Peer-to-Peer podcast with Cathy Temple

In this episode of the Future of Work Hub’s Peer-to-Peer podcast, Julia Paulding, Chief People Officer at Lewis Silkin, sits down with Cathy Temple, Head of HR, EMEA at Salesforce. They discuss HR’s evolving role in AI-driven workplace transformation, emphasising the need for trust, transparent communication, human-centric leadership and continuous upskilling to build agile, future-ready organisations. 

Transcript

Peer-to-Peer podcast with Cathy Temple

In this episode of the Future of Work Hub’s Peer-to-Peer podcast, Julia Paulding, Chief People Officer at Lewis Silkin, sits down with Cathy Temple, Head of HR, EMEA at Salesforce. They discuss HR’s evolving role in AI-driven workplace transformation, emphasising the need for trust, transparent communication, human-centric leadership and continuous upskilling to build agile, future-ready organisations. 

Key Takeaways: 

1. Communicate with transparency during periods of rapid AI-driven transformation: Articulate the “why” behind AI adoption, including the benefits and intended outcomes. Be transparent about how AI will be integrated into people processes in order to foster trust, reduce uncertainty and proactively address concerns around job displacement. 
2. Equip managers to lead with empathy in an AI-augmented workforce: Support managers to develop human-centric leadership skills tailored to hybrid teams, comprising both people and AI agents. Encourage empathetic leadership, psychological safety, and a culture of trust, with a focus on outcomes, collaboration, and meaningful contribution.
3. Build future-ready capabilities across the workforce: Focus on developing a combination of human skills, agent skills and business skills. Prioritise unique human capabilities (emotional intelligence, collaboration, critical thinking, adaptability, curiosity), building data literacy and proficiency using AI tools, and skills such as strategic thinking and project management. 
4. Leverage AI-driven workforce planning tools: Invest in intelligent talent development platforms which use AI to identify skills gaps, match employees to internal opportunities, and support dynamic career growth. These tools enable personalised development pathways and agile workforce strategies.

5.      Champion proactive change management and an adaptable culture: HR must act as a strategic partner in guiding organisations through transitions. Build resilience by promoting open dialogue, continuous learning, and empowering teams to adopt new technologies and processes. 

 Julia Paulding 

Hello, you're listening to Peer-to-Peer. I'm Julia Paulding, Chief People Officer at Lewis Silkin. In this podcast, I sit down with senior leaders responsible for people and culture to explore how workplaces are keeping pace with the changing world of work, where we think it's all heading and what we can learn along the way. 

Today, I'm talking to Cathy Temple, Head of Employee Success in EMEA at Salesforce. In this position, Cathy oversees the teams who deliver HR services across the region.

Cathy, it's such a pleasure to have you with us. How are you today?

Cathy Temple 

Hi Julia, I'm very good. It's such a pleasure to be here today.

Julia Paulding 

It's brilliant to have you here. There's so much I'm looking forward to exploring with you - especially the impact of AI driven transformation on the workforce and the role HR leaders can play in shaping this. 

But before we get into that, I'd love to start with your career journey - you've worked at some of the world's leading tech companies: Salesforce, Google, Cloud, Oracle, Microsoft, and that's given you a front-row seat to some of the biggest shifts our field has seen. 

Could you briefly share a few pivotal moments from that journey that really shaped your thinking around people, culture, and the workplace of the future?

Cathy Temple 

So looking back at my career to date, I feel really fortunate that I've had the opportunity to work for major organisations in an industry that has had a profound social impact on the way we work and live. These companies have fundamentally changed how people and businesses operate globally, and they've made technology more accessible and powerful. 

The types of shifts I've had the chance to witness during my career have been first, the democratisation of computing - if you think about a company like Microsoft making productivity software like Microsoft Office accessible to everyone. If you think about information accessibility, Google search making the world's information available to billions through its search engine. If I think about business transformation as well, Salesforce and Oracle have been instrumental in transforming how businesses manage the customer relationship - if you think about our CRM at Salesforce, or data with Oracle's database. 

