Technology and Human Centric Workplaces

Welcome to this week’s blog that considers the working world,

what we do, and what it takes to work with purpose, lead with impact, and engage with people in a way that really makes a difference. In our ‘Work Unplugged’ podcast last week, Amrit spoke about technology, AI and human centred workplaces. This was off the back of Elon Musk writing to government employees, asking them to justify their value in five or more bullet points, with failure to do so being taken as a resignation. Super leadership! I mean wow, who’s inspired? Take note everyone! Honestly, I believe this to be truly despicable behaviour, however, it happened, and it has inspired some musings!

Amrit explained that the point here (aside from it being a terrible way to cut costs) is that even CEO’s might struggle to justify their value when put on the spot, and that he, as the CEO of his own organisation, would find this tricky. Even with time to think it might still be a stretch. Not because Amrit doesn’t add value of course, but because it is really hard to see and understand for ourselves, where we do add value, especially when our days can be filled with firefighting, wading through treacle, and doing things that feel thankless, relentless, but that are/feel necessary.  

Most organisations focus on enhancing the employee experience, and you’d think wouldn’t just give a blanket ‘prove yourself or else’ message. I mean we don’t need engagement specialists to tell us that is not a good approach for a happy workforce! No, but instead we do conduct surveys, and focus groups to understand what people are experiencing at work, in the hope to improve it. However, what good is that, if the tasks people are having to deal with on a day-to-day basis, while important, feel monotonous and like they lack value and meaning day to day? No matter what is done to help improve the employee experience, the job itself might make it very hard to see and feel the value being added by the efforts of the employee.

And if getting to the important, value adding tasks, means playing catch up and working evenings and weekends, no matter what organisations do to enhance experience, it will still leave a bad taste in mouths. A fundamental problem in the modern workplace that we hear repeatedly, is that we are asking an awful lot of people, more than they can do in their working day, without being able to give more resource. Organisations say we can’t afford more people, and the people say we need more people!

On another note, an observation of mine lately, after plenty of workshops with employees across different businesses and sectors, is just how hard people seem to find it to give themselves praise for anything. ‘It’s just my job’. ‘Anyone could have done it’. ‘It’s nothing, not a big deal’. I hear this all the time. In fact, in one workshop when I asked for something people felt proud of within the last week, one man said, ‘this is torturous’! If we can’t even notice things we are proud of for ourselves, how on earth would we be able to come up with five bullets of value adding activity?! And even if we could get something down, would we even believe it ourselves?!

So, how can we help free people up in order to work on value adding tasks, understand the value they add, help them see it regularly, and maybe even shout about it, so we can drive productivity, employee engagement, and add to the bottom line?! The impact and power of AI might be able to help us here! Amrit asked on the podcast, how much do you currently use AI in specific roles across your organisation? If the answer is little or not at all, then there is scope to free people up for the good stuff!  

AI, if it doesn’t already, has the potential to impact every single role. And we are not talking about replacing roles, and reducing headcount with AI, which seems to be where people’s brains go when we talk about the power of AI. It can’t just be for cutting costs and putting people out of work. Instead, it could be about freeing people up, so they are able to create, solve problems, and learn more, in ways that keep building on the value they add to the businesses they belong to. We could enhance the human capability within organisations, by freeing people up from the boring and the mundane, that prevents them getting to be their best, most creative selves.

Think the automation of repetitive tasks, speedy, insightful data analysis, enhanced communication and time management through smarter scheduling and reminders. HR processes, assisting with consistency and follow up, help with recruitment and even conducting initial interviews! Predictive maintenance of tools and systems, enhanced customer service, improved cyber security, the list goes on. Amrit hones in on the power of workflows, that could help manage repetitive processes, that if we looked closely might be where employees are stuck in the treacle, and struggling to find the time on anything that requires thinking, collaboration, and creativity.  

And, if you have employees that work from home, you can guarantee they are using AI somewhere in their arsenal. As an employer wouldn’t you want to understand how, and for what? If we don’t have a strategy for AI, and we know the inaccuracies it could bring, then we need it to be used transparently, and with rigour – not just cutting and pasting reports into AI tools. That gives me heart palpitations just thinking it! Maybe part of what people can do once they are freed up from the treacle, and using AI to assist the mundane, is keeping up to speed with the latest tools and insights that would help us to continually improve!

The 2024 Gartner Report ‘Top Strategic Predictions for 2025 and Beyond’, talked about needing to ride the AI whirlwind, and that by 2027, 70% of new contracts for employees will include licencing and fair usage clauses for AI representations of their personas. So, organisations will be looking at using AI to create digital personas of individuals, to retain and lock in the knowledge of their employees. We will be creating digital clones of people and their tasks. How useless if we are just cloning the mundane, and working towards not needing humans at all?

By 2026 20% of organisations will use AI to flatten their current organisational structures, eliminating more than half of their middle management positions. This feels just brutal. The machines can do it instead. Us humans are becoming redundant?! Instead, can’t we use AI to free up those middle managers to help solve the problems and frustrations that organisations find themselves in? Problem solving and fixing, rather than firefighting? Collaboration rather than silo working and us and them mentality? Helping our businesses really make a difference to our species and the world at large?!

If you are not using AI then there is a risk that you will miss out on making your organisation better, more productive, and driving more innovation, because people just don’t have the space for this stuff currently. You will never truly know the capability of those you employ, if they are always in the weeds. And only using AI to cull, feels like a mistake. And an unethical one. There is untapped potential in our workforces. Maybe if we could see it, we wouldn’t want to use AI just to lighten our employee list and weigh down our pockets.

To finish then, on my point about people being able to catch themselves and each other doing things that are praiseworthy. To be able to help them come out of the weeds, or the trenches, or the front line – whatever the language is for you, so maybe they get to do things that actually feel worth praising is one point here, and AI could help! Another is making space for it praise and recognition to be the norm, and that we learn as much from what we do right, as we do from that we get wrong. That we value greatly, shouting about the good stuff from the roof tops! It helps build a positive culture and helps balance out the feeling of overwhelm. What gets praised, gets repeated. Why wouldn’t we? It is just the right thing to do!

Click here to listen to the podcast!