How will AI change the workforce?

The future of work

The future of work is approaching rapidly, particularly the future of work ‘coated’ with AI. The societal shock will be no less impactful than the arrival of the loom or the personal computer. Consequently workers are anxious. CEOs are unsure how to move. The senior team is looking towards the CHRO for answers. For the CIO this presents an opportunity become a c-suite-grade Chief Information Officer.

AI’s impact on business

AI has the potential to turbo-boost organisations. Imagine your organisation is using AI to do all process-related work and quite a bit that was once considered beyond automation, such as:

• Writing and testing maintainable software

• Arranging travel itineraries

• Tattooing and body art (not every organisation)

• Patient care.

We should all, perhaps, sleep with one eye open. AI is a powerful tool. But beware, integrating a powerful engine into an old car leads to:

• Warping of the structure

• Control difficulties

• A wiring nightmare.

  
  

So it’s not a simple case of ‘simply add AI’.

AI and the workforce

Corporate talent is nervous – “Is the writing on the wall for my skillset?”. Will roles such as heart surgeon, High Court judge, professional footballer and hospitality operative go the way of the typist.

The essay ‘How to Survive the AI Shock’ in Foreign Affairs journal highlights the statistics that might well make any employee feel nervous:

• Amazon announcing the elimination of at least 14,000 jobs

• Verizon, over 13,000 jobs

• Meta, 8,000 jobs

• Bank of America, 4,000 jobs.

The culling of staff is almost becoming fashionable.

A recent article on the BBC website, highlighted that there are signs that it is not AI as a technology that is eliminating many jobs, but AI as a smokescreen. ‘AI washing’ is an emerging practice where AI is used as an excuse to massively reduce headcount. Not because AI will now do their jobs, but because their business model is failing.

HR needs to manage its internal communications with great care, as anxious people are not productive workers. Similarly, as the Foreign Affairs piece points out, governments need to put policies in place to reflect a world where there is likely to be a lag between AI-fuelled job destruction and the associated job creation.

The impact of AI on employees will be profound, but the bigger issue is perhaps the organisation design issue that is causing corporations to use it to cover for radical cost management.

How AI will change work

Consider the 5Ds:

• Dirty

• Dangerous

• Demeaning

• Difficult

• Discriminatory.

AI, and its canned equivalent, robotics, lends itself to taking on such roles. There will be those that oppose this because with high risk comes high reward. The sewer worker may well feel they are getting a good return on their labour, but part of their remuneration should be considered an apology for the life-shortening impact of spending your career under continuous stress.

Taking the human out of such roles has to be a good thing.

What jobs will AI replace?

Harvard Business School explored the impact of AI on jobs and concluded that AI is more likely to augment existing roles than eliminate them. You can explore how vulnerable your role is here.

Will AI replace knowledge workers?

It depends on your definition of knowledge worker, which was originally defined as work that involved using your head rather than your hands. You cannot consider yourself AI-immune just because you spend your day living in a spreadsheet or an enterprise application. However your stay of execution could be considerably extended if you learn how to use AI in a manner that supports these tools.

But what of those at the creative end of knowledge work such as writers, graphical designers, technical architects and food stylists? AI learns fast and is coming after everyone’s role. But at the same time people are becoming more adept at detecting the lack of a soul in AI-produced content. But we cannot rule out AI learning how to replicate vulnerability, a tortured life and an implied path to mastery.

A transformation within a transformation

We need to remember that the transformational journey of talent management and work is happening within a wider transformation driven by increasing disruption, multiple major and coinciding economic phase changes and the emergence of the post-industrial era.

Thus government policy makers and industry leaders need to keep sight of the wheels within which the AI and world of work wheels are turning.

The post-industrial transition in particular is significant. It represents a move from order, process and automation to precarity, chaos and innovation. The traditional factory /’sausage machine’ architecture worked well through the industrial era. Today we need something more akin to a living system.

Living systems require organisational intelligence, the ability to sense, decide and act in real-time. These traits are critical to avoiding existential failure. Intelligent organisations nurture them accordingly.

Human and AI collaboration

In an increasingly chaotic world, the ability to innovate is crucial. The fuel for innovation is cognition. And AI is an emerging ‘oil field’ in this respect. But artificial cognition is only one half of the formula. Natural cognition, ie people, have a lot to offer in respect of cognitive capital. The HBS research suggests as much.

Advisory firm, BCG, echoes this perspective in their article, 'AI Will Reshape More Jobs Than It Replaces'. Over the next few years, as the title suggests, AI will be more about reshaping jobs than replacing them.

Preparing your workforce for AI

Leaders would be wise to start the process of developing AI competence within the workforce. There will be some in the HR space who will conclude that this is great news as it represents an opportunity to:

1. Embark on a major role re-architecture programme

2. Find a capable learning partner

3. Sheep dip the staff.

   
   

This will not end well if the structural and systemic issues associated with having an industrial era organisational architecture are not addressed. Fundamentally these three steps will not lead to an adaptive organisation, ie one optimised to adapt in tandem with an accelerating reality.

Creating an AI-empowered workforce is an important element of this. But is not enough in itself to navigate an increasingly disruptive world.

Welcome to the gym

I have studied the work of many forward-thinking organisations and the common feature they share is that they treat people humanely. Less ‘cogs in the machine’ and more cognitive athletes whose creativity is harnessed and applied to solving real-world challenges.

This would explain the seemingly counter cultural move of enforcing a return to the office. It is not because they enjoy letting employees know who is boss, but because they regard the workplace as a cognitive gymnasium, where cognitive athletes work out with other high performers to develop their capabilities, whilst benefiting the organisation. A win-win.

With this model, leaders / managers become cognitive coaches, helping their athletes to achieve both corporate and personal goals. The smart coaches recognise that they themselves must retain their cognitive athlete capability. Such is the nature of the gig economy.

Trust is the fundamental ingredient in making this work.

In summary

AI is here and it is changing business and society. We don’t quite know how it will play out, but it is safe to say that it will have a seismic impact. Intelligent organisations will take a proactive approach that is less humans versus AI, and more humans AND AI.