Finally, I think these four organisations that I've had the chance to work with have also been very critical in the field of philanthropy and social initiatives. All these companies have large-scale charity programmes and social impact programmes, and they provide grant-free technology as well as employee volunteers hours. For example, at Salesforce, we have a 1-1-1 Model where we give 1% of our equity, 1% of our product, and 1% of our employee time to charitable causes. So being in those organisations when at the same time they were themselves going through a lot of challenges and changes, being in HR was an incredible opportunity and an incredible experience, I have to say.

Julia Paulding 

Coming to your current role, I'd love to hear what's the top of your agenda at the moment. 

KEY FUTURE OF WORK ISSUES ON THE HR AGENDA 

Cathy Temple 

If I start first with the changes we've seen in HR in the past few years and how it's got us to where we are today. The first thing we had through the Covid era was the rise of remote and hybrid work and I think this has been a very significant shift in our world of work. Before the pandemic, remote work was really an exception and now, especially with technology, the conversation has changed from ‘can we do this?’ to ‘how can we do this better?’. As we've come back into the office, I think it's also balancing hybrid work with making sure we have the right location strategy as an organisation. I think HR has a really critical place to play in that. 

The second aspect is the focus on culture and employee experience. This is really top of mind for me because the tech industry will always compete fiercely for talent, but the focus has now shifted from just offering very competitive salaries and perks to actually building a very strong and inclusive company culture. We realise our talent wants to understand the purpose of the company, the mission of the organisation. I think this is where HR can also have a huge role to play - thinking about how the onboarding process is conducted, professional development opportunities, but also mental health support, diversity and DE&I initiatives.

The other thing I think for us is the importance of psychological safety for our employees. There's been a lot of research that has been done in our industry around what makes the most successful team and that’s not necessarily the one with the deepest expertise, but actually where the team member felt that there is enough safety to be able to take risks, ask questions, make mistakes and learns from them but also challenges the status quo. I think this has been something that has been really, really important for us as we think about developing team dynamics and collaboration. 

And then finally, obviously, I could not avoid what is really top of mind for us at the moment, which is the integration of AI and automation. What we've seen in the last few months and couple of years is the really rapid advancement of artificial intelligence and automation that is reshaping the jobs and the skills we need for them. Typically, what we've seen at the beginning is an automation to take on repetitive manual tasks but now, if you think about where AI is at, it's capable of handling much more complex cognitive work, such as data analytics, content generation, and code development. I think this is both creating a challenge and an opportunity. The challenge is ensuring that our workforce has the skills to adapt, and work alongside AI. The opportunity is that augmentation and automation is freeing up our teams to focus on high level creative and strategic tasks. But this is not just a technological shift - and I think that's really where the conversation is going - it's also a fundamental change to the nature of the work itself. In that context, the HR role is crucial. We are seeing an interesting challenge where the rate of innovation is sometimes outpacing, Julia, the rate of adoption, and I think that's an immense challenge that the HR function can help to bridge that gap.

HR AS CULTURAL ARCHITECTS OF AI ADOPTION

Julia Paulding 

I absolutely agree, and that's what I'm seeing as well. I wanted to explore that, it won't surprise you, a bit more - it's impossible to have you here and not talk more about AI, especially given your background. It is clearly a front of mind issue for so many employers as well. You've made that great point about how the pace of innovation in AI is outstripping how quickly organisations - and their people - can adopt it. How specifically do you think HR teams should help close that gap and bring employees along on the journey? Are there any practical steps that Salesforce has taken or lessons learned from embedding AI into workflows that you could share with us?

Cathy Temple 

Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I think, as I said earlier, it's not just technology at play, it's also a people conversation. I do believe that as HR leaders, we are also cultural architects, and we are uniquely positioned to be able to manage that change. Some of the fields I think we can absolutely concentrate and focus on that gap is: education and upskilling, communication and change management - which are all critical in any shift that we see - and then also paying attention to culture. 

