Library

O-HR is invested in using AI in HR in a way that doesn't come at our colleagues' expense.
That's why we run our own in-house research, testing how AI actually performs in Australian HR practice, where it helps, where bias creeps in, and what it means for the people on the other end of it.
This library is where we publish what we find. As well as expressions of curiosity, and a working toolkit for the people building the future of Australian HR practice.

Eighty per cent of AI and data projects fail to achieve their intended goals

10 minutes

AI adoption is the defining conversation in Australian boardrooms right now. The Australian Institute of Company Directors' finding that 80 per cent of adoptions fail to achieve their intended goals should give everyone in those conversations pause. In this article, I share my takeaways from the 2026 AICD Technology Governance Forum, get to the heart of why these programs fail, and put forward the questions board members should be asking to keep their organisation out of the 80 per cent.

Jessie Ivancic

August 11, 2026

HR Leadership

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE

FUTURE OF WORK

When Culture Becomes A Legal Obligation: HR and Risk Executives Reimagining People Governance

10 minutes

Here's a tighter version: Boards are now named in Australia's psychosocial safety and positive duty frameworks. Not implied. Named. That changes what HR needs to bring into the boardroom. For years, HR reporting has given boards lag data: complaint volumes, engagement scores, turnover. Numbers describing what already happened. Under a proactive prevention standard, that's not governance, it's a record of outcomes the organisation was supposed to prevent. I spoke with Jeremy Gledhill, a Certified Practising Risk Manager with 20+ years reporting risk to boards, about this. Risk management has long grappled with the invisible value problem: when mitigation works, nothing happens, and the board sees an absence of harm rather than the work that prevented it. HR has been living that same problem without the language to name it. This piece sets out what board-level people risk governance needs to look like now, and what HR and boards need to build together to meet a standard the law already requires.

Jessie Ivancic

August 11, 2026

Compliance

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE

COMPLIANCE

PSYCHOSOCIAL

HR LEADERSHIP

Can you put AI in a human job? Headlines say yes. Markets reward it. CEOs are betting on it.

18 minutes

In a year of full-time work, a human generates ~1.3m tokens. At current AI pricing, that costs about $9.39. But the calculation is missing three-quarters of the position. Dr Peter Brace PhD, CEO of PsychSafety APAC, AI philosophy lecturer at Swinburne University of Technology, and someone who has spent decades inside the organisations now making these decisions, joined me to examine what firms pioneering the agentic enterprise are actually doing, and what leaders designing the human-machine workforce need to be considering. If your organisation is evaluating AI integration, this one's for you.

Jessie Ivancic

August 11, 2026

Psychosocial

PSYCHOSOCIAL

FUTURE OF WORK

HR LEADERSHIP

We built technology to measure the workforce. Nobody built technology to measure the work of HR.

5 minutes

A headcount and its turnover is not HR. In the same way that a stock count is not a merchandising strategy, and a revenue figure is not a CFO's contribution to the business. The HRIS was built by enterprise software architects applying ERP logic to people. That gave us something genuinely valuable and foundational. It also gave us a technology stack that was never designed to see the most important work HR does. In 2026, foundational is essential, but it's no longer sufficient. I wrote about the gap, why it exists, and why AI might finally be the mechanism to close it. Part two of my series on the evidence problem in HR. If this resonates, subscribe to Intelligent HR, my newsletter on human-led HR leadership in the AI era.

Jessie Ivancic

August 11, 2026

HR Leadership

FUTURE OF WORK

HR LEADERSHIP

HR has never been more valuable. We still haven't proved it.

5 minutes

Here's a tighter version: An HR leader bringing an engagement score to the ELT in 2026 is like a CFO bringing just revenue. We've known this for a long time, and yet here we are. Back in 2006, my old university textbook was already asking whether HR technology could be a genuine source of competitive advantage. Twenty years on, the gap between what HR does and what we can show for it is wider than ever. The history of the profession explains why. Every era, HR took on more strategic weight, but the way we proved our value stayed the same: lag indicators like turnover and engagement scores that miss the work that actually matters. That's an infrastructure problem, not a failure of ambition, and it's exactly why AI's biggest opportunity for HR is making that invisible work visible in real time.

Jessie Ivancic

August 11, 2026

HR Leadership

FUTURE OF WORK

HR LEADERSHIP

What We Measure in HR, and Why the Metrics We Report Up Are Insufficient

2 minutes

Most HR reporting leans on headcount, turnover and engagement scores. They're not wrong, they're just not enough. Turnover is a lag indicator: by the time it moves, the damage is already done. Engagement scores capture sentiment at a single point in time, shaped by whatever happened to be going on that week. Under positive duty and psychosocial risk obligations, HR now needs to spot risk early and act before harm occurs, not report on it after the fact. That means looking past outcomes and sentiment to what's actually happening in practice: where HR effort is going, what's consuming capacity, where complexity and risk intersect, and how consistently processes are being applied day to day. Culture isn't static, it's shaped by thousands of real-time interactions and decisions. The traditional toolkit was built to show what already happened, not what's unfolding right now. This isn't a case for more data. It's a case for visibility into practice and behaviour as they happen, so the full picture of culture and risk is finally in view.

