Earlier this year, I attended a conference of Fortune 500 executives, where the topic inevitably turned to AI’s potential to transform the workforce. But when asked, “How many of you are actually starting to do this?”, only one executive (from a leading Technology player) had a specific response. She said the company had deployed AI chatbots to respond to routine employee queries. AI automation now handles some 3,000 inquiries monthly, at a cost of 25 cents each instead of the $1.75 that the company was spending when HR professionals were fielding inquiries. Those professionals, as a result, can devote their time and talents to work better suited to their human skills and expertise.
That example is emblematic of the way all of us in the business world should be thinking about how to integrate AI into our organizations. We need to focus on the work that generative AI and other forms of artificial intelligence can truly automate, even as we carefully consider the impact on workers.
Recent research shows that AI will impact 300 million jobs globally, but that within those jobs only 25% of the tasks are likely to be automated. In other words, it’s not roles and positions per se that will be eliminated; it’s some of the tasks and activities within those roles that might benefit from AI and automation.
Determine which work is best suited to AI
Thinking that AI can replace jobs wholesale is a mistake that could cost organizations dearly in the long run. As someone who has studied, designed and led organizational change for three decades, I know that the introduction of new technologies is nothing new — even if the pace of AI-driven change is like nothing we’ve seen before. I also know that, if not done carefully and humanely, workforce transformation can be so traumatic and disruptive that it undermines whatever goals a business aims to achieve.
Our firm recently conducted a study with an outside research organization, surveying 1,100 business leaders in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific in companies of at least 1,000 employees. The survey found considerable optimism about AI’s potential for driving growth and productivity. Nearly 8 in 10 respondents predicted that the technology would make their workforce more productive by the end of this year.
Use data to inform data-driven change
Time will tell whether that’s a realistic expectation. There is a growing concern that the benefits of AI are a mirage and the industry is in a bubble. I don’t buy this. What’s clear is that big transformational change is coming. The trick will be to do it right by carefully considering which types of work are ripe for AI automation and its impact on workers. A crucial first step is to carefully assess your organization’s own data to understand what work people are actually doing on a day-to-day basis and how that contributes to the value chain. Only with this analysis can you accurately assess the types of work that are suited to automation.
No matter the job, the prime candidates for automation are administrative tasks — the repetitive, mundane stuff that distracts us from our real work.
Be realistic about time
Keep in mind, too: Time is one of the biggest factors in AI-driven workforce transformation.
I don’t mean only the speed of whatever work AI is automating. We must almost consider how time influences planning and decision making as we identify the work and workers affected by AI. Too often, time is only implicit in organizational planning. We now need to make time explicit.
Take, for example, the timing of hiring a new employee for an AI-driven departmental overhaul. Maybe you’re looking to bring in someone with relevant AI skills. But how long, realistically, might it take to find and train this new person? The recruiting, screening and hiring process could easily take 90 days or more. And then it will very likely be several months before your new employee can work independently.
Empower your workforce
Rather than looking at AI workforce transformation as something planned from on high, we must see it as an opportunity to democratize productivity improvement. After all, the more human brains you have solving a problem, the better the solution. Well-planned change can bring workers into the process. That’s what an international supermarket chain did 3 years ago when it adopted a new type of payroll software. As a result, it was no longer necessary to have payroll staff in each store, this was after years of disruptive and difficult organizational change. Rather than eliminate the 1,000 or so employees affected, the company spent nine months retraining those workers and placing them in new roles within the organization.
Reskilling for higher-value work
In our survey, 25% of respondents said the main reason for investing in AI is to enable their workforce to focus on higher-value tasks. And 26% said they want to help their workers prepare for the expected impact of AI.
At our company, we’re including employees in the AI transition. We’ve provided each of them with Microsoft Copilot, which uses large language models and our organization’s own data to increase user productivity with apps such as Word, Excel, Outlook and Teams. We’ve also provided training on how to make the best use of this AI tool.
And we’ve told our employees: Here’s AI. You don’t want your bosses to decide which parts of your work should be automated. Put it to use to make yourself more effective at your job. After all, isn’t that what the best workforce transformations are all about?
Oliver Shaw, CEO of Orgvue
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