So, on education and upskilling, one of the things that we do very well at Salesforce is offering accessible training programmes to remove that fear or lack of understanding of what AI is capable of, to sort of help and augment the work that we're doing. For instance, simply providing an AI literacy course that could also cover the core concept as well as the ethical considerations and the practical application to day-to-day roles is really key. We have a training at Salesforce called Trail Guide where every employee in the organisation, regardless of role - whether they are technical, in sales or support functions - we want them to all be Agentforce champions - these are key core concepts around artificial intelligence. 

The second one is I think around communication and change management. I believe that a primary reason for resistance to AI - and we see it in pockets in our organisations or when I discuss it with some of my peers - is a fear. It's fear of job displacement, fear of the unknown. I think HR needs to be very transparent and continuous in its communication strategy. That means articulating clearly the “why” behind AI adoption, how you will improve workflows, how you will free more time to do strategic work and ultimately how both the company and the employee will benefit from that. This is a typical change management scenario where HR, as a trusted partner, can facilitate the dialogue, address concerns and manage expectations. It's about inviting employees to consider what can I do with that free time? What can I do with the help of AI? 

And then finally, the last thing I would say is the cultural shift, which goes back to my point around psychological safety and experimentation. I think it's about creating an environment where our employees are comfortable trying new AI tools without the fear of failure. This, for me, is really important - listening to employee concerns, piloting programmes, co-creating training with the employee workforce. Then also, there’s the role of the leaders – so as HR, coaching our leaders to be on board, trained to communicate their vision effectively and then also equipping managers with the tools to have some of the conversation links to this technological evolution.

SKILLS FOR THE FUTURE WORKPLACE

Julia Paulding 

Thanks so much, Cathy, such great insights - they're really, really helpful. You know, anything AI driven at the moment, it's all around real profound transformation and significant change for people. You've spoken already about some of this, but what is your strategy around properly engaging with the workforce during this transformation, and really making sure that employee voices are heard, and they're supported during these periods of rapid change?

Cathy Temple 

The first thing we're looking at, as I said, is not just about adopting new technology but it's also thinking about how people are empowered to work alongside it. At Salesforce, we've done a lot of research around what we believe are going to be the top skills for the future workplace and in the end, it's a combination of using human skills, agent skills, and also business skills. What I mean by human skills, they are unique human capabilities that are difficult to automate, and which will become more valuable – those are emotional intelligence, effective oral and written communication, critical and creative thinking, adaptability and curiosity, collaboration. Then you've got the agent skills - so the AI skills - that's general AI knowledge, data literacy, and also proficiency of how to use AI tools. Finally, you've got the business skills, which is strategic thinking, project management. The core human skills like communication, collaboration, critical thinking, they've always been important. Whilst we think with AI, the tools that we're using are helping us with presentations, communications, I think there are still going to be those soft skills that are going to be much more valuable attributes in the future workforce.

EQUIPPING LINE MANAGERS TO SUPPORT TEAMS THROUGH WORKFORCE TRANSFORMATION

Julia Paulding 

Thank you so much for that. I think that for me, I'm really interested in the skills that managers are going to need - that's an awful lot for us to get to grips with, as a workforce and as managers. You've broken down the skills piece really well - is there anything that you're helping your managers to have a look at which skills they're particularly going to need and how are you preparing them for this?

Cathy Temple 

Now, this is a really key question because like every change, every transformation, the first line manager plays a critical role in supporting their team in that journey, in that transformation. The key skill that we are focusing on coaching our managers is around empathy and human-centric leadership. So how are they thinking about that psychological safety, wellbeing and that culture of trust? Trust for us as an organisation is number one, and it's trust with our customers, but it's also trust with our employees. In any transformation, that is really important. 

The second one is thinking about how we manage not just by where you are to do the work, but by outcomes. In a hybrid environment, as we’ve seen with the evolution of hybrid work, its important managers assess performance based on results and contribution. The same will be reinforced by AI, so focussing on what is being produced more than how it's being produced. AI and people orchestration - I think we are the last generation of managers purely managing humans. Now, we're going to have that hybrid workforce where alongside humans, managers are going to be managing agents, and that orchestration is going to be really important in thinking about how reskilling and redeployment is happening in terms of the workforce. Communication - in any change management, communication is going to be really important. How are managers equipped with that? And then that culture of continuous learning, you know, that beginner's mindset that we do not have all the answers, but how do we actually continue to learn? I think managers will be very, very critical in encouraging that culture.

