AI at work: Navigating the balance between innovation and human-centred transformation

Welcome to the fourth edition of The Employment Edge, where we share insights, best practices, and observations to help you maximise your investment in talent, develop inclusive & high performing workplaces, and enhance employee engagement.

This month, we delve into the strategic imperatives for organisations to balance investment in cutting-edge technologies with robust employee development initiatives. The integration of AI in the workplace is a key focal point - presenting both opportunities and challenges. With organisations rushing to deploy AI, we look at whether AI has lived up to its expectations and delivered its expected results, or whether now is a good time to take stock and adopt a more measured approach to more widespread roll out of AI and other innovative technologies.?

We hope that you enjoy reading this edition of The Employment Edge, which will be the final edition before the summer holidays begin. We will return in September with a bumper edition on all things talent related.?

The challenges of AI for the workforce

Innovative and disruptive technologies such as AI are often perceived as a driver for job losses and reduced job security. A recent report by Goldman Sachs predicted that 300 million jobs would be exposed to and affected by AI in the United States and Europe. Moreover, in a recent Forbes article, 44% of executives mentioned that they anticipate further job cuts this year due to AI efficiency. The most impacted roles are the ones focused on repetitive and administrative tasks such as bookkeeping, basic financial reporting, and data analysis.

However, the reality of AI’s impact on employment is more nuanced. Leaders have to assess the optimal applications of AI, but also strategically plan its adoption to enhance business outcomes. It is not so much that employees will lose their job to AI, but that they could lose their job to someone who understands how to leverage AI more effectively. New roles such as Chief Information Officers have emerged, and roles such as data scientists and cybersecurity experts have become critical to business operations. Additionally, the need for employees to become well-versed with technology and its use cases is also becoming an imperative across organisations, as over half of US companies are already implementing AI in 2023, with 24% more implementing it this year.?

AI is unlikely to replace top talent or senior-level executives. Instead, it can serve as a valuable tool that can be used to augment employee capabilities, allowing talent to focus on higher-order tasks that require strategic thinking, creativity, and innovation.?

The additional time and resources gained from AI efficiencies can be invested in developing a strong organisational culture that is characterised by high levels of employee engagement, innovation and collaboration to drive business growth. What that means in practice is open to interpretation, but most leaders would agree that it requires a culture of transparency, empowerment to try new things and a culture of continuous learning.

This culture of innovation needs to be fostered across all areas and all levels of the organisation and may require different skills to be adopted and strategies communicated to ensure that the strategic vision, and business and individual priorities are aligned.?

A human-centred approach to innovation

One of the key elements of building a strong organisational structure that can support a culture of innovation is through the development and implementation of robust talent attraction and retention strategies. Human Resources teams need to understand whether strategies put in place by leadership to foster this culture of innovation brings employees along the journey or leaves them behind. There is a delicate balance to be maintained between innovation, automation, and the human element. AI and innovative technologies should augment human capabilities rather than replace them.?

Whilst technology can enhance employee productivity and efficiency, soft skills like emotional intelligence, commerciality and creativity (decidedly human traits), aren’t easily replaced and are the key to unlocking growth through innovation.?

Leaders and HR teams need to establish what level of learning and development is required to not only nurture a mindset of innovation, but also upskill the workforce to be able to identify opportunities to integrate and make the most out of innovative technologies. By adopting this approach, organisations are more likely to get buy-in from their workforce which should facilitate a more natural adoption of innovative technologies.

Where an innovation and technological skills gap exists in the workforce, organisations struggle to roll out innovative technologies smoothly. Without effective training and clear use cases, innovative technologies tend to be underutilised and/or not adopted, resulting in the perceived failure of the project. Oftentimes, organisations will have to look for talent externally to take on much needed leadership and implementation roles to drive AI initiatives. Executive search firms are critical to helping talent teams find high calibre candidates who have the knowledge, skills, and experience in emerging technologies and who are capable of driving innovative transformations.

