In the HR Engage Podcast episode 19, host Jonathan Mamaril sits down with Josh Campbell—an 18-year HR veteran who moved from safety compliance into human resources and now leads HR for a Brisbane-based EV charging technology company. The conversation navigates career evolution, the rise of AI, practical automation examples, the enduring power of storytelling, and what it will take for HR professionals to thrive in a rapidly changing landscape.
From Safety to HR: A Career Built on People and Process
Josh’s path into human resources began in safety and compliance, a place where processes and rules dominate. That early experience, however, framed a different obsession: behavioural safety. Instead of relying solely on rule books, Josh focused on why people behaved the way they did—and how to influence that behaviour to improve safety and business outcomes. This curiosity about human systems and processes naturally translated into HR.
Over 18 years Josh has worked across retail, hospitality and now high-tech. Retail, he explains, is where HR professionals “cut their teeth”: high-stakes environments, relentless metrics and no room for passengers. Those early career lessons—commerciality, accountability, and the ability to connect day-to-day people work to business results—became transferable superpowers in later roles.
Recognising and Using Your Superpowers
Josh frames his own “superpowers” as a combination of understanding people, mapping processes and improving systems. He compares this to his early interest in electrical engineering: the impulse to take things apart to understand them, but focused on human systems rather than circuits. That combination—people + process thinking + commercial awareness—has been central to his effectiveness across industries.
Two Big Forces Reshaping HR: Sociological Shifts and Technology
Josh identifies two major trends redefining HR:
- Sociological change: Shifts in values around work—remote work, flexibility and expectations—mean candidates and employees prioritise different things than they did a decade ago.
- Technological acceleration: Ubiquitous internet, mobile attention spans driven by social platforms, and the advent of large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT are changing how people access information and how work gets done.
Together, these forces create a “one-two punch”—changing what people want from work, and changing the tools HR professionals can use to deliver it.
AI: Threat, Opportunity or Both?
Josh offers a balanced and pragmatic view: AI will not simply replace HR, but it will reshape which HR professionals thrive. He gives a practical, tiny-but-powerful example: using ChatGPT to build an automated system that queries HRIS data and sends Microsoft Teams messages every morning with upcoming employee birthdays and anniversaries. What would traditionally take data exports, spreadsheets and calendar invites was prototyped and delivered in under an hour.
That anecdote crystallises Josh’s point: AI allows practitioners to convert thought-bubbles into reality fast. The people who embrace that possibility can unlock time and scale their impact. Those who ignore it risk being outpaced.
“AI won’t replace HR professionals – but those who don’t embrace it will be left behind.”
Real Risks: Hallucinations, Privacy and Misinformation
But adoption is not risk-free. Josh warns about two specific problems already surfacing:
- Hallucinated legal advice: Employees and managers increasingly rely on AI outputs—sometimes to defend positions in employment disputes. When LLMs generate incorrect employment law guidance with confidence, it becomes a new layer of complexity for HR to address.
- Privacy and data leakage: Casual usage of AI tools with confidential employee data could lead to serious breaches. Practitioners must assume that anything put into some public or semi-public AI service could be exposed.
Those issues mean HR teams need governance and literacy around AI: understand what the tool can and can’t do, validate outputs, and control what data is fed into models.
The New Balance: Automate Admin, Prioritise Humanity
One of Josh’s central prescriptions is straightforward: automate the repetitive, time-consuming tasks so HR people can focus on what technology cannot replicate—the human nuances, the one-to-one conversations, the storytelling and influence that drive change. He believes AI will free HR coordinators and advisers from administrative grind and enable them to act as true business partners.
- Automate contract drafting, reminders and routine communications.
- Use AI to distil survey verbatims into actionable manager insights rather than raw word clouds.
- Protect privacy and use anonymised data where possible.
Doing this, Josh argues, unlocks time to build deeper relationships with leaders and teams—time that can be spent influencing strategy and guiding change.
