Artificial Intelligence: the employees and AI implementation

One of the most important factors for companies to remain competitive in the coming years is the successful integration of AI applications. In order to successfully master this challenge, the best possible preparation of the employees is the first important step. Because only a fully integrated and meaningfully applied Artificial Intelligence will ultimately be able to contribute effectively to the company’s success.

Artificial Intelligence as a job killer – or is there another way?

If you believe statistics, artificial intelligence will become one of the biggest threats to jobs in the coming years. And indeed, when it comes to process optimization, this simply means that in most cases certain items become obsolete. This will affect first the jobs that perform simple manual work and some easy office jobs. The employees with the lowest education will suffer. Therefore, it can be assumed, that this group in particular soon will no longer be able to carry out its usual work. As AI will take it over. That’s why many entrepreneurs are already confronted with the question of how to deal with this situation when planning the AI integration into the company.

What to do with employees who have become obsolete?

The easiest solution for many is to dismiss the employees concerned. However, if you want to continue to use the manpower that is now freely available. You basically have only one option. You should prepare the employees concerned for further training. Artificial Intelligence will most likely open up new opportunities and business fields for the company. They usually create jobs for a highly qualified workforce.

In fact, it turned out that investing in the further training of your own workforce, ultimately makes more sense than hiring new, more highly qualified specialists. Employees who are already familiar with the company processes are significantly more productive. In comparison with those, who you need to train first and support over several months. In addition, you can expect much more loyalty from employees. You gave new perspectives through World Heritage education opportunities. So it’s – a win-win situation.

Change in management strategy

Another important aspect is the new approach of managers when it comes to solving problems. Until Artificial Intelligence began its’ triumphant advance, it was usually the experience and creativity of managers. They set the direction in the companies. With Artificial Intelligence, that changes too. Because results, that come from the AI and Data Science development departments, sometimes can stand in complete contrast to intuitive management decisions. However, if the worst comes, it is advisable to rely on the data.

Therefore, the management will evolve away from the decisions made by individuals. People decisions are often emotionally influenced. When data-based processes can make rational decisions for the benefit of the company’s success.

Optimization of the company, avoiding mistakes

Companies should take in the consideration some important aspects when introducing AI. Because besides the neglect of adaptation by employees, there are some pitfalls. The company can fall into them when it comes to finding a real benefit from Artificial Intelligence for a company. This is obvious. As AI manufacturer “Pegasus” recently summarized, these include insufficient data sources as well as a lack of flexibility and communication.

AI to increase productivity

There is another way of how to prepare the employees for the introduction of AI. The company should let them know, that AI is there not to take away their jobs, but to make it easier for them. If companies will provide employees AI that makes them more productive, adaptation will usually be particularly easy. A good example of this is “Marcel”, which was developed by Microsoft in cooperation with Publicis to make employee workflows more efficient.

For example, Marcel is able to propose suitable employees for a specific project within the company on simple request by voice command. The personal research by the employee would take a few minutes. Marcel delivers profiles of qualified colleagues within a few seconds. Scaled to the entire workforce of 80,000 employees who will use this AI every day, the company saves so many working hours that can be spent now on more demanding tasks.

Patience factor

You should be patient enough for the successful implementation of Artificial Intelligence. After all, it often takes many months before you can actually expect some results from the AI department. It is usually newly founded and staffed by new employees, which can only bring real benefits for the company from then on. And this is exactly where the point with the managers comes back into the game. It is quite common for the managers to accept decisions, that benefit the company, which make AI developers, most of whom have joined the company young. Such situations can easily lead to interpersonal conflicts. The company should prevent that in advance by sufficient communication.

As you can see, there are some aspects, that the companies should consider, in order to prepare employees for the upcoming challenges of the Artificial Intelligence implementation. However, if the company takes it seriously, then nothing stands in its’ way of successful integration of AI applications into it.

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