How Can HR Leaders Help their Organisation Prepare for an AI-Powered Future?

To understand how the AI revolution is transforming the workplace, The Adecco Group, LHH’s parent company, surveyed 30,000 workers across 23 countries in their annual Global Workforce of the Future survey. This year, the research captured insights into how Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Generative AI (GenAI) are shaping people’s views about the future of work and how they might be personally impacted.

Increasingly employees see AI as an opportunity

The good news is that 62% of workers see GenAI as a technology that can lighten their administrative burdens, free up time to focus on more strategic work and create new career prospects.*

Yet some employees are still concerned about the growing use of AI. Globally, one in four (24%) workers expect AI to have a negative impact on their job, (down from 37% in 2022).*

The data also confirmed that those in entry-level roles and those with a secondary school education are more likely to be concerned about AI. For example, just 40% of entry-level workers are optimistic about the impact of GenAI on their job versus 63% of their more senior colleagues.*

How to identify the AI skills your organisation needs

Like other organisational change, a bottom-up approach that empowers frontline leaders and workers, and that fosters curiosity, is more likely to drive skill discovery and positive outcomes than top-down direction.

The opportunity here is for your team to use their intimate knowledge of the work they do day in, day out to explore the ways AI can make their jobs more efficient – within appropriate guardrails determined by the business and best-practice AI use.

Employers can do more to bring this experimentation with AI inside the tent. Leaders must acknowledge and lead rather than respond to the attitudes about and use of AI.

But first trust needs to be established, so workers feel safe to suggest ways to implement AI. This includes reassuring employees that their human talent is still valued – even as AI proliferates.

The AI-competent workplace not only trains leaders about the technology’s uses but also upskills them to navigate the uncertainty in its wake, through professional coaching and leadership development.

A learning culture: The critical capability

As technology transforms workplaces, keeping skills relevant becomes imperative, with some suggesting that 49% of worker skills could be out of date within two years.^

Potential skill obsolescence on such a massive scale makes learning and development (L&D) a critical organisational capability. To rapidly adapt, employees will need to take much greater ownership of their own skills development. And organisations may get better results when they focus development opportunities only on the employees who also put in the effort – making skills development competitive versus open to all employees.

That way, the 42% of employees who look to their employers to make sure their skills are relevant for the future^ are instead incentivised to play a more active role in their own development.

Importantly though, leaders must cast a vision for the work that might be done in the future – and how it could get done. One in two employees feel that their employer is responsible for helping them understand the changing nature of their job.^

Strengthening the talent pipeline

In the past, junior employees learnt about their industry, products and customers by doing low-skill, often administrative work. Now, leaders will need to consider how the contextual wisdom that’s key to career progression will be attained when the administrative, often repetitive work is removed from the organisation.

According to the latest global workforce survey, advancing to or upskilling for a new role in a company remains popular, with 37% of workers planning internal progression – compared to just 15% who want to find a new job in a different company. And when an organisation provides career development, it encourages 94% of workers to stay in a company longer. 

What are the uniquely human skills we need to foster?

• As machines take on routine tasks, employees will need to focus on the human skills of creativity, communication, collaboration, emotional intelligence, strategy and influencing – while also knowing how to embrace AI technology.
• Employees that understand context and have commercial acumen will be able to navigate complex situations in ways that AI technology can’t.
• 61% of workers think the human touch is still more influential than AI at work.^

Five practical ways to help your teams

Responsible AI requires leaders to lead with values, address ethical implications and protect the well-being of their people.

1. Assess current skills to help determine how your teams need to adapt to AI. Use employee talent assessments to accurately identify existing capabilities and bench strengths versus skill gaps.
2. Continue to nurture uniquely human skills through coaching, soft-skills training, role rotations and reskilling paths.
3. Strengthen leadership skills in decision making and trust building to resolve the uncertainty some staff may feel. Over-communicate internal career opportunities to build employee confidence in job mobility.
4. Embrace technology and transformation, your team need the tools, guidance and education to thrive during profound technological change.
5. Prioritise adaptability to remain ahead of the curve in a transparent way that supports a healthy workplace culture. Give employees stretch assignments and the opportunity to lead special initiatives, be part of a cross-functional team or rotate across domestic or global offices.

Learn more

Some organisations and workers are being left behind as the world of work shifts from jobs-based to skills-based. In the race to embrace AI, organisations must protect their most valuable asset: their people. Discover how you can support your organisation as it navigates the rise of AI.

Embracing & Employing AI Download

• Which jobs are most/least likely to be impacted by AI in 2024
• Which employee skills will be necessary to develop, implement, and optimise AI, and to train, maintain, and keep checks on this rapidly evolving technology
• What companies will need from their leaders as we head into this transition

References:

* LHH, Global Workforce of the Future Report, 2023

^ Forbes, Half of All Skills Will Be Outdated Within Two Years, Study Suggests, 14 October 2023, accessed 4 March 2024