Balancing a commitment to organizational history with a focus on innovation is no small feat, but it’s one that Elite Technology is doing effectively, according to its CHRO, Diane Holman.

“You don’t see many companies able to sustain through seven decades-plus,” she says. The organization was founded in 1947 and today focuses on financial management and business operations solutions for law firms around the globe.

Holman, who joined Elite at the start of the year, says the company’s decades-deep “customer orientation,” combined with leadership’s willingness to stay agile in the face of change, has it primed for a period of significant growth.

“What we’re trying to do is bring our strong foundation into this new world,” she says, noting that HR will play a crucial role in the work. The function is furthering Elite’s “intentional” investment in talent—with a focus on long-term development—while rolling out a strategic integration of AI and tech, Holman notes, efforts that will continue to deepen the HR organization’s strategic contributions to Elite.

Holman will lean on her extensive HR experience to shape that work. Her nearly four decades in the profession have included HR leadership roles at companies like Personify Health, athenahealth, Capgemini, Wolters Kluwer, Raytheon and GE. Here are her insights on where Elite, and the HR profession, are headed:

HR Executive: How are you evaluating the best ways to bring people and business strategy in line at Elite?

Holman: You can have all the solutions in your toolkit, but it can still be a big miss if you don’t understand the business. You need to know where you’re trying to go—your products and your people. I received feedback early in my career that it’s great to have all the answers, but not if you don’t know the question. Since then, I have operated from the lens that HR has to focus first on the business and the business strategy.

So, in these first 90 days, I’m going to be digging in, listening and learning about where we’ve been, because I need to know that to position us for where we’re going. I’m talking to people, listening to our leadership team, people managers and employees in order to get a holistic perspective. I need to understand how clients see us, how employees do and—because we’re private equity-backed—I have to understand our value creation plan, with clarity for expectations three or four years from now.

HR Executive: Where does AI factor into those conversations?

Holman: AI is a big word. First, we need to understand what it means,  because it means many different things to different people—and that’s important in how we operationalize it within the organization.

In our own shop, the HR team is thinking about how we’re using AI to automate, to simplify and to scale. A priority is resetting our HRIS with an external vendor to create an automated system for employees, bringing in tools so employees have the information they need at their fingertips.

I’m working closely with our CTO and the rest of the leadership team for our overall AI strategy and then thinking about the skills and capabilities we will need from our talent. This needs to be an interaction between our systems and our people. I’m not a believer that AI will wipe out human capital.

HR Executive: What is HR’s mandate for navigating the disruption of AI?

Holman: Over time, there have always been disruptors in organizations, starting back with the Industrial Revolution, though I do think AI is bigger than that. The big danger is if you don’t understand that there’s no one-size-fits-all. You have to understand your business, your clients, the business strategy, where you’re going—and how AI plays into all of that. And it requires an investment upfront. But companies are then saying, “Quick, let’s reduce headcount,” as they anticipate what AI will do for them—without understanding what the reality may actually be. There’s a risk in taking quick action related to your people strategy without understanding where exactly AI is going to enable you to go.

HR Executive: Is AI redefining what it means to be an HR leader today?

Holman: I’ve always said I’m a business leader who just happens to have expertise in culture and talent. I’m business school-trained, and the companies I’ve worked for saw my role as a strategic business leader helping to shape the future of the company. People are now saying that HR has become a strategic business leader, but I’ve always seen that role for us in my career—and maybe I’ve had the good fortune to have been in companies that value this role.

What I do think is different is that we really need to double down. When I look back at my days at GE, Raytheon and Capgemini, the element of change felt like a new thing; but change is the new norm now. Being agile and adaptable is super-critical for HR. We have to flex and morph at a moment’s notice.

Having that business and tech acumen will be super important when it comes to understanding that change and being able to shift. Another piece is making sure you’re building an organization and a culture that is resilient. Change is creating burnout in organizations, and we have to make sure we’re arming our people with the right tools to help.

HR Executive: One year from now, how will you measure your success?

Holman: In the past, HR had been more activity-based, but my markers now are outcome-based. My dashboard is focused on things like the growth of the company, how we’re doing from an organizational health standpoint—and engagement is a good marker of that. We also have to think about what our leaders need, how we ensure they have the skills and capabilities as we move into this world of AI, and then build the elements around leadership capability to assess that.

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