As organizations grapple with an increasing number of routine, administrative tasks that can drain employees’ time, AI is already demonstrating how rapidly it can transform work. There is cautious worry about the effect that AI will have, especially when it comes to the workplace and the perceived threat to high-transactions oriented jobs.
Keeping that in context, the pace with which AI is transforming business productivity and aiding to human efficiency in routine process driven work is remarkable. When embracing these new-age technologies and processes, people (read employees) should welcome and attune themselves to new AI powered work-places and harness these aids for making themselves future-ready.
Be it using a connected device for your personal mobility or having an AI powered chatbot at your workplace answering user queries many factors which must be taken in consideration before AI enabled aids are used in work-place. Probably one of the most important is how your team would react and handle the transition from working without AI to having a AI aided team member to automate administrative tasks.
To build and transform the workforce of the future with this optimal balance of human and machine, we need to engage employees with new modes of education and development that focus on an entrepreneurial mind-set, adaptability and creativity.
Quick Tips – How to prepare and streamline your team for adopting AI in workplace:
- Be an early adopter – Start now by experimenting, learning and understanding more patterns from relevant/connected fields. As marketers quickly have adopted to using mobile-apps & chatbots to improve customer interaction, so can HR functions implement the same for a lot of employee activities. “Catch the train while its steaming up”.
- Effective change management at all levels – Make people understand on how AI works and why one should not feel intimidated. Make them a part of POCs and experiments so as they are familiar with the advancements which happen. Develop and reward Enablers of Technology which would assist in driving the change ahead with their teams.
- New Training Methodology – Create fun and gamified ways of improving communication with coordinated and team-members. Look out for people internally who are ready to embrace this challenge and understand the positivity in the impact.
- Calibrate Recruiting Strategy – Existing people in the organization may know the organization context much better however might lack in skills related to creativity. Organizations must identify candidates who bring creativity, collaboration, empathy and judgment skills to the table and train current workers in these capabilities, hence re-engineering & aligning to current demands & skill development is essential to new recruitment strategy.
- Iterate and Improve Success Definitions – Failure to shift key performance indicators for the current leaders will lead to a delay in the adoption of AI. It will prevent adoption of new skills. New ideas for success should be based on creativity, collaboration and experimentation.
- Elevating & Transforming Roles – With power of automation & getting away from repetitive tasks with help of AI-powered machines; human capital would now have to shift focus from transactional to strategic decision making. Time-constraint being the least of worry now, individuals need to develop their competencies, collaborate with team-members and re-create roles for themselves which in-turn would lead to realizing a higher potential and eventually improving organization’s overall performance.
Conclusion
Artificial intelligence is not the future of the workplace, it is the present and happening today. HR leaders need to experiment with all facets of AI to deliver value to their organization.
A lot of people are anxious about AI and Robotics and the impact on jobs. Their fears have some justification. But paradoxically the rise of machines will place a huge premium on the things which make us human – our emotions and creativity. Machines and AI cannot (yet) replicate emotions and creativity. That is uniquely human; and that is what will become more critical & sought after in workplaces. Similarly, the ‘soft skills’ will become valuable because machines will excel at the ‘hard skills’. Very few of us can compete against AI in data, logic and reasoning. But we are on much surer ground when it comes to compassion, empathy, creativity and collaboration.
Don’t fear the rise of machines. But do hone your creativity and soft skills because that is the way of the future!!