Storytelling: The Human Skill AI Can’t Replace
Even as AI accelerates, Josh is adamant that storytelling remains the most important skill for HR. Data tells a story, but it is emotion that changes behaviour. The craft of turning analytics into a compelling narrative that moves leaders and triggers decisions is the differentiator between being ignored and getting a seat at the table.
“It’s not what you say, it’s how you make people feel.”
For early-career HR professionals, Josh recommends mastering the art of storytelling: read data, understand the narrative it presents, and craft a message that evokes emotion and compels action. That is how HR earns strategic relevance.
How to Become a Change Maker (and Why You Can’t Do It Alone)
Josh rejects the myth of the lone change maker. Change requires a guided coalition—a group of people who share dissatisfaction with the status quo and a willingness to act. HR practitioners must build trust, connect with leaders, and create the business case for change. If change is the goal, HR must be in the room where decisions are made; if HR is content with transactional admin, stepping back from strategy may be acceptable, but it is a deliberate choice.
Practical actions to build a coalition:
- Map stakeholders and their motivators.
- Use data to tell a clear, emotionally resonant story.
- Identify early adopters among leaders and pilot initiatives with them.
- Demonstrate commercial benefit quickly to earn more influence.
Practical Advice: What HR Teams Should Do Today
Josh’s concrete recommendations for HR teams focused on navigating the AI era:
- Experiment rapidly: Prototype small automations (e.g., reminders, templated letters) and measure their time savings.
- Validate outputs: Treat AI as an assistant, not an oracle. Review and amend AI-generated content, especially for legal or sensitive matters.
- Protect data: Build simple policies: no confidential employee data into public AI tools; use anonymised datasets for analytics.
- Invest in storytelling: Turn analytics into compelling narratives that draw leaders in and secure that seat at the table.
- Upskill intentionally: Learn how AI works, where it adds value, and how to prompt it effectively—this is now a practical competence.
Josh stresses that upskilling is not optional for those who want to be change makers. He notes that he personally achieved more progress in the last 12 months by adopting AI tools than in the previous decade—largely because he treated AI as a lever to amplify impact.
Warnings and Cultural Considerations
Josh raises several warnings HR leaders should take seriously:
- Beware of complacency: waiting for vendors to add AI features means missing early opportunities to unlock time.
- Avoid misusing AI in ways that damage trust (for example, feeding identifiable employee data into models).
- Prepare for misinformation: people will defend AI-generated positions that are factually wrong, and HR must be ready to unpick those conversations without escalating conflict.
Resources and Cultural Touchstones
Alongside the practical advice, Josh recommends cultural and professional resources that influenced him:
- TV: Severance—praised for its care and precision in exploring the boundaries between work and personal life.
- Movie: The Martian—for its problem-solving spirit and sarcastic resilience (a model for HR pragmatism).
- Book: Chief Maker by Greg Leighton—a ten-year-old title Josh credits for helping him think about earning a seat at the executive table.
Final Takeaways: Embrace Tools, Keep the Human
Josh’s message is a practical synthesis: adopt the tools that free you to do higher-order human work, and double down on the uniquely human skills—storytelling, relationship-building, empathy and influence. Technology will accelerate workflows and change role definitions. HR professionals who use AI responsibly to automate the routine will find more time to cultivate the deep human connections that actually move organisations forward.
“If you’re okay with where you’re at, that’s fine. But if something is eating away at you—that urge to be better—use the tools, learn fast, and build your coalition. That’s how you become a true change maker.”
Action Checklist for HR Leaders
- Audit repetitive HR tasks and shortlist candidates for automation.
- Run a small AI pilot (e.g., automated reminders, survey analysis) and measure outcomes.
- Create clear AI/data usage policies focused on privacy and validation.
- Train HR teams on storytelling techniques—turn analytics into compelling narratives.
- Map and engage a guiding coalition of leaders who will partner on change initiatives.
Closing
Josh Campbell’s perspective is a call to pragmatic action: HR should not fear AI nor worship it. Instead, the profession should harness AI as a force multiplier for human-centred work. By automating the mundane, protecting privacy, validating outputs and mastering storytelling, HR can transform from transactional admin to strategic change maker—earning that seat at the table and using it to shape the future of work.
