability.
This shift is a key part of their talent strategy. Instead of tracking meetings or emails, every team member, from HR to the manufacturing floor, is taught to see how their work directly enables revenue generation.
In a world where “a human and a bot” work together, the manager’s role isn’t to watch the clock but to evaluate the final result and the human judgment applied to it. This strategy clears out the “nonsense” work and ensures the company remains agile enough to win in a marketplace that literally changes by the minute.
Listen to the episode here on Apple Podcast & leave a review!
Human Judgment as the Ultimate Guardrail
AI can generate content in seconds, but it cannot understand social, political, or economic context. At Newell Brands, the strategy is to never leave AI “unchecked”. During a leadership exercise for the Parker Pen brand, the team saw that AI could accidentally create a marketing campaign that ignored sensitive historical contexts. Without a human to step in, that AI-generated work could have caused a massive public crisis and damaged the brand’s reputation.
To operationalize this, the company’s talent strategy focuses on judgment-based decision-making as a core skill. In a high-performance culture, every employee is taught that they are the true “owners” of the final output.
We must make it clear that there are no excuses like, “the AI did it”. If a team member uses a bot to get work done, they are still 100% responsible for the result. This ensures that as the company moves faster with AI, it stays grounded in the human critical thinking that a machine simply cannot replicate.
Ambiguity is the New Strategic Currency
In a world where technology evolves “by the minute,” it is impossible to set a fixed guardrail and expect it to last. Tracy shares how Newell Brands operationalizes agility by ensuring there is flex in how roles are structured, allowing employees to reconfigure their work in real-time.
This is a key part of their “where to play and how to win” framework. Tracy emphasizes that managing ambiguity is now the most valuable currency for any organization. Rather than waiting for a perfect manual, leaders are developed to lead through the unknown by prioritizing outcomes over mere activities.
In this “brave new world,” the ability to remain fluid while maintaining enough structure to stay organized is what allows a global workforce to thrive without having every single detail figured out in advance.
Final Thoughts
AI is not just changing how work gets done. It is redefining what it means to perform at a high level. If machines can handle routine tasks, then performance can no longer be measured by activity, presence, or paperwork. The real differentiator becomes human judgment, adaptability, and the ability to operate inside constant change.
That is why Newell Brands is not just training employees to use AI. They are building a culture where people understand their responsibility in a human-machine partnership. Because in this new era, AI may accelerate the work. But humans are still accountable for the outcome.
For more insights on how Tracy Platt and her team are preparing their workforce for this shift, check out the full episode.
Organizations around the world have lost their way. It’s time to get back to basics and focus on what really drives people and performance. This is why I’m so very excited to share that after 2 years of research and writing, my new book The 8 Laws of Employee Experience: How to Build a Future-Ready Organization is finally available. Grab a copy at 8exlaws.com
