“Am I going to lose my job to AI?”
That’s the question on the minds of many workers, according to Ottawa consultant Andrea Greenhous, as companies adopt and refine their artificial intelligence strategies.
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“Am I going to lose my job to AI?”
That’s the question on the minds of many workers, according to Ottawa consultant Andrea Greenhous, as companies adopt and refine their artificial intelligence strategies.
Greenhous, president of local firm Vision2Voice, specializes in internal communication strategies, something she said companies need to be keeping in mind as they roll out more AI to a nervous workforce grappling with a period of renewed economic uncertainty.
“Not communicating is not an option,” she told OBJ on Wednesday. “If you don’t communicate, people are going to fill in the blanks with their own conspiracy theories, thoughts, fears, hopes, whatever.”
Two years after AI went mainstream with the launch of ChatGPT, companies have been experimenting with its various uses, from scheduling and notetaking to content generation. While some AI is now built into existing platforms like Google Workspace and Microsoft 365, third-party AI platforms are also gaining traction in the professional world.
While some companies have started adopting official AI strategies and regulations, others still don’t have any formal plans.
But where companies are in the process shouldn’t make a difference when it comes to their internal communication strategies around AI, said Greenhous.
“Every company is going through its own journey with AI and every company has different applications for it and concerns,” she said. “But every organization should communicate about AI regardless of what they are doing, because it’s going to be on employees’ minds.”
According to Greenhous, companies are seeing a growing