AI may be transforming customer service, but Sally Neale does not see the future as a choice between technology and people. As chief people officer at ArvatoConnect, a business process outsourcing company that uses AI to help organisations improve customer service, she is focused on how automation can take on routine work while employees develop the judgement, empathy and problem-solving skills needed for more complex interactions.
The 55-year-old lives in Liverpool with her husband, John, and has two daughters, aged 22 and 19, as well as Molly, their eight-year-old dog. She originally trained to become a social worker before moving into the charity sector, where she helped establish an HR function from scratch. She has now been with ArvatoConnect for almost 20 years and is responsible for its people strategy, learning and development, recruitment and social impact agenda.
In this HR Profile, Neale examines what AI means for entry-level jobs, reskilling and employee wellbeing, why employers need to be honest with people about how their roles may change and how HR can make sure fairness, inclusion and human judgement remain part of an increasingly automated workplace.
AI is rapidly changing customer service and back-office roles, so how do you decide which tasks should be automated and where human judgement, empathy and experience remain essential?
This is a question I get asked almost every day by colleagues and my fellow leaders. For me, the starting point should never be just what the technology can do. In our organisation, our first question is always getting to the heart of what the customer, employee or citizen truly needs.
In customer service and Business Process Outsourcing, routine, repetitive and administrative tasks are often good candidates for automation, particularly where technology can remove duplication, bring information together or make a process quicker. But when someone is distressed, vulnerable or dealing with a complicated situation, judgement and empathy really matter. Those interactions rarely fit neatly into a script or predictable process.
The best approach is to look at the whole journey and ask where technology will genuinely improve the outcome and where a person needs to step in. AI can give employees better information and remove some of the administrative burden, but people should remain accountable for the important decisions.
Our view is that the future will be a hybrid one, with automation handling more routine activity and people focusing on work that requires emotional intelligence, problem-solving and trust. In fact, at ArvatoConnect we believe in [a] future (where) around 70 percent of customer interactions could ultimately be handled by automation or digital agents, with people focusing on the 30 percent that require judgement, empathy and complex decision-making.
Your research has found that more than a quarter of contact centre agents were considering leaving their jobs because of concerns about how AI was being implemented. What does that tell HR leaders about managing technological change?
When I first saw that stat from our research, it told me that people aren’t necessarily scared of AI or technology itself, but the change happening to them from these advancements, without a clear explanation of what it means for their job security, their skills and their future.
HR leaders should run towards the hard conversation – and that the truth is roles will change. Trying to soften or avoid that statement usually results in more anxiety, not less. At ArvatoConnect, we show our people we are investing in them and their growth, not just the shiny technology. We use channels such as town halls to talk openly about change, answer questions and hear concerns, for example, cost of living, the impact of AI or flexible working arrangements. It helps us show our people that we are investing in them and their growth.
I’ve learnt over the years to involve employees early. Get your people together and openly hear their concerns and give them practical opportunities to build their confidence. People also need to see believable routes into the jobs being created around AI, rather than simply being told that new opportunities will appear. It’s important not to be fluffy here – be honest about how you want employees to contribute ideas and be clear about how their role may develop. This helps them see change as a positive – and something they can influence, not something simply happening beyond their control.
There’s a lot of discussion about AI eliminating entry-level jobs. Do you worry that automation could remove some of the roles through which people traditionally learn a business and begin building their careers?
Yes, I do. Entry level jobs for us have never just been about completely basic, rote tasks. For me it’s a launchpad for people to learn how an organisation works, build confidence, develop professional judgement and work out what they like doing – and what they are good at.
If we automate all that work without thinking carefully, we risk removing some of the first rungs of the career ladder many of us have climbed. Organisations will then find themselves with a shortage of experienced people further down the line because they have not created the space for the next generation to learn.
We should not preserve repetitive work simply for the sake of it, but we do need to redesign early careers alongside automation. That might mean apprenticeships, mentoring, and structured exposure to senior leaderships and the opportunities to work on real business problems. People need to chance to jump in the deep end and build skills through rich experience, not by ticking off boxes on online learning courses. For example, one of our graduates, Adam, who is now a Solutions Analyst. He uses AI agents to carry out market and industry research for bids, helping us identify clients’ pain points. And he’s also supporting the team with really strategic work around our future operating and pricing models.
The talent organisations need may already be hidden inside their workforce. Employers should be hunting for transferable skills and helping people move from frontline roles into areas such as a process improvement, data, learning and AI enabled. We aren’t naive at ArvatoConnect – we know our younger employees might not be with us forever – we want to help nurture and grow their early years, so they are ready, for wherever they end up.
We also have a wider responsibility to build the skills the UK economy will need. That means developing transferable capabilities but also values like social responsibility and an understanding of the impact businesses have on their communities.
“If AI handles all the straightforward interactions, the work left for the people, may become more complex and emotionally demanding.”
Contact centres have traditionally struggled with high employee turnover. Beyond pay, what do you think makes someone see a customer service role as a worthwhile long-term career rather than a temporary job?
