Transforming the Workplace with AI: Key Considerations
The use of AI will undoubtedly transform workplaces.
In a recent poll by the FT, 65% of companies were researching and exploring AI use cases, and the Financial Services Skills Commission’s 2024 report has highlighted that the sector will be particularly affected by AI and be more exposed to AI than other sectors.
Whilst we are still in the early stages, it’s never too late for organisations to contemplate how our workplaces can become the best possible environments for employees to be as productive as they can be. There's a growing body of research that provides useful insights for some of the key factors to consider.
Unleash the power of interactions
Navigating this next phase of technological transformation requires the best possible conditions to be in place.
Research by Alison Reynolds and David Lewis has identified that a key barrier for positive interactions at the workplace are those bad habits that formed over time, that would otherwise enable organisations to adapt and innovate.
Creating an environment that is high on psychological safety and cognitive diversity ('generative environment') removes these barriers to allow organisations to adapt and innovate in a complex, uncertain, and volatile environment.
Design work for wellbeing
The use of AI will result in the need to re-think how we organise work. We should ensure the availability of good work, that is interesting, meaningful, and provides employees autonomy and opportunity for achievement.
E Kelly and L. Kubzansky at Harvard have advocated that the nature of work itself is a more powerful tool for ensuring healthy and productive workplaces than any wellness programme. They have identified the following approaches as a good starting point:
Giving workers more control over how they do their work
Allowing more flexibility about when and where they work
Increasing the stability of workers’ schedules
Provide opportunities to identify and solve workplace problems
Ensuring adequate resources, so workloads are reasonable
Foster social belonging
The CIPD’s Good Work Index and Employee Engagement evidence review, highlights the outcomes of an engaged and motivated workforce, notably greater satisfaction, improved wellbeing, and an upturn in performance.
Develop empathetic leadership
Creating empathy is a key skill for driving sustainable organisational performance and needs to be prioritised.
The Financial Services Skills Commission 2024 report has identified empathy as one of the 13 future skills for which demand has increased in the last year. Adaptability and empathy are two skills for which there is the highest gap between demand and supply.
In the finance sector, there are already examples of organisations that have started to develop empathy in their people leaders.
In summary, maximising the benefits from the use of AI technologies within organisations, should go hand in hand with creating healthy and productive workplaces allowing a whole person's capacity to show up and contribute.
Do you see the benefits from incorporating the above in your planning to create the productive and healthy workplaces of the future?
Resources
https://hbr.org/2017/03/teams-solve-problems-faster-when-theyre-more-cognitively-diverse
https://workwellbeinginitiative.org/resources