BUILDING AN AGENTIC WORKFORCE 

Julia Paulding 

Absolutely fascinating, isn't it? And how do you think that HR professionals can support employees in developing all of these skills? I know that Salesforce has launched some really innovative initiatives in this space - could you share a few examples?

Cathy Temple 

Yes, so the first thing, and I think I referred to it a little bit earlier, is that we have developed a model called the 4Rs, which is how do we design and build a workforce which is agentic by design? The 4Rs cover the following points: the first is redesign. Redesign how the works gets done. That's looking at the existing role, breaking them down into specific tasks, and identify from that, what are the ones that are best done by AI and which ones require human creativity?

The second R is reskilling people. As AI takes over routine tasks, the role of our team is going to change, and this component is to understand what is the training and development that we need to have to make sure our employees acquire those new skills. 

The third R is redeploy - how do we think about creating a flexible workforce, and by freeing people from doing static, repetitive tasks, we can think about how we reassign them to much higher value projects and enable them to adapt to new challenges. 

And then the last one is rebalance - how do we rebalance human and agent work? That's the final step of getting that new equilibrium. So those four Rs is the model that we have and in effect, it's like a strategic guide for the organisation to navigate that integration of AI into the workforce.

CAREER GROWTH OPPORTUNITIES

Julia Paulding 

That's amazing. I've also read somewhere about your Career Connect tool, can you tell us a bit about that?

Cathy Temple 

Yes, so Career Connect is a tool that we're incredibly proud of as an HR function because it is AI powered, so we are ourselves using our own technology. It’s an AI-powered internal marketplace, which is designed to help our employees manage and grow their career within the company. It's a very useful tool for both employees, but also managers and leaders to use. 

So what does it do? Firstly, it helps our employees identify their skill gaps, so it analyses the job that they do, the skills that they have, and will actually pinpoint them to areas of development and training they may need. The second one, which we've got really positive feedback from our teams, is it provides personal recommendations based on your skills, career aspirations, the tools we suggest, and a range of opportunities, including new roles that may be available within the organisation. That talent mapping based on your skills to internal opportunity is automated. So that what does that do? It facilitates internal mobility because employees can think about a career path that might not have been that obvious to them if they were in a certain role, function or team and actually realise that they've got a lot of skills that are transferable to another role. That means we can also do stretch assignment; we can have gigs. For us in HR and for leadership, what it does is we have a centralised view of the skill repository we have in the organisation as well as the opportunities that exist. So for workforce planning, this is an incredible tool that we have.

Julia Paulding 

So you're really using tech to help the human career experience within the organisation. 

Cathy Temple 

Absolutely.

EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE 

Julia Paulding 

I said at the beginning that I really wanted to come back and talk to you about what about the employee experience and it's not just around pay and salaries anymore, employee expectations have shifted. As HR professionals, we know that periods of uncertainty and rapid change can significantly affect an organisation's ability to attract and retain the best people and that can really impact the success of any of our transformation initiatives. 

Are there any pressing challenges that you're currently facing in attracting or retaining the best people? And what strategies do you have in place to address this? Is there anything that Salesforce is particularly doing that you're excited to share?

Cathy Temple 

So, I think that as an organisation, we are known for our progressive approach to company culture and also employee engagement. In these periods of change, like any big transformation, we focus on transparent communication, employee wellbeing, that investment in career growth and development, and also building and fostering a culture of appreciation and resilience.

What we try to do specifically at Salesforce as an organisation is: one, continuing to evolve our flexible working strategy, looking at our hybrid work, recognising that that flexibility is a big driver of employee attraction and retention - so continuing to evolve that and balancing the collaboration needs, the time spent in the office with customers and the mix of both. 

The other thing that we look at, and I mentioned it at the beginning, which is super important for us as an organisation, is our ESG values and how they are embedded into the company strategy, but also what we're doing with our employees. So sustainability is a very important theme for us, and we have very strong initiatives focusing on nature-positive futures, supporting ‘ecopreneurs’ as well as sustainability solutions. Philanthropy, I mentioned earlier, our 1-1-1 Model, equality and accessibility. So that's the first thing around that ESG. 

