There seems to be two major views about the impact of the increasing use of AI on the productivity of organisations.
One school of thought suggests that AI can streamline processes and systems, enhance knowledge and skills and generally have a positive impact on productivity.
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The other ays that AI will simply reduce costs by reducing headcount.
Of course this is not a dichotomy or a conundrum. Both can be right at the same time.
Signifiant technological change can often change the nature of an organisation – even an entire sector – in terms of size and shape. The problem is that the actual changes are not always predictable and foreseeable. There are almost always unintended consequences of major change. There are changes to culture, to employee engagement, to employees well-being that happen alongside the intended, major change.
If we can’t predict these consequential changes, we can’t plan for them. But we can observe them as they happen and address them in whatever way is appropriate – without hindering progress on the major change. We can ensure that the organisation is flexible and adaptive. We can have processes and procedures in place to communicate details of changes to the workforce and additional processes and procedures to swiftly address potential conflicts. We can ensure our recruitment and onboarding processes help us create diverse, inclusive, flexible, high performing teams. We can let employees know why the use of AI should improve their work – and their lives.
If we are really clever, we can use AI to monitor what is happening and help us identify any problem areas, any specific successes and any areas of issue. It does this by analysing data from all points of measurement and providing summaries and insights to improve decision-making and future planning.
Now using AI to help solve the problems of AI introduction – we are starting to get smart!!