Whilst integrating AI in smaller companies is easier to drive from the top-down, successful AI implementation in larger organisations requires a more nuanced approach. Stakeholders at all levels of the organisation are required. This involves a series of processes marked by ongoing dialogues and feedback loops to adapt and refine the implementation of innovative technologies and processes on a more continuous basis. More and more, we see organisations turning to operational excellence experts to help streamline the process and facilitate this transition internally.

Ultimately, technology choices profoundly influence organisational culture and employee satisfaction, which plays a significant role in talent attraction and retention strategies. As with most strategic decisions, it all depends on where organisations are in their journey and how authentically that strategy is communicated by leadership.

A strategic imperative for revenue growth with AI

Outlining a sustainable path to growth amidst an uncertain economic environment is the main strategic imperative of leaders today. Integrating AI into business operations can create new avenues for revenue-generating potential. In a recent interview, BCG’s CEO, Christoph Schweizer, noted that AI will be responsible for 20% of the firm’s revenue this year. This is a result of BCG lending their expertise to clients wanting to move away from experimental phases to widespread deployment of AI technologies.

Moreover, AI models are being used to predict and assess risks with greater precision for better decision-making and less likelihood of loss. Take BlackRock’s platform, Aladdin, which uses AI to provide risk management analytics that can identify potential risks in investment portfolios. With the help of Aladdin, over 5000 risk factors are produced and monitored, while over 300 risk and exposure metrics are reviewed on a daily basis.?

In terms of executive search, firms are reaping the benefits of AI by transitioning from traditional methods for candidate sourcing and assessment and leveraging digital tools and platforms. AI can analyse large amounts of data in seconds, which means that tasks such as evaluating CVs, recruitment assessment tasks and scheduling can be mostly taken over by AI, allowing hiring teams to focus on candidates with the highest potential for success based on job specifications. Moreover, AI has the ability to elevate the hiring process by removing internalised prejudices and unconscious biases which can unintentionally influence hiring decisions.?

However, companies should be wary of relying too heavily on AI. In the case of executive search, automation and AI can indeed assist in candidate identification and other tasks, but human expertise remains crucial in assessing candidates' fit, negotiating, and ensuring candidates can add value to the organisational culture.

A measured approach to rolling out AI is the optimal solution. Integrating AI across organisations is not cheap - it involves high set up costs with hardware requirements, cloud costs, skilled leaders and training of essential staff.? Culturally, the organisation needs to be ready - leadership needs to be able to communicate the use cases and the benefits of leveraging innovative technologies to enhance not only efficiencies and growth, but to also “future proof” employee skills.

Looking forward

History has shown that every major technological advancement transforms the nature of work, often creating more jobs than it eliminates. The critical issue is not the risk of losing your job to AI, but rather the risk of losing your job to someone who understands and leverages AI effectively.?

The important question is not “Will AI replace me?” but “How can I adapt to this new technology to enhance my career?”. Here are some points to consider to help you future-proof your career:

1. Gain a fundamental understanding of AI and automation technologies. Ensure that you are proficient with digital tools and platforms relevant to your industry, while understanding how to leverage AI tools for enhanced productivity and efficiency.?
2. Cultivate your soft skills. Develop your problem-solving abilities and strengthen your communication and collaboration skills.?
3. Become a lifelong learner. Keep upgrading your skills and acquire new knowledge and certifications.
4. Be open to new roles and opportunities that tap into the potential of interdisciplinarity. Combine your current industry skills with emerging technologies skills.
5. Champion human-centred initiatives. Advocate for inclusive practices around AI at work, such as the involvement of all stakeholders in decision-making, combating bias in hiring practices, or prioritising human needs over AI, while shedding light on existing challenges.

Thank you for reading The Employment Edge! Do you want to receive our monthly newsletter in your inbox? Click the subscribe button!

BARRINGTON HIBBERT ASSOCIATES is a London and New York-based Specialist Executive Search, Leadership Development and Diversity and Culture Advisory firm. We support leaders across multiple areas of their talent strategy, from leadership assessment and diversity pipelining to board succession planning.