The AI Yips

We’re back with another edition of the newsletter, where we’re talking Workday hate, a Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) toxic workplace, and VCs talking about people who don’t have real jobs. But first, AI’s grip on work is driving some goofy decision-making.

AI FOMO Replaces Common Sense

It’s hard to create a macro picture of the current state of AI without it feeling like the cliched introductions written by most GenAI solutions. Is it a rapidly changing environment? Must we delve into the problem to uncover the solution? Sure, I guess. But there is a picture coming into view, and the operating principle of AI seems to be more FOMO-based than strategy-based. It seems to be affecting work leaders and solution providers alike.??

A few weeks ago, I was researching a piece for Reworked about the rise of chief AI officers (CAIO). Yes, according to research from Gartner , organizations are adding a dedicated title to someone who focuses on AI strategy. I compared it to the various czars who have previously been put in charge of challenging initiatives here in the U.S. — people often with very little power, siloed away to focus on a problem, and come up with solutions. Accountability? Sometimes, but not often. In the U.S., you might be surprised by how many czars there have been, including:

• A birth control czar
• A copyright czar
• A car czar (definitely the most fun to say out loud)
• An e-czar
• A big-picture economic czar
• A green jobs czar
• A weatherization czar

Appointing a CAIO seemed like appointing your average government czar: a solution in search of a problem. But the more I got into the research, the more it seemed like a natural response to a problem that plenty of people are still trying to figure out. Mainly, fear is driving too much decision-making when it comes to AI.?

We could look at organizations, but that’s almost too easy. Most organizations have little control over how or when their employees use AI as part of their jobs. Some focus on threats and very obvious legal challenges — like uploading confidential data into a GenAI model that trains on responses. Those who have tried to lock things down have found similar challenges to lock down internet access at work: Those who want the forbidden fruit find a way to get it.?

Organizations that are down for AI are meanwhile asking questions about GenAI capabilities — and vendors are often answering by making promises with their fingers crossed behind their backs. No individual organization wants to fall behind. But solution providers in work tech see AI as a business continuity-level challenge.?

This isn’t one or two solution providers, either. It’s hard to find more than a handful that haven’t let FOMO dictate at least part of their product development roadmap since the beginning of 2023. I get the psychology of it. Like getting to Shredder in the arcade game Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time. When you start to struggle, you forget all the strategies that got you through the previous levels and just start mashing the buttons.

For curious work tech buyers, that’s why you end up seeing GenAI in places it ought not be. Even nonsensical implementations are rewarded with attention. Maybe more crucially, they are also rewarded with venture investment to raise a few million dollars during a tough time.?

I call this organizational yips . It’s when smart, experienced work tech organizations with previously unassailable strategies start to lose foundational skills that made their growth trajectory what it was because AI threw them off the path. When your critical eye catches a vendor releasing weird products that promise an AI Shangri La, or is just recasting old products as newly enhanced with AI, you should be rightfully skeptical.?

Whether you’re a work leader or a work tech vendor, no one is asking you to ignore AI. But the answer isn’t to swing the pendulum the other way — to AI maximalism and CAIOs and the like. At least not for most organizations.?

Instead, stay true to what your organization does well and incorporate AI where it makes sense. And, if AI is truly disruptive to your business, you don’t need a CAIO. You need an entire executive team working to explore the opportunity and pivot.?

Does Everyone Hate Workday?

Business Insider writer Matthew Alston lives about as far away from Pleasanton, California, as you can and still be in the U.S., and after his scathing write-up on candidate, employee, and work leader frustration with the HCM giant Workday , he might want to keep it that way.?

Alston’s piece hits on all the criticisms I’ve heard about Workday — and full disclosure: though I’ve never been a Workday customer or user, I have seen a thorough demonstration of its recruiting capabilities from a real-life customer and found it wasn’t nearly as capable as it should’ve been.?

