Two images from the last week point to a future anything but distant, rather already taking shape – whether we like it or not. There was much debate around both the technology and the ethics involved in Sundar Pichai, Google’s CEO, unveiling the progress made on its AI assistant. The assistant called up a hairdresser to make an appointment – the call itself had a number of variable conversation routes – type of service required, date and time – and was made all the more ‘authentic’ by the assistant’s use of a “hmmm” at an appropriate moment. Although impressive, Google received a lot of criticism as regards the ethics of making such a call to a business which had no idea they were being phoned by AI.
At the same time, a fascinating, as well as vaguely troubling film has been doing the rounds of LinkedIn featuring a new Waitrose retail fulfilment centre in Andover. The film is hypnotic, featuring scores upon scores of robotic, motorised baskets coming and going, automatically picking up groceries, apparently, but clearly not, at random – with not a single human being in sight. I wonder if robots can tell if your avocado is ripe or not?
Although both examples originate from customer interventions, they also touch on AI within the workplace.
It’s something of a challenge to truly grasp the momentum – in terms of technology and investment – behind AI right now. According to the Economist, firms globally spent $22bn on AI related mergers and acquisitions in 2017. The same figure for 2015 was 26 times smaller.
But is this to the benefit or the detriment of employees?
Opinions, it seems fair to say, vary.
At one end of the spectrum are observers such as Carl Frey and Michael Osborne from the University of Oxford, who cheerfully estimated that automation would render no less than 47% of US job unviable and unnecessary. Their study, however, was revisited by the OECD earlier this year. They suggested that the percentage of jobs likely to disappear as a result of automation or machine learning, was closer to 10%. Meanwhile, Gartner takes a much more positive stance, estimating that such technology will recover 6.2bn hours of worker productivity by 2021. As does Adecco – a study of 1,000 senior global executives suggested that 65% felt such technology would increase the number of jobs in the economy.
Closer to home, there appears a similar absence of consistency around the likely impact of AI.
The think tank Reform feels that AI will take 250,000 public sector admin jobs out of the labour market by 2030. Whilst CareerBabel estimates that 46,000 customer service roles will be taken by AI technology by 2021.
Perhaps more interesting than how many jobs might and might not disappear is what employees currently make of the prospect of AI within the workplace.
Is it clear whether the employment benefits of AI will exceed the concerns?
Within talent acquisition itself, there is confidence that AI will help to phase out bias, unconscious or otherwise. That it will help provide a more consistent, seamless and efficient candidate experience. That it will facilitate a drive towards greater transparency in terms of reward and progression. That it will better enable working from home and remote working.
However, will the same technology mean that all keystroke activity is recorded? That employees, wherever they are, will be monitored to ensure greater productivity? That surveillance will be ever-present? Is AI capable of delivering a differentiated, nuanced brand experience to both candidates and employees?
Ultimately, is AI in the workplace a force for de-humanising or re-humanising employment?
Clearly, this is largely all supposition right now, but what do employees feel about their work-based relationship with machine learning?
Again, the data feels ambiguous and lacking in absolute clarity.
In a survey this year from YouGov and Talk Talk, 39% of male employees felt that AI would have a positive enabling effect on their day-to-day job – however, just 24% of women felt the same way. In the US, a piece of research commissioned by MetLife pointed to 49% of employees feeling optimistic about machine learning technology. However, in the same study, 46% felt that the workplace was becoming less human and personal as a result.
This is a major question impacting our very relationship with work. Do employees view machine learning as something likely to free them up from repetitive activity to focus on more value adding work? Or that it will take decision making away from them, at best, and take their very employment away from them, at worst? No surprise, then, that last year saw the establishment of the Future of Work Commission, headed by Labour’s Tom Watson – a body established with the objective of understanding how the workforce would be affected by automation.
One of the criticisms of Google’s AI assistant was the lack of comprehension of potential implications of the call at the other end of the phone – in this case, the hairdresser and their workplace.
Again, AI’s likely impact on work throws up currently more questions than answers. How will it shape the workplace? To what extent is it a force for good? What reassurances do people want around AI and to what extent are employers capable of delivering such reassurance? Does an organisation pushing ahead with automation make it a more or less attractive employer? Does such an initiative suggest greater efficiency or fewer jobs? Or both?
And if we consider some of the key themes influencing workplace culture right now – purpose, impact, values, flexibility, ethics, work life balance – how does machine learning help drive such considerations? We might safely assume that a robot will not be overly concerned with maternity or paternity leave, need to take much in terms of sick leave off or have to attend too many sports days or nativity plays.
There can be few more tangible causes of disruption than AI and what it may or may not bring to the workforce. But bring it, it definitely will.
For me, one of the most telling metrics signalling what people’s relationship with machine learning might be comes from the Workforce Institute. In a recent study, they found that just under two thirds of UK employees are comfortable with the implementation of AI within their workplaces. However, this came with a major proviso – that there was an open and transparent overview of its use by their employer.
This is the crux of the issue. Clarity and openness. People are generally welcoming of technological progress. (Or see it as inevitable). But right now, what AI will bring to the workplace is shrouded in doubt and ambiguity. Will it bring redundancy or re-engagement? Will it enhance employment or replace it?
This brings with it significant opportunity. For those organisations who can provide answers and clarity to candidate and employee questions around what machine learning will do to the workplace, this should create confidence and trust. In a field currently notable for confusion and doubt.
And there has perhaps never been a more important time to reach out to candidate communities with a confident message. The latest research from CIPD/Adecco points very clearly to an ever-heating, over-heating employment market. Over the last quarter, the net employment balance (the number of employers planning to take on people minus the number doing the opposite) has increased from +16 to +26. The percentage of employers suggesting they had vacancies which were proving hard to fill was 61% – up from 56% 12 months ago.
In the words of the CIPD’s senior labour market analyst, Gerwyn Davies, ‘Employers need to think more creatively about workforce planning and talent pipelines to ensure they can continue to access and develop key skills’.
AI is in the process of fundamentally shifting our relationship with the workplace. (It is nothing short of an industrial revolution). Everyone knows this and yet no one knows what form such change will take.
Communicating to talent communities that an organisation is embracing AI and that it is doing to in order to inspire and free up the workforce, and that it wants its people to actively contribute to a journey which is there to be shaped, should enhance how their employer brand lands. And right now, in the absence of much competition, this bestows first-mover status on proactive organisations.
As well as messing up the schedule of a, by now, presumably famous hairdressing salon, Google’s Mr Pinchai also said, ‘AI will do more for humanity than fire or electricity’.
And that should include what it does for the workplace – if only employers are able project it as a force for good within the workplace (rather than something forcing their people out of the workplace for good).
What sort of statement is your organisation currently making about how AI will impact the employment experience you offer?
Getting to the heart of your employee mindset 