CIPD Midwest Region - Department of Work & Employment Studies

Photo from left to right: Prof Noreen Heraty (UL &CIPD), Bernadette Talty (CIPD), Dr Jill Pearson (UL & CIPD), David Barrett (Welliba), Janet Humphreys (BIM), Dr Lorraine Ryan (UL), Lavinia Ryan (CIPD, Mid-West Region Chair), Caroline Holmes (CIPD), Josephine Butler (CIPD), Maria Gleeson (CIPD), Jessica Kennedy (CIPD)

Dr Lorraine Ryan, Kemmy Business School shared her research findings conducted with Irish organisations and discussed the myths around technology and job displacement and the key challenges of managing  AI at work.  

Janet Humphreys, Chief Risk Officer and Head of ICT at Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM) talked about how crucial it is for organisations to establish strong governance structures and ethical frameworks if they want to unlock AI's full potential while mitigating risks.

David Barrett, CEO and Co-Founder of Welliba, presented the business case for the use of AI in measuring, understanding, and developing people at work and showed how Welliba is utilising AI to generate meaningful outputs for organisations.

Lavinia Ryan, Chair of the Mid-West Region and Dr Jill Pearson, Assistant Professor in Work & Organisational Psychology chaired and emceed the event. 

The main take-away message for the HR practitioners and UL employees in the audience was that they don’t need to be afraid of AI, but they can’t ignore it either. Furthermore, there are great opportunities if it is embraced.