But is Workday actually worse than anything else? Alston writes:

As easily as you can find a founder who hates UKG Pro but loves Rippling , you can find a similar rant from another founder ripping Rippling a new one. HR and payroll and recruiting are unenviable tasks, and not easy even before scale. At the scale of a large company, this is simply too much work to expect a few people to do and far too user-specific to expect automation to handle well. It's why Workday can be the worst, while still allowing that Paychex is the worst, Paycom is the worst, Paycor is the worst, and Dayforce is the worst. "HR software sucking" is a big tent.

This really resonated with me. Objectively, I think Workday is a victim of its own ubiquity. Its problems are the problems of HR software in general, especially all-in-one suites that try to be everything to everyone. Selling end-user satisfaction is a lot tougher than selling administration efficiency and satisfaction. But in many cases, core work technology struggles to achieve both of these goals. And let’s not forget that it’s often administrators who have configured their technology to work in frustrating ways — some of which are specifically against best practices preached by work tech vendors.?

In short, there’s plenty of blame to go around, and Workday, though not immune to all its well-deserved criticism, is an easy target because it is so big and everywhere. Unfortunately, almost everyone plays a role in the frustrating state of work technology — myself included.

.?

Quick hits from around the web

What else is happening??

Using Data to Design Your Hybrid Work Policies , by Heidi Grant , Ginnie Carlier , and Frank Giampietro for Harvard Business Review . Smart folks from 安永 did something that many companies dare not do when crafting work strategy: They did research. Kudos.?

Andreessen Horowitz Investor Says Half of Google’s White-Collar Staff Probably Do “No Real Work,” by Sarah Jackson for Business Insider. This observation makes sense because plenty of VC general partners do no real work and spend billions of dollars on companies that go nowhere.

Enterprise Talent Intelligence Arrives, Disrupting The HR Tech Market , by Josh Bersin . I feel like I’ve been talking about talent intelligence forever, but there are still skeptics.?

Why Remote Work Is Incompatible With a Company's Long-term Growth , by Aytekin Tank for Forbes . While contrary to many of my readers’ POV (and my own), I think this is one of the smarter RTO pitches from someone who doesn’t have an outsized interest in commercial real estate.

“FOMO” Trips: Hybrid, Remote Work Encouraging More Business Travel , by John Dexter Tilo for Human Resources Director Asia . I’ve seen this myself and wonder how persistent the phenomenon will be.?

The 2024 Work Trend Index on the State of AI at Work , via 微软 and LinkedIn . Your employees aren’t waiting for your organization to figure it out, for better or worse.

FDIC Report Outlines “Misogynistic,” “Patriarchal” and “Good Ol’ Boys” Workplace Culture , by Fatima Hussein for the AP News . More than 500 workers had complained about harassment and discrimination.?

The Pitiful Penalties for Violating Labor Law , by Timothy Noah for The New Republic . I know HR is programmed to be fearful of these laws, but for most companies, it amounts to a rounding error on the balance sheet.

A Healthy Workforce Needs More Connection, Not More Apps , by Owen Tripp for Fast Company . All I can do is say, “This!” with as much emphasis as I can muster.

Goodbye to Panera Bread's Crazy Caffeinated Beverages

If you’ve been skipping the 星巴克 drive-thru for some of the charged lemonades from Panera Bread to get your morning started, you have very little time left to get your fix. The chain of bakeries will be phasing out the drink blamed for at least two deaths (via NBC News ):

Panera previously advertised its Charged Lemonade as “Plant-based and Clean with as much caffeine as our Dark Roast coffee.” But the lawsuits said that at 390 milligrams, a large, 30-fluid-ounce Charged Lemonade has more caffeine in total than any size of Panera’s dark roast coffee, referring to the amount of caffeine that is in the drink with no ice. Panera has since updated its nutrition information to reflect how much caffeine is in the Charged Lemonade with ice, listing the large size of the blood orange Charged Lemonade, for example, as having 302 milligrams.

I had one of these lemonades, and it left this lifetime coffee and energy drink consumer in a twitchy mess.

That's it for this week!?

?Lance

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