Judith Wiese, board member and chief people and sustainability officer at Siemens AG, cautioned that Germany will lose 15-20% of its workforce over the next decade due to demographics. And this is why India is “central” to Siemens' strategy of a capability hub.
In an exclusive interaction with Mint, Wiese assuaged fears of AI-led layoffs, marked out workplace shifts since the pandemic and spoke on how data centres do guzzle energy, but that challenge needs to be dealt with responsibly.
After the pandemic, the world now faces a different kind of disruption, driven largely by AI. What are the biggest workplace shifts you’re seeing?
Some things have stayed since covid, particularly hybrid work. In India and China, more employees prefer working from the office. In other regions, hybrids remain common. What has fundamentally changed is the speed of AI adoption. Generative AI is a completely different ballgame.
Is there a concern that AI could leave parts of the workforce behind?
Companies need both to stay competitive and so do people. The shelf life of skills has shrunk dramatically. In technology, it may be five years, sometimes even less. That means learning must become continuous. AI does disrupt tasks. But it also democratizes knowledge.
With the right systems, we can personalize learning in seconds — suggesting adjacent career paths, new skills, and development journeys. If companies invest in their people and people invest in themselves, AI becomes an opportunity, not a threat.
How does Siemens use AI internally?
Everyday AI includes tools that boost productivity. Research suggests tools like Microsoft Copilot can save about 27 minutes per employee per week. We don’t use that to eliminate roles; we reinvest the productivity into growth.
In our factories, we deployed an industrial copilot. It was meant to save time for maintenance engineers — and it did. But it also elevated technicians. Junior staff can now solve problems using AI guidance that previously required escalation. It builds confidence and pride. It’s less about entire jobs disappearing — and more about tasks evolving.
You’ve also moved toward skill-based hiring. How does that work?
We receive around 4 million applications a year for 30,000-40,000 openings. Without technology, we couldn’t manage that scale.
Instead of focusing only on job titles, we break roles into skills. In India, especially for software development roles, we use coding tests and AI-supported early interview rounds. The system can ask follow-up questions dynamically based on responses. We always worry about AI bias, but humans are very biased too. Skill-based approaches actually reduce bias.
What roles do you see fading out because of AI?
It’s rarely an entire role – it’s specific tasks. Take software development: AI can now handle 15% to 60% of base coding, depending on the role. The key question is what you do with the productivity gain. You can either pocket it or reinvest it into growth. At Siemens, we reinvest. Predictable, repetitive tasks will increasingly be automated. But augmentation where AI enhances human capability is equally powerful.
Siemens has operations globally, facing very different demographic realities. What do you think about workforce mobility?
Germany will lose 15-20% of its workforce over the next decade due to demographics… The big demographics are going to hit German companies, including ourselves. That means that a country like Germany is very interested in bringing in skilled labour.
We have two options - hiring people from countries like India so that we can take them elsewhere in the world where we're under demographic pressure or shift work and get it done here. We have been doing the latter in the last few years. I think it's very important that with big growth markets like India and other geographies, we actually bring capabilities into the country and become more of a local for local, local for global company - export it back to the world.
India is central to our strategy — not just for serving the Indian market but also as a global capability hub.
How do you manage a multi-generational workforce with different expectations?
I think generational differences are often overstated. Across generations, people want psychological safety, meaningful work, development, belonging, and fair pay. That hasn’t changed. Gen Z, in particular, is digitally fluent and extremely helpful in accelerating AI adoption. In India, where digital savviness is already high, this is even more pronounced. The fundamentals remain: Can I learn? Do I belong? Does my work contribute to something meaningful?
What is the company’s take on work being done for clients with data centres when there is so much discussion on their impact on the environment?
On data centres, which are energy-intensive, the conversation is nuanced. The data centres consume energy, but their net impact can be positive if we design infrastructure responsibly. We work closely with data centre customers on energy efficiency, cooling optimization and resource management.
What are the two biggest workforce challenges ahead?
First, scaling AI adoption while ensuring continuous reskilling. Second, strengthening resilience. It’s not just about technical skills — it’s about learning how to learn, critical thinking, adaptability. Leadership plays a crucial role. Where managers embrace AI and encourage experimentation, adoption accelerates. Technology is evolving faster than mankind has ever experienced. That can be unsettling. But if we focus on resilience and relevance, it’s also a tremendous opportunity.