A recent survey by Upwork Inc., one of the world’s biggest online freelance worker marketplaces, found that while 96% of C-Suite leaders said they expected AI to boost productivity, 77% of employees reported that AI had “added to their workload” and half said “they have no idea how to achieve the productivity gains their employers expect.”
Employee respondents said they were spending more time learning how to use AI, reviewing or moderating AI-generated content, and generally “being asked to do more work as a direct result of AI.”
The stress and added burden were so great, that one in three full-time employees admitted they were likely to quit their jobs.
Upwork Research Institute managing director Kelly Monahan said employers are trying to force new technology into old workplace cultures without the necessary supports and systems.
“Our research shows that introducing new technologies into outdated work models and systems is failing to unlock the full expected productivity value of AI,” Monahan said. “While it's certainly possible for AI to simultaneously boost productivity and improve employee well-being, this outcome will require a fundamental shift in how we organize talent and work.”
I have spent a lot of my professional time working with companies to support their people through technology transformations. Some of my clients totally understand that new tools that completely change the way we work must be accompanied by profound changes to workplace culture and behaviors.
Other clients struggle to understand this dynamic.
In short, you can’t expect a 16-year-old who just got their driver’s license to perform well if you drop them behind the wheel of an F1 racing car without adequate training and time to practice. In that scenario, our young driver is going to make lots of mistakes, some of them quite serious.
Regardless of the specific technology that is being introduced, employers seem destined to make the same overarching mistake: they assume that the new tools alone will produce positive results, ignoring the fact that not everyone is prepared to stop the way they work now and adopt an entirely new way of working at the drop of a new technology.
Recently, I took a deeper dive into this issue based largely on my concern that we were about to make the same mistakes with AI that we have made with other technological transformations. I argued that with a powerful new technology like AI, employers need to create a plan to unleash, in parallel, changes in leadership as well as working behaviors and skills.
We need to consider how work gets done currently, with an eye toward developing a systemic plan that outlines how and when to introduce new technology like AI, and how it can best be used to increase productivity without ruining the working lives of our employees.
Otherwise, rather than leading your organization into a new era of success, it may be your undoing.