How HR Can Leverage AI with Margo Crawford, Business Sherpa Group

In this episode of the HRchat show, Bill Banham talks with Margo Crawford, Founder & Chair of Business Sherpa Group. Margo is a Canadian expert on small and mid-sized businesses, including leadership, succession, and strategy. She values knowledge sharing and often speaks both as a keynote speaker and panelist for national events. She was named Business Woman of the Year, Women’s Business Network, and HR Professional of the Year by the HR Vision Awards.Questions for Margo include:How can AI-fuelled technologies enhance HR functions within small and medium-sized businesses? As part of your answer, please discuss the potential applications of AI in recruitment, employee engagement, talent management, performance evaluation, and workforce analytics.What are the potential pitfalls of removing humans from many of these processes?Navigating the Ethical Implications of AI Adoption in Canadian SMEs: Please can you provide insights into some best practices for ensuring responsible AI adoption and suggest strategies for mitigating ethical risks in the HR context? (data privacy, algorithmic bias, transparency, and accountability).Preparing the Workforce for AI Integration in Canadian SMEs: Can you share practical tips and strategies for HR professionals to support employees in transitioning to an AI-powered work environment?How will the rise of AI on the workforce particularly impact SMBs? Please include mention of the need for upskilling and reskilling initiatives.You were recently involved with a panel focused on how businesses can build value by navigating business transitions with strong succession planning. Tell us more. More About MargoIn her previous role as President and CEO of the Business Sherpa Group (BSG), she grew BSG to support over 500 small and midsized businesses throughout Canada and internationally by building a team of strategic and operational professionals who provide flexible consulting services in Human Resources, Cloud Based Accounting, Managed Recruitment, and Executive Solutions.Prior to BSG, Margo was co-founder of Meriton Networks, an optical telecom start-up, and was instrumental in building a company with locations around the world, raising over $75M in equity financing and expansion strategies through M&A. Currently, she sits on the Boards of Digital Opportunity Trust, the Ottawa Network for Education and the Canadian Museum of Nature Foundation. She is a member of the ICD Executive Committee – Ottawa Chapter, the Venture Development Committee of Invest Ottawa and the Ottawa Board of Trade SME Council. She mentors several business peer groups and individual CEOs’ who are scaling and transitioning their businesses.We do our best to ensure editorial objectivity. The views and ideas shared by our guests and sponsors are entirely independent of The HR Gazette, HRchat Podcast and Iceni Media Inc.   Support the showFeature Your Brand on the HRchat PodcastThe HRchat show has had 100,000s of downloads and is frequently listed as one of the most popular global podcasts for HR pros, Talent execs and leaders. It is ranked in the top ten in the world based on traffic, social media followers, domain authority & freshness. The podcast is also ranked as the Best Canadian HR Podcast by FeedSpot and one of the top 10% most popular shows by Listen Score. Want to share the story of how your business is helping to shape the world of work? We offer sponsored episodes, audio adverts, email campaigns, and a host of other options. Check out packages here.Follow us on LinkedInSubscribe to our newsletterCheck out our in-person events