People need to be able to see where the role can take them. Customer service gives people an incredibly broad set of skills, including communication, resilience, problem solving, negotiation, and the ability to understand what someone really needs. Those are skills that can lead into operations, learning and development, quality assurance, digital transformation, people roles, and leadership.
I often find there is a misconception that customer service is an easy job, when in reality it demands an incredibly broad set of skills, including communication, resilience, problem solving, negotiation and the ability to understand what someone really needs.
The problem is that employers don’t always make those routes visible. People leave the agent role when they feel they are doing the same task every day with little to no autonomy, and no clear path forward. They see the role as temporary – and I don’t blame them.
This is where we nurture our managers – people need to feel trusted, recognised, and supported as individuals. Some employees will want to progress quickly, some will want to develop slowly but surely in their current role, and others will simply want to a good job and maintain a healthy balance outside work. At ArvatoConnect, 72 percent of our team leaders and managers originally worked as agents. That matters because it shows people that customer service can be the beginning of a career, rather than a stopgap.
As technology takes over more routine work, employees are increasingly being asked to handle difficult, sensitive or emotionally demanding interactions. Does that create a new wellbeing challenge for employers?
Absolutely. It’s something I am hyperaware of. If AI handles all the straightforward interactions, the work left for the people, may become more complex and emotionally demanding. Employees may deal with technically less routine enquiries, but a much higher concentration of people who are angry, distressed or facing difficult circumstances.
This totally changes the standard of what good support looks like. Employers need to consider the wider environment of workload, recovery time and training and access to appropriate wellbeing support. Managers’ need to recognise someone who’s a high performer may still be carrying a significant emotional burden.
Our aim should be to create more meaningful roles, not roles where every conversation is intense. Technology can help by providing better information or recognising signs that an interaction may be difficult, but people still need space to pause, reflect and ask for support.
ArvatoConnect encourages employees to “Be 100% You Every Day” and reports high levels of perceived inclusion. What does genuine inclusion look like in practice, particularly when organisations are under pressure to deliver performance and productivity?
For me, inclusion is tested in ordinary moments, not in the wording of a values statement on your website. It’s whether someone feels able to speak up in a meeting, challenge an established process, or suggest a different way of doing something without worrying that it will count against them.
Performance and inclusion should never be seen as competing priorities – that’s something I’ve spotted in other organisations. When people feel safe to contribute, organisations get stronger, more creative, ideas and spot problems earlier. Genuine inclusion means maintaining high standards while making sure people have fair access to information, development and the opportunity to influence decisions. It also means acknowledging that people from some backgrounds still face barriers and taking practical steps to widen access to opportunity. Our motto is 100% You – which is a two-way commitment. Being 100% yourself at work means respecting other people and helping create conditions in which they can be themselves too.
Inclusion also means enabling people to do a good job in the way that works for them. Not everyone is looking for constant progression – they may be satisfied contributing and maintain a healthy life outside work, and that is just as valid.
“Talented people can easily be overlooked because of their background, education or lack of access to professional networks.”
The debate over flexible and hybrid working remains unsettled, with some major employers pushing people back into the office. Do you think organisations risk losing talent by becoming more prescriptive about where people work?
At ArvatoConnect, we aim to offer as much flexibility as each role and client commitment allows. In most cases, hybrid working gives us the right balances between the needs of our people – employees, clients, and customers.
Yes, particularly if they impose one model without understanding why people value flexibility or what different roles genuinely require.
Flexible working has widened access for people who might previously have struggled with a traditional office-based role. At the same time, we shouldn’t pretend every part of development happens equally well in every environment. People at the beginning of their careers can miss the informal learning that comes from observing colleagues, asking quick questions and building relationships in person – those ‘water cooler’ moments.
Organisations that become too prescriptive risk losing people who need flexibility, but organisations that give people no structure at all may make it harder for employees to learn and feel connected. The focus should be on outcomes, team needs and individual circumstances, rather than presenteeism.
Many employers say they face skills shortages while employees worry that their existing skills could become obsolete. Who should bear the greatest responsibility for reskilling people as AI changes jobs: employers, employees or government?
Of course, it has to be shared, but as employers we carry a significant responsibility because, we are making the decisions about where technology is introduced and how roles change.
Employees need to be curious and willing to learn, but it is not reasonable to expect people to navigate this transition entirely in their own time or at their own expense. Learning needs to become part of the job, with clear routes into the roles and skills organisations will need in future.
Government has an important role in making training and apprenticeships accessible, particularly for smaller employers and people who may otherwise be excluded. But businesses are closest to the jobs themselves. They should be mapping the skills they have, identifying the capabilities they’ll need and helping people understand how their existing experience can transfer. The education sector has a role here. Curriculums need to reflect the actual world young people are entering, not just teaching them how to use AI, but helping them understand ethical use, and develop logical thinking, emotional intelligence and work ethic.