Jessie Ivancic

August 11, 2026

COMPLIANCE

HR LEADERSHIP

FUTURE OF WORK

PSYCHOSOCIAL

A perspective on why you feel unsettled. Are the walls of justice shaking?

4 minutes

Do you feel unsettled? I have been thinking about this collective unease, our culture, and how it interacts with the wider institutions and walls that have long been unquestionable but are now failing in their integrity.

Jessie Ivancic

August 11, 2026

Psychosocial

PSYCHOSOCIAL

Where HR Must Draw the Line on AI: Why HR Needs Navigation, Not Self-Driving Systems

4 minutes

HR doesn’t need self-driving AI. It needs better navigation. Agentic AI in HR shouldn’t mean handing over judgement. It should work like Waze. You know where you’re going. What helps is real-time guidance, risk warnings, and safer routes through complexity. Waze doesn’t decide the destination. It doesn’t drive the car. And it doesn’t carry responsibility for the outcome. That’s how AI should support HR. Reduce cognitive load. Flag risk early. Guide the work. But keep decisions, accountability, and delivery human-led.

Jessie Ivancic

August 11, 2026

FUTURE OF WORK

HR LEADERSHIP

We’re Measuring the Workforce, Not HR

3 minutes

If HR is "data-informed", we should be clear about the data. Workforce metrics measure the workforce. They don't measure HR. Until we start measuring what has to date been invisible and unmeasured, we'll keep asking HR to answer for outcomes it doesn't control. This piece challenges the metrics we've long accepted as proof of our success, and makes the case that what actually shapes those outcomes is finally becoming measurable.

August 11, 2026

HR Leadership

HR LEADERSHIP

The problem isn’t AI. It’s HR tech's answers to it so far.

6 minutes

Most HR technology has been designed to manage employee data, compliance, and automation. That work is critical and valuable. But the practice of HR is different. It is judgment-heavy, risk-sensitive, and deeply human. Investigations, grievances, restructures, performance decisions, and cultural stewardship do not live comfortably inside systems built for enterprise record-keeping. When AI is introduced without a clear, practice-focused model, uncertainty is inevitable. I’ve shared a piece on why HR practice is actually what protects the profession in the AI era, and why this moment is a genuine opportunity for HR to shape how human and machine capabilities work together.

Jessie Ivancic

August 7, 2026

HR Leadership

HR LEADERSHIP

FUTURE OF WORK

Why Employee Relations Cases Are Increasing, And Why HR Feels Harder Than Ever

5 minutes

Fair Work Commission data shows general protections dismissal applications up around 45% year on year, and other general protections matters up almost 91%. Cases now run in parallel and engage overlapping legal risks. The cognitive load on HR teams has climbed, and so has the risk of error. What leaders should be putting in place now.

August 7, 2026

HR Leadership

HR LEADERSHIP

AI is not just Improving Productivity. It is Expanding Capability in Knowledge Work

2 minutes

Harvard Business School and BCG research on generative AI in the workplace reveals something bigger than an AI productivity boost. GPT-4 didn't just speed up knowledge work by 25 percent and lift output quality by over 40 percent, it lifted lower-skilled performers by 43 percent versus 17 percent for experts. AI raises the performance floor faster than it raises the ceiling, and for HR and people leaders, that changes everything about role design, skills frameworks and high-performer dependency. Read how to build AI-enabled capability, not just adopt another tool.

Jessie Ivancic

August 11, 2026

HR Leadership

FUTURE OF WORK

HR LEADERSHIP

RESEARCH

Illustration representing AI supporting knowledge work in a professional setting

AI Is Not Just Improving Productivity. It Is Expanding Capability in Knowledge Work

4 minutes

One of the most important empirical studies on generative AI in the workplace and AI productivity to date is the Harvard Business School and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) working paper Navigating the Jagged Technological Frontier.

Jessie Ivancic

August 11, 2026

HR Leadership

HR LEADERSHIP

At O-HR, we take pride in our commitment to excellence in human resources. As proud members of the Australian Human Resources Institute (AHRI), we stay at the forefront of industry standards and best practices.

South Melbourne (03) 8374 7693 hello@o-hr.com.au

Acknowledgment of country

Aboriginal dot painting artwork in ochre, orange and yellow tones

Eighty per cent of AI and data projects fail to achieve their intended goals

When Culture Becomes A Legal Obligation: HR and Risk Executives Reimagining People Governance

Can you put AI in a human job? Headlines say yes. Markets reward it. CEOs are betting on it.

We built technology to measure the workforce. Nobody built technology to measure the work of HR.

HR has never been more valuable. We still haven't proved it.

What We Measure in HR, and Why the Metrics We Report Up Are Insufficient

A perspective on why you feel unsettled. Are the walls of justice shaking?

Where HR Must Draw the Line on AI: Why HR Needs Navigation, Not Self-Driving Systems

We’re Measuring the Workforce, Not HR

The problem isn’t AI. It’s HR tech's answers to it so far.

Why Employee Relations Cases Are Increasing, And Why HR Feels Harder Than Ever

AI is not just Improving Productivity. It is Expanding Capability in Knowledge Work

AI Is Not Just Improving Productivity. It Is Expanding Capability in Knowledge Work

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