[ad_1]
One overarching narrative about the rise of AI technology is that it threatens millions of people’s jobs via advanced automation, and many reports show just how nervous workers are that they’ll suffer this fate. Another AI narrative suggests that company leadership is so eager to reap AI’s promises in terms of boosted productivity and lower costs, that they’re pressing new AI tools into use without properly training their workforce, and just expect results to happen. Now a new report stitches these two narratives into a disturbing new one: the majority of executives in a survey said that they’d prefer to fire a worker who refuses to learn and adopt AI tools.
The data, from multinational U.S.-based office staffing company Kelly Services, shows that 59 percent of the senior executives surveyed would replace workers who “resist adopting” AI tools, news site HRDive notes. An even greater share of executives—fully 79 percent—think that pushing back against the AI revolution is a “greater threat to someone’s job than the technology itself.”
These managers, Kelly’s report says, think that AI should function the way AI boosters say it will: freeing up time for frontline workers to actually work on meaningful, higher-value tasks during their time in the office. Think of duties like collaborating with team members, mentoring junior workers and sharing their expertise and knowledge—all tasks that should, in theory, achieve workplace goals and tasks more quickly and smoothly.
On the flip side, Kelly’s data shows that the workers who actually are expected to use AI are much more doubtful about its actual performance. Under half (47 percent) say they think it helps them save time. Around one in three says they’re just not seeing the benefits that AI promises.
The gap between management expectation and worker experience is stark here. Kelly’s report notes that despite this, “nearly all organizations are utilizing AI in some form,” even as they’re experiencing “technical challenges, security concerns, and slow user adoption.” And the vast majority of managers (80 percent) say that their company’s AI rollout is stuttering because their teams “lack the expertise” to use the tech properly.
There are clear flaws in some of the thinking exhibited by managers here: AI is indeed a promising tech, but many experts warn that it’s not necessarily able to perform all the wonderful things that are promised. Some surveys even suggest that AI tools may be slowing certain workers down. AI technology is also not a panacea for all of a company’s ills—it’s not just something you can adopt and magically see the benefits. Report after report suggests that when you roll out AI to your workers you need to educate and then re-educate your workers on the benefits, best practices and risks of the tech you’re asking them to use simply because the cutting edge is advancing so very quickly (and the cybersecurity risks are advancing swiftly too).
You can also argue that Kelly’s data does neatly demonstrate that there’s a new ivory tower effect happening. Executives are simply expecting workers to use AI tools, even as they may be dismissing their workers’ concerns that they’re helping to hone the tech that one day may replace them: certain industries are already experiencing AI-related layoffs, for example. There’s a trust and leadership imbalance in place, and with such broad executive-level support for AI, this could create a toxic work environment.
What’s your big takeaway from this for your company?
Firstly, you need to be aware that despite your hopes that AI will immediately transform your business, the truth is it may not. Barriers like staff reluctance, training time, AI tool issues and more may be stifling the opportunity to benefit from AI.
Kelly’s report suggests a couple of tricks to solve this, which may be easier to implement in a smaller, more hands-on company than a larger corporate enterprise. For example, the report suggests linking career development to a workers’ AI fluency—a maneuver easily achieved by linking bonuses and promotions to demonstrated skills with AI. Directly addressing workers’ fears by performing “hands-on demos that illustrate how AI helps talent succeed” may also be useful. And you should definitely talk to and listen to your workers after you roll out AI tech: they may be encountering real difficulties, indicating that you need to try better training programs or perhaps that you’ve chosen the wrong AI tools for the task at hand.
The final deadline for the 2026 Inc. Regionals Awards is Friday, December 12, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply now.
[ad_2]
Kit Eaton
Source link