We also need to avoid assumptions based on age. Being Gen Z doesn’t automatically make someone digitally fluent, just as being older doesn’t make someone less capable of learning new technology. Development should be based on someone’s skills, potential and needs, not stereotypes about their generation.
Access matters as much as age – young people from lower-income backgrounds may have had fewer opportunities to build digital skills, while experienced older workers can be overlooked despite having valuable technical and sector knowledge. Employers should assess people on actual capabilities rather than relying on generational stereotypes.
ArvatoConnect works extensively with government and other highly regulated organisations. Does managing people in environments where mistakes can have serious consequences require a different approach to performance, training and psychological safety?
In regulated environments, excessive fear can be as very damaging to your company culture. If employees believe that admitting a mistake or flagging a concern will automatically lead to blame, issues may remain hidden until they become much more serious. Employees should understand the customer or citizen outcome the process is trying to protect, how to recognise when a situation falls outside the norm and when they should escalate or use their judgement.
We aim to create an environment in which people can ask questions, challenge respectfully and learn from what has happened. That’s particularly important as technology becomes more involved in decision-making because employees need to feel able to question an automated recommendation rather than simply follow it.
I look for curiosity, willingness to learn and the ability to reflect. Someone doesn’t need to arrive with every technical skill, particularly when those skills are changing so quickly. What matters is whether they’re open to learning and can apply what they learn to real situations.
We also need to be careful that our definition of potential doesn’t simply reward people who are already confident or know how to present themselves in a traditional interview. Talented people can easily be overlooked because of their background, education or lack of access to professional networks.
This is why practical assessment, mentoring and learning should be practiced in schemes – not assumed all employees will take this on themselves. For example, Our CEO Club is built around Coaching, Empowerment and Opportunities. It gives 10–12 frontline colleagues each year tailored development, mentoring and exposure to different parts of the business, including Dragons’ Den-style sessions and mock board meetings that let participants test ideas and build confidence in front of senior leaders. 70 percent of our participants are promoted or move into other roles and we aim to encourage 50% back as mentors for the next cohort.
“HR will become even more central to business strategy because so many of the big business questions will also be people questions.”
Employee engagement surveys are now commonplace, but employees can become cynical if they are repeatedly asked for their views without seeing much change. How can HR make employee voice genuinely influential rather than simply another measurement exercise?
The quickest way to make people stop giving feedback is to ask for it and then disappear.
HR needs to close the loop. That means being clear about what employees said, what the organisation is going to do and what it can’t change. People won’t expect every suggestion to be accepted, but they do expect an honest response.
Employee voice also needs to exist beyond the annual survey. It should be part of regular manager conversations, team meetings and forums where people can raise ideas and challenge existing ways of working.
We use initiatives such as the Big Debate to give employees at different levels the opportunity to present ideas, challenge thinking and contribute to decisions. MyCreationStation also lets employees suggest ideas and improvements to processes, systems and automation. What matters is that those routes lead somewhere. People need to see that their contribution has been listened to, considered and, where possible, acted on. Alongside the Big Debate and MyCreationStation, our town halls, open-door approach and new MyPulse surveys give people different ways to share what they think. The important part is showing what happened as a result.
Looking back over your own career in people leadership, what has changed most about what employees expect from their employer, and what do you think HR still gets wrong?
Nowadays, people much more willing to ask what an organisation stands for and whether its actions match its words. They expect fairness, flexibility, development and a workplace where they can be themselves, but they also expect honesty.
I think HR sometimes gets caught between wanting to protect people from difficult messages and wanting to present the organisation in the best possible light. That can sometimes lead to language that feels polished but avoids the real issue.
We also sometimes design policies for an imaginary average employee. People want different things from work. Some want rapid progression; some value stability and others need flexibility at a particular point in their life. HR has to understand those differences without losing consistency or fairness.
What hasn’t changed is the need to balance what employees need with what the organisation needs. I learnt that early in my career when I was helping to build an HR function from scratch. Good people leadership is rarely about having a perfect answer. It’s about asking better questions, listening properly and being prepared to make a balanced judgement.
And finally, how do you see HR evolving over the next five years?
HR will become even more central to business strategy because so many of the big business questions will also be people questions. How do we introduce AI responsibly? Which skills will we need? How do we redesign work without losing entry routes? How do we maintain trust when roles and expectations are changing quickly?
Technology will take on more administrative activity within HR, which should give people teams more time to focus on workforce planning, organisational design, culture, social impact and capability. HR will need to become more confident with data and AI, but its bigger challenge will be helping businesses respond to rising employee expectations, stronger demand for empathy and the reality that people cannot be treated as one homogenous group. HR’s role will be to bring that understanding into business decisions.
At the same time, I think the human side of HR will become more important. As organisations automate more work, someone still needs to champion fairness, transparency, inclusion and the effect change has on people.
William Furney is a Managing Editor at Black and White Trading Ltd based in Kingston upon Hull, UK. His writing focuses on contemporary employment issues including pension schemes, employee health, financial struggles affecting workers and broader workplace trends.
- William Furney
- William Furney
- William Furney
- William Furney
