'If you can solve the business problem, you solve the HR problem,’ says Nicki Sabapathy
Radical personalization is no longer a perk - it’s a pressure point as HR leaders adapt to a workforce with vastly different needs. With five generations working side by side, standardized benefits and rigid policies may not be as effective as they once were.
Many employees now expect choice - whether that means routing healthcare funds to orthodontics or pet bereavement or deciding how and when to take time off.
The more tailored the experience, the harder it becomes to scale. Nicki Sabapathy, CHRO at Georgian, describes the solution as “guardrails, not bureaucracy.”
Her approach centres on structured flexibility: “No matter what you do, a one-size-fits-one is really the way you want to think about it,” she says.
Still, Sabapathy is blunt about the trade-offs: “You’ll never get it right. There’s always another crank that you’ll have to make.” The goal isn’t uniformity - it’s fairness that flexes.
With tools like machine learning taking over hiring and performance reviews, Sabapathy sees a looming risk of sameness, where company cultures blend into algorithmic neutrality.
"Everything is going to start to come together, right?" she says. "They're going to mould together; they're going to start to look very similar."
The only way to counteract that is by leaning harder into what makes a company unique. For Georgian, a venture capital firm, that differentiator is its AI Lab, with one-third of its employees focused on AI and R&D.
While some leaders are still hesitant about AI and HR, Sabapathy warns that the real risk is inaction.
"There are folks that are really keen and are going all in on the AI front, and then there are people that are still proceeding quite cautiously," she says. "But standing on the sidelines is not going to help in any way."
To jump in responsibly, she urges companies to build the proper safeguards. Chief among them is protecting sensitive employee data.
"You're putting personal, private information into ChatGPT, or any AI tool. How is it housed?" she asks. "Where is that going?"
For Sabapathy, this isn't just a tech issue - it's a sign of how HR's role is evolving. HR leaders need to be trusted partners in strategy, not just compliance. That means understanding the business inside and out.
"You've got to know: ‘What are we in the business of? How does the company make money?’" she says. "That is understanding. And how do you help influence the business strategy aligned to that?"
Her goal isn't simply to have HR represented at the executive table - it's to have HR leading the conversation.
"You've got to be the first phone call from the CEO," Sabapathy says. "If you can solve the business problem, you solve the HR problem. The HR problem will get solved once you can solve the business problem."
That level of influence demands a shift in how HR thinks. Too often, teams build programs without testing whether they'll solve anything.
"Sometimes we build programs without actually testing if it's going to solve what's required," she says. "We're trying to solve the problem on our own, without really thinking about who our users are."
That user-centric thinking, combined with strategic risk-taking and radical personalization, is at the core of how Sabapathy sees the future of HR. The only question, in her mind, is who's moving fast enough to keep up.