The other thing that we have is what we call a V2MOM model, and this is around making sure that our vision, values, method, obstacle and measures - a framework that has been developed by our CEO - is cascaded from the top down and gives every employee a voice in terms of our goals and aspirations. I think this is a really important strategy for us as an organisation in helping us with this transformation.

And then finally, I would say employee wellbeing and development. Beyond flexible work, we want to make sure we have a wide range of programmes to support employee wellbeing - mental health is more than ever super important. And career development opportunities - we have a strong focus on leadership development and have a lot of programmes designed to equip managers with the skills that they need to lead, support and engage their teams. I have not mentioned it, but we also have Trailhead, which is a key tool for employee upskilling where we have courses that all our leaders, managers and employees can access.

Julia Paulding 

Thank you. So really what I'm hearing there is maybe in what could be seen as a tech driven world, employee experience is still at the forefront, it's still paramount, it's still the key thing that we need to focus on.

Cathy Temple 

Absolutely. I think if you do not keep your eyes on that, it's really hard to make sure that the organisation follows on the journey with you, so we absolutely want to make sure we keep paying attention to that. 

THE EMERGING TRENDS PEOPLE LEADERS SHOULD BE PRIORITISING

Julia Paulding 

Thank you. Cathy, it's been wonderful to have you here to share your stories and expertise. We so appreciate your time, and we could have spoken for a lot longer. But before I let you go, I'm going to ask you the same question I ask all our guests: if you could pick one emerging trend people leaders should be paying more attention to, what would it be and what should we be doing about it now?

Cathy Temple 

This is a really big theme. Look, we've talked a lot about AI and I think one of the top-of-mind issues that I have, and which we discuss as a leadership team, with our R&D teams and more technical teams is the “why” of ethical and accountable AI in the workplace. I think that's a very big theme and the HR function will also play a role within that - it's not just about AI for efficiency. We are at that critical crossroad where the ethical implications of AI are becoming a core concern for our employees and rightfully so. Thinking about recruitment algorithms, for example, performance management tools and everything in between.

It is really reshaping how we do work and how our people are managed. Employees are becoming more aware and also more vocal about issues such as bias, data privacy, the transparency of how AI driven decisions are being made. So in my mind, it’s not just an IT or compliance issue, it's also a profound people issue. Trust - we talked about trust a lot. If employees don't trust a system that manages their careers, from who gets an interview to who is identified for a promotion, then that trust in the leadership and the company as a whole can be eroded. For me, it’s really important that we continue to pay attention to it. 

What can we do about it? Again, it goes back to transparency in terms of communication. Demystify how AI is used in people processes, making sure that you clearly explain the purpose of each tool, what data it uses, how it informs decisions and the fact that it does not replace human decision-making. Second, we need to have very, very clear ethical guidelines in our AI strategies. That's a cross-functional effort and this is where there needs to be collaboration between teams like HR, legal, IT, and most importantly, our employees. We need to co-create policy that ensures fairness, mitigates bias, and provides a clear channel for feedback on anything we need to address that. And then third, it's about that focus on upskilling and reskilling that we've talked about. The fear of AI replacing jobs is real. You know, as people leaders, we have a responsibility to show our employees how AI can augment their roles, not just automate them. That means we need to invest in training that builds new skills for an AI augmented world. 

For me, when I think about the future, it's about being a human-centric world, it's trust - that new currency in technology - and I would say AI is not a replacement for good leadership, it's actually a tool for better leadership.

Julia Paulding 

This was such a great conversation. Thank you for joining me today, Cathy.

Cathy Temple 

Thank you for having me, Julia. It was pleasure.

Julia Paulding 

A huge thanks for tuning into the Future of Work Hub’s Peer-to-Peer. If you enjoyed today's chat, hit subscribe on your favourite platform. And if you're a senior people leader with thoughts on the future of work, we'd love to hear from you. Until next time, goodbye!