“The picture for now is one of skills churn … as long as organisations take steps to address the impact of AI, we won’t see large scale job loss in the short term at least.”
One of the most commonly expressed fears about AI is that it will take people’s jobs, replacing human beings with machine learning and leaving employees without a role. Professor Emma Parry discusses the issues and benefits of AI and how she helps organisations navigate and understand the future of work. Emma and her team work with organisations to develop strategies to understand the value of AI, and its implications for work, the workplace and the workforce, so that AI and humans can exist together in a changing workplace.
Your interests centre around the changing world of work, could you explain that in more detail?
My background is in human resource management (HRM), applied psychology and organisational behaviour; so basically anything that is about people at work and in the workplace. My key interest is in context, how work and the workforce is shaped by what is happening in the external world – things like demographics, technological advancement, the effects of the pandemic and new ways of working, and what this means for an organisation and the way they manage their employees.
Businesses need to consider what people want from work and how this is changing, as well as the skills they need and the impact technology will have on this. People nowadays generally approach work in a very different way; they know what they want and believe in and are much more likely to speak up, whether it’s about pay and conditions or in some form of broader activism. This means that organisations need to think about how to allow opportunities for employee voice, and to think more about the values that they represent, as well as creating an employee value proposition that attracts and retains today’s workers.
This is not just about younger employees. People are living longer and working longer: we know that what they want from their careers changes as they get older. Not only do the intrinsic aspects of work such as making a difference and work-life balance become more important, but people often want to do something different as they move through their career. I have done a lot of work around people nearing retirement who find that while they have been committed to a career for all their lives to pay the bills and the mortgage, they then find that they have the freedom to do something different and follow their interests.
So, what is your role in helping organisations prepare for the future?
I would come at this from two key angles. Firstly, to help organisations navigate change in the world of work, to think about what future trends mean for their organisation and how to address the challenges and opportunities this presents. For example, they might think about future trends; AI, an ageing workforce, the upskilling and reskilling that might be needed, and what they might need to change in their organisation.
Secondly, alongside that, we help them look at how their organisation can develop more future-focused systems through activities such as strategic workforce planning, and a more dynamic approach to resourcing and organisation design. It is crucial to have some sort of strategy about the future that considers external as well as internal changes.
Organisations often respond quite reactively to contextual trends: for example, they see AI playing an increasing part in business and rush to adopt it without really thinking about what their organisation needs and what AI can help them achieve. Leaders need to find a way to both understand what is likely to happen in the future and the implications for their organisation, but also to develop plans on how they might address different future scenarios.
How does a business or organisation begin to develop that strategy?
A lot of what I want to do is cut through some of the hype around the future of work and present the evidence for what is actually likely to happen. I also spend time with leaders encouraging them to think about what they want to achieve within their own organisation. With technology such as AI, this can be about considering where they need to be more effective or efficient and then how technology can help with that. This is about moving organisations away from adopting technologies because they think everyone else is doing it and thinking about what they can actually gain.
The truth is that your fundamental processes have to be right; if they aren’t right now, they still won’t be right just because you adopt AI – if you automate bad processes, they will still be bad processes! With AI the first question to ask is ‘Why would we adopt AI?’ What do we need to improve and is AI a good way to achieve this? If the answer is ‘yes’, then the next thing to ask is ‘Should AI do it?’. Is this ethical and responsible? What will the impact on people be? How can we negate any negative impacts (for example by reskilling and redeploying people who are displaced)?
We hear a lot about people losing their jobs because of AI but for the foreseeable future, we are likely to see people being augmented rather than replaced by AI. This means that the tasks and roles that people do will change dramatically and, importantly, the skills that they need will change. AI will mean tasks and roles change and there are those that will be done more efficiently by AI, but we also see jobs being created.
So, the picture for now is one of skills churn and of the need to upskill and reskill employees rather than replace them completely. There will still be significant but, as long as organisations take steps to address the impact of AI, we won’t see large scale job loss in the short term at least.
In a practical sense, how do clients benefit from your input?
Most of what we do is at least partly bespoke to each client because context is so important. How we approach it depends on the tasks and strategy in that organisation. It’s not so much about formal qualifications, more often than not we work with organisations with a view of helping people develop knowledge and understanding, while also applying what they learn to their own organisation.
What can employers do to prepare?
We need to recognise that many of the impacts of AI are not new. We have used technology to support and automate physical and administrative tasks for some time so we already know a lot about how to manage this. The difference is that AI is increasingly able to replicate more complex cognitive skills, so can have an impact on a larger number of work-based tasks and therefore a larger segment of the workforce. This means that employers will need to take more significant action to be prepared and to support workers to develop new skills and to move around within the workplace.
This requires a very different mind-set. Careers and talent management will no longer follow a linear, rigid path. This needs a change of approach from both employers and employees. The concern here is that some skills will inevitably become obsolete, so if we don’t develop a strategy for this and for how we’re going to cope with those changes, we will end up with people who are deskilled, demotivated and ultimately displaced from work.
How is your role going to develop?
Because AI has the capacity to replace more tasks that we always thought of as being undertaken by humans, we will see more humans and machines working together, humans enhanced by technology, as well as the need for ongoing development of employees. This means that we are going to see HR becoming increasingly important.
My job, I believe, is to present a balanced view. Some people are evangelists about AI, whereas others see it as presenting a more dystopian future. What my team and I do is offer that balance and evidence to help clients navigate the impact of AI and build a strategy for managing in the future world of work.
Professor Parry's team lead the new Senior People Professional Apprenticeship (SPPA) programme and the Masters’ degree in Human Resource Management which have both been designed drawing on Cranfield's knowledge of the changing world of work, including aspects such as AI and new ways of working.
This article was first published in All Things Business | UK Business News Publication
