About

In 2023, Rolls-Royce faced a critical crossroads: every division in the company was heading toward a major skills shortage. To solve it, the organization didn't just recruit; they fundamentally redesigned how work happens.

In this session, Stuart Evans, Director of Future of Work & Digital Employee Experience at Rolls-Royce, details the enterprise-wide transformation that helped drive a surge in share price and explores how one of the world’s most iconic engineering firms solved a looming skills crisis through radical talent agility, introducing the concept of Agentic AI, a framework used to determine which work components are best suited for automation and which require uniquely human creativity and complex problem-solving.

Stuart will share the "Rolls-Royce Story" of consolidating 14,500 engineers into a single, agile enterprise function, effectively solving recruitment gaps overnight by mapping transferable skills across traditional silos. The discussion will touch on the three-year journey that moved beyond traditional HR and IT boundaries to treat "work" as a singular, strategic asset rather than a divided responsibility. During the session, Stuart will challenge the prevalent "keeping work human" narrative, arguing that the ship has already sailed.