HR Plays Critical Role in Leading Human Side of AI: New Report From McLean & Company

McLean & Company’s new report says 82.2% of organizations and 88.1% of HR teams believe they are human-centric, but only 20% of HR teams consistently assess AI use cases for their impact on human-centricity before implementation. The report offers HR leaders a roadmap for incorporating human-centric practices into work design, decision-making, technology adoption, and service delivery. Separately, the firm’s 2025 HR Trends Report found organizations with executive leaders highly proficient in human-centric competencies were 2.2 times more likely to be high performing at achieving strategic goals.

Analysis

This is a weak, non-investable signal rather than evidence of a new AI spending cycle. The plausible economic channel runs through implementation quality: workforce involvement and clearer governance could reduce employee resistance, failed deployments, and rework, improving realized returns on existing AI budgets. That would favor capable implementation and HR-transformation providers at the margin, but the release provides no evidence of contract wins, budget changes, or paid demand; McLean & Company is an Info-Tech Research Group division, and the article identifies no direct public-market exposure.

The contrarian point is that the reported gap may create consulting and training demand, but it may also reflect survey framing and self-assessment rather than measurable enterprise failure. Near term (days), little basis for a price catalyst. Over 1–3 months, look for procurement evidence, advisory bookings, and enterprise software vendors’ commentary on AI deployment friction. Over 6–18 months, human-centered rollout could support adoption and retention; poorly governed automation could instead produce employee backlash, regulatory scrutiny, and delayed productivity gains. The report’s association between leadership competencies and performance is not proof of causation. The thesis strengthens only if independent evidence shows organizations funding these capabilities and achieving better adoption or productivity; it weakens if AI deployments scale without added governance spend or adoption problems remain immaterial.

Key Decisions for Investors

• No trade on this release alone; avoid treating a research publication as evidence of incremental AI or HR-tech revenue.
• Use enterprise AI and HR software providers, including Microsoft and Workday, as diligence watch items—not as event-driven longs. Seek earnings commentary on adoption, implementation delays, employee use, and spending before changing exposure.
• Monitor HR advisory and AI-governance procurement, disclosed bookings, and measurable deployment outcomes over the next 1–3 months; the article supplies none of these data.
• Falsify the longer-term adoption thesis if enterprise AI usage and productivity improve without increased workforce-readiness investment, or if employee resistance and implementation rework fail to show up in operating metrics.