If you travel to Damariscotta Mills, some three hours up the coast from Boston, you’ll find one of the oldest fish ladders in the U.S. Built out of local stone, the ladder forms a series of small pools and waterfalls that help millions of Alewife fish (essential for Maine’s lobster industry) navigate natural and manmade hazards on their way to spawn in the Damariscotta Lake.
It’s also a great metaphor for how artificial intelligence (AI) is successfully driving success in businesses, especially when it comes to improving the employee experience, accelerating productivity and helping develop the workforce of the future.
It’s easy to imagine AI in terms of all-encompassing single systems, similar to the malevolent HAL 9000 of the movies. But of course, our experience of machine intelligence in our daily lives is both more pervasive and more subtle, offering hints as to the best online streaming experience, or finding a faster route to the mall on a busy day. It’s very much the same in the workplace and AI embedded in the general flow of our daily work is offering up far more benefits than many realize.
Just like the fish ladder, AI in the workplace isn’t there to solve all challenges in a single giant leap, but properly deployed, it can help, in simple steps, employees and employers get where they need to go.
Notable Use Cases
The most visible AI use cases in the workplace are around AI chatbots, popping up with increasing frequency, to simplify communication, make it easer to find information and reduce workload. For example, chatbots are a great tool for improving new hire onboarding where, often, the same questions are asked over and over again, and learning and development (L&D) teams end up repeating themselves many times over. Chatbots are a simple and efficient way to let new hires navigate to the information they need, get the answer to basic questions and interact with human resources (HR) and learning systems with confidence. They also, surprisingly, can offer a better new hire experience overall, as they are available 24/7, whenever a new employee has a question, and there’s no guilt in asking the same question more than once when you know it’s just a machine at the other end.
Once fully on board, AI tools are operating more and more as part of the general flow of work, in a variety of roles. It’s easiest to think of these in three general categories. First are the communication AI tools, such as chatbots, helping navigate internal systems and answer questions more rapidly than even the most helpful co-worker could.
Second are the AI-assisted workflows — quietly and efficiently running processes such as monitoring payroll for errors, pre-screening new candidates and looking for long-term trends such as changes in hiring costs or shifts in the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) makeup of a business.
Third are the AI-tuned experiences — AI tools that can personalize workflows and interactions to provide a better, more efficient workplace. For example, AI tools that can recommend how to tune benefits to improve retention among key staff, or tools for training and skills development, which can help to offer up personalized career paths for employees.
All these types of AI technologies work together to reduce repetitive workload (and isolved’s recent study, “Power Moves: What 50 HR Leaders Are Doing Now, Next,” showed that over 40% of HR leaders are spending at least one-half their day answering repeated questions) and deliver a more personalized, productive experience.
The debate over the role of AI in the workplace always generates vigorous discussion, and fears that AI will replace workers are difficult to overcome in some industries. Yet overall, the capacity of these AI engines, paired with the very human-like interaction capabilities of AI chatbots, will change many roles, often for the better.
A great example would be an employee who aspires to develop and grow into a more senior position. Interaction with AI chatbots will be the norm for many tasks, with the chatbot being a constant assistant “who” the employee can turn to for mundane tasks and help. Finding a document on a company server, answering questions about process, policies or best practices, even kicking off pre-defined workflows such as submitting forms, sending information to other employees or supervisors, etc., can all be facilitated through AI.
Most revolutionary, however, will be the ability of these chatbots to take a more directive role, albeit one still tied firmly to assisting the employee. For example, instead of chatbots being used only to respond to questions, human capital management platforms will be able to initiate conversations using chatbots to offer advice and guidance. Imagine if an employee was starting to use, say, a spreadsheet like Excel increasingly in their job. Having a chatbot reach out and suggest additional training courses suitable for their role would not only improve productivity, but also would provide the basis for long-term employee development.
Even without the preemptive aspect, having a chatbot constantly available who could answer questions like, “How do I improve at excel?” Or, “What’s the best way to submit this report?” would be an efficient and effective way of capturing and enabling on business best practices.
Ultimately, it is these kind of micro-efficiencies, and step-by-step guidance delivered directly at the point of need and in the flow of work, that will provide significant improvements in efficiency and in the employee experience.
Like the millions of fish swimming up the maze of stone waterfalls to avoid obstacles at Damariscotta Mills, employees aren’t looking for AI to provide a free ride, but rather to help them navigate the day-to-day challenges in incremental steps; steps that can help them grow in their career, improve their productivity, and unlock the real potential of AI to assist and guide them on the job.
