I think that the integration of AI into our daily working lives is probably something of a double-edged sword – offering both significant opportunities and many challenges. While AI can certainly enhance productivity, increase demand for skilled labour, and maintain stable employment structures, it also risks draining employee engagement, reducing job satisfaction, stifling creativity, and diminishing authentic communication.
There’s a lot of focus on employee engagement and retention. I’m preparing for 3 conferences over the next couple of months where I’ll be speaking about creating meaningful experiences, building cultures of retention, maintaining engagement and much more, so whilst most of the digital narrative around AI is understandably positive and hopeful, I’ve been trying to look at some of the ways in which AI may detract from the overall employee experience.
I’ve written previously about whether AI may be an employee experience exterminator, and how we need to preserve the Humanity in Human Resources, and I think there are four potential key areas around experience that we need to focus on:
Draining Employee Engagement
Focusing too much on efficiency and performance through AI can drain employee engagement. When organisations begin to prioritise automation over meaningful work experiences, employees may start to feel disengaged and undervalued. It is crucial for businesses to strike a balance between leveraging AI for efficiency and maintaining a focus on creating fulfilling and engaging work environments.
Reducing Job Satisfaction
AI has the potential to automate tasks that provide employees with a sense of satisfaction and gratification, and therefore take some of the joy out of work. Tasks that are rewarding and fulfilling for employees should not be fully automated, as this can lead to decreased job satisfaction and morale. Organisations need to understand the tasks and projects that bring feelings of satisfaction and fulfilment when considering which tasks to automate and which to preserve for human workers to ensure a positive work experience.
Stifling Creativity
AI can kill creativity if it is being used to replace rather than enhance creative tasks. Creative processes benefit significantly from human intuition, innovation and inspiration which are all aspects that AI can’t replicate. Businesses should use AI to support and augment creative tasks and projects rather than replace them, and preserve human creativity to thrive alongside technological advancements.
Diminishing Authentic Human Communication
An over-reliance on using AI for tasks like writing notes, e-mails and cover letters, recognition messages and internal messages, might lead to a diminishing of authentic human communication. Using AI to generate internal messages, reports and emails is likely to lack both the personality, humour, friendship and emotional resonance that human communication and human connection thrives on. To maintain genuine interactions and relationships, it is important to balance AI use with human input, especially in areas requiring personal engagement, support and connection.
I see the most effective uses of AI will involve combining it with skilled human workers. This synergy can enhance productivity and performance, with AI handling routine tasks and humans tackling more complex and nuanced aspects, hence underscoring the continued importance of human skills in an AI-driven world.
I’d be interested in your perspectives – let me know what you think.
Talent Trends & Insights 