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 They are expensive, filled with vendor pitches, and loaded with “fluff” resources that are outdated by the time they are published.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.
We’re seeing a profound sense of anxiety in the workforce today, and honestly, it’s understandable. As AI and digital transformation accelerate, the primary concern for many, from frontline employees to senior executives, is the fear of replacement.
What if the real threat isn’t AI replacing your employees, but your organization failing to learn faster than the world is changing? That’s the challenge Susan LaMonica, CHRO of Citizens Financial Group, is building against, and she calls it “out-learning the competition.” The goal is no longer just to work harder or out-produce the next person; it is to learn faster than the environment changes.
In this episode, I sit down with Susan LaMonica to discuss how they are transforming their 18,000-employee organization into a skills-based talent ecosystem.
Listen to the episode here on Apple Podcast & leave a review!
“Out-Learning” as the Ultimate Competitive Advantage
In a disruptive environment, the pace of change is so rapid that traditional survival strategies no longer cut it. Susan emphasizes that the ability to learn quickly isn’t just a “nice-to-have” trait; it is the most critical survival skill for the modern workforce.
At Citizens, the philosophy is to “out-learn the competition.” This means moving beyond being a static expert in a current role and becoming someone who can constantly adapt to new tools and methodologies.
Elevating the Human Role From Transactions to Advice
One of the most fascinating dynamics in today’s AI era, and one Susan confirmed from her own experience, is what I call the “Branch Paradox.” While many experts predicted that digital banking would make physical locations extinct, major banks are actually opening more branches. Why? Because while transactions have moved to mobile, humans still crave advice for life’s big moments.
This shift requires employees to “kick it upstairs.” By using AI to handle the data-heavy floor of the job, humans are free to contribute at a much higher level of judgment and sense-making. It’s about moving from being a processor to becoming an advisor. In practice, that means leaving behind the routine work that AI can now handle, and leaning into the capabilities that only humans can provide:
- Traditional Transactional Tasks: Processing manual transactions, routine data entry, and basic portfolio rebalancing.
- New Advice-Based Capabilities: Providing strategic judgment, critical thinking, and offering empathetic, high-level “sense-making” for complex client needs.
The “Reimagine the Bank” Framework
Citizens has embarked on a massive, three-year transformation effort called “Reimagine the Bank,” consisting of 47 different initiatives designed to rethink how the organization operates. A core tenet: reimagine the process before you ever touch a piece of technology. If you automate a broken process, you just get a broken process faster.
To support this, Susan uses a “layer cake” approach to education that ensures no one is left behind:
- Baseline Understanding: Every employee gets a fundamental grasp of AI tools.
- Deployment-Linked Training: Specific education that coincides exactly with the rollout of new tools to ensure immediate adoption.
- SME Specialization: Targeted training for subject matter experts in legal, risk, and HR to handle the unique governance and compliance risks that come with AI in a regulated industry.
Measuring What Actually Matters: ROI and Productivity
One of the more nuanced parts of our conversation was around ROI, and Susan’s answer was refreshingly honest. Not everything pencils out in dollars and cents, and that’s okay.
For enterprise-wide tools like Microsoft Copilot, Citizens treats the investment more like a phone or laptop, a foundational infrastructure you need in order to operate. For specific business-case initiatives within the 47-initiative framework, they do build formal ROI cases and prioritize by expected return.
But productivity metrics go beyond simple cost savings. Depending on the area, Citizens looks at call volume, customer NPS scores, code quality, and defect rates in engineering. Employee sentiment is also tracked; adoption of a tool only counts if it’s actually changing how people work, not just sitting unused.
The broader philosophy is: if you believe that engaged, well-prepared colleagues are the key to a distinctive customer experience, some investments simply need to be made, even before they fully pencil out.
Listen to the episode here on Apple Podcast & leave a review!
Building an Internal Talent Marketplace
The transition to a skills-based organization is powered by Citizens’ talent platform, called Talent Matters. This didn’t happen overnight — they started back in 2018 with what Susan admits was a “rudimentary” version. They had to do the hard foundational work of building a skills taxonomy from scratch to identify exactly what capabilities they had versus what they needed.
Today, the platform is a robust, AI-driven system that works at three levels:
- Individual: Employees own their development, assessing their own skills and aligning their aspirations with career paths suggested by the platform.
- Manager: Leaders can identify talent across the company based on specific skills rather than just department or tenure.
- Organizational: The company uses data analytics to see the big picture of skill gaps, allowing them to adjust investments in real time.
Nearly 90% of Citizens’ colleagues are engaged in Talent Matters in some way.
Democratizing Opportunity through “Gigs” and Mentoring
One of the most interesting features of the ecosystem is the Gig program, the short-term internal assignments that might be a one-day task, 10% of someone’s time over eight weeks, or a three-month project. Employees across the company can browse and apply to gigs outside their normal scope.
This directly combats talent hoarding. It breaks down the dynamic where managers hold onto their best people and instead democratizes access to growth opportunities across the organization.
The platform also facilitates skills-based mentoring, not general career coffee chats, but targeted connections. If you want to develop a specific AI use case or sharpen your storytelling, Talent Matters can surface a colleague willing to coach you on exactly that.
The Uber Lever: Why Leadership Still Matters Most
Even with all this infrastructure, Susan is clear: leadership is the “Uber lever” of the talent ecosystem. Technology provides the tools, but leaders are what make it work.
Part of Citizens’ broader vision is using AI not just for tasks, but to deliver nudges and coaching to managers, helping them become better leaders and encouraging their teams to take the risks necessary to keep learning. Without equipped leaders, the investment in everything else is wasted.
Conclusion: The Human Element in a Regulated World
In a world defined by data and speed, the human element remains the heart of the business. While AI can provide the analysis, it cannot replace the human ability to interpret information, provide empathy, and make sense of a disruptive world.
As you look at your own organization, the challenge isn’t just to out-produce the competition through automation. The real challenge is building a foundation where humans can do what they do best: provide judgment and build relationships. Is your organization built to simply out-produce, or is it built to out-learn?
Susan and I only scratched the surface here. If you want to go deeper on how Citizens is building the workforce of the future, from AI governance to the full Talent Matters ecosystem, catch the full conversation on Future Ready Leadership.
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
