Seven in 10 South African C-suite leaders now put AI at the top of their return-on-investment agenda, but their HR teams are not following through. Mercer's 11th Global Talent Trends report shows only 41% of HR departments are redesigning work to capitalize on AI, leaving a 30-percentage-point gap that is nearly double the global disconnect between executives and the people function. Meanwhile, 65% of South African workers say they would forfeit a 10% pay increase for meaningful AI upskilling.
That willingness comes from a workforce that sees AI as a productivity booster-83% say they are more productive with access to AI tools-and 78% trust their employer to teach them the skills to stay relevant. Yet only 41% feel they are thriving at work, and 53% worry their skills will become obsolete. As many as 74% are wary of AI-enabled surveillance, a figure that should shape how leaders introduce monitoring tools.
The execution risk of top-down AI decisions
When the people team is not in the room, executives set the AI agenda and HR inherits the consequences. By the time HR is brought in to execute boardroom decisions, roles, skills, and jobs are already on the line. Pilot programmes stall because the work itself-who does what, with which tools, and how tasks flow-is rarely redesigned with the teams that do the work. The result, Mercer notes, is that companies never realize the productivity gains they budgeted for.
A 20-point trust gap compounds the problem. While 88% of South African executives believe their organization places the right amount of trust in employees, only 68% of employees feel colleagues trust one another. Introducing AI-enabled monitoring into that climate risks being read as evidence that trust is missing, not as support for better work.
Three moves to close the ambition-strategy gap
First, HR must help build the AI business case from day one. Boards that genuinely rank AI as a top ROI priority should integrate work design, skills planning, communication, and safeguards directly into technology budgets. When executives sideline HR to simply execute decisions, pilot programmes fail to launch. For organizations to close this 30-point gap, AI for Executives & Strategy must be woven into workforce planning from the outset.
Second, work must be redesigned before tools are purchased. Mapping real processes with frontline teams exposes the steps and informal practices that make or break automation. Employees who help re-engineer their own workflows drive adoption, because they see where human judgment and machine tasks should meet. Only 41% of HR teams are prioritizing work redesign-a deficit that underscores the urgency of embedding AI for Human Resources into digital transformation efforts.
Third, leaders need to confront surveillance directly. Clear policies on how AI tracks productivity, transparent communication, and a genuine route for staff to challenge automated outcomes preserve the trust employees have shown. As the World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs 2025 projection makes clear-59 in every 100 workers will need reskilling by 2030-workforce cooperation is not optional. Sneaking in monitoring under the radar destroys it entirely.
Why this matters for executives and strategy
The South African data shows a workforce ready to move with technology, not resist it. Employees are signaling they will invest their own earning potential in AI skills, yet organizations are not matching that commitment. Executives who skip work redesign and over-rely on surveillance will see expensive AI systems fail to deliver. Boards that align infrastructure investment with human strategy-getting HR into the room early, mapping real workflows, and setting clear boundaries on monitoring-will get the productivity that the C-suite's ROI projections depend on. The 30-point gap is not a HR problem; it is a strategy problem measured in lost adoption, stalled pilots, and wasted budget.
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