'AI will have a huge impact on skills development, how we employ people, the future of the workforce,' says expert
Recently a study on contact centres reported that over two thirds of managers surveyed believed AI will not replace humans, but rather it will change employees’ roles and lead to greater employment opportunities.
The report, by workforce performance company Calabrio, surveyed 400 call centre managers from 10 countries and six industries, including Australia and New Zealand. Contact centres, it notes, are at the forefront of remote-based work and use of artificial intelligence.
The impact of AI on skills development and the future of the workforce will be significant, says one academic. Elsamari Botha, MBA director and associate professor at the University of Canterbury, goes as far as saying this technological change is a development HR needs to be at the forefront of addressing.
“When generative AI was first released, there were a lot of people saying, ‘AI is not going to take your job, it's going to be humans plus AI’ but I think it's way more nuanced than that,” says Botha.
“The whole idea of co-intelligence means we need to understand where it is that people will work with AI, as opposed to AI working by itself or humans working by themselves. We're still figuring that out and it will have a huge impact on not only skills development within organisations, but how we employ people and the future of the workforce. HR will be at the forefront of this.”
HR should build AI ‘fluency’
It’s vital those in HR build fluency in the technology to better understand it, she says.
“All leaders in an organisation, including in HR, need to master that fluency. If they don’t, they won’t know how to lead the rest of the teams.
“They need to start playing around with the tools so they can better understand where they can use AI and optimise co-relationships. They should also be the ones creating boundaries for AI use.”
Botha notes that in some recruitment searches, even before advertisements are placed, managers are asking HR teams to write reports on which components AI can take care of in a position description.
Adaptability to technology key in recruiting
She stresses that at such a time of change, there are significant consequences for recruitment, emphasising a need to hire people who are adaptable to change and willing to adopt new technologies like AI.
“That absolutely needs to come into the picture when you're employing somebody,” she says. “This might mean including reference to it in job adverts, or building the right questions into the interview process to understand people’s attitude towards technology.
“We've done our own research that shows that digital masters were more resilient during Covid than those weren't. They're more profitable as well and are able to be more flexible for situational changes.”
Value in humans or AI?
It’s vital too that employers consider fully their own thoughts on AI, asking themselves what value they place on human input, says Botha.
“AI can do a lot more than we think in terms of replacing humans, but the questions organisations should be asking is whether they should be putting humans in the loop. An organisation needs to decide whether they value human input and also consider what their customers are asking for.
“It creates a really complex system where even though the AI can do the job, maybe it should still be a human because that's what we value as a consumer, as a colleague, as a boss. This is also a moving target and likely to change over time.”
Employers should stop trying to prevent people from using AI tools, and instead encourage team participation to effectively harness its benefits, says Botha.
“Stopping people from using AI in a professional setting is the equivalent of stopping people from using a calculator.”
Employees using AI even when forbidden
“There’s actually a lot of evidence that shows employees are already using it even if the company has forbidden it and are incentivised to not disclose they've used AI. In these cases, however, the risks associated with AI usage increase as employees might be breaching the Privacy Act.”
As a company, you need to decide what data is acceptable for AI input and put systems and processes in place as guidance, she says. “That governance and ethics discussion is important to have before you start adopting AI tools though.”
Digital upskilling for AI tools
Team use is where Botha sees the “sweet spot” in terms of AI.
“The real value is in understanding where we can start learning from each other on how AI is used and HR will have a significant influence on this. It would mean that within an organisation, people use it at a team level and an organisational level.
“There are really practical ways for that to happen; for instance, sharing your history or your output from ChatGPT with others, or creating a prompt library for specific tasks. ChatGPT now has the capability of adding a Team Workspace too. That way everybody can improve on that research and build on each other's knowledge.”
To prepare organisations for the changes ahead, Botha suggests HR have a strong focus on digital upskilling from the bottom to the top.
“I think a lot of the scepticism around AI at the moment is that people don't understand what it can and can’t do. I think if they understood it there would be less negative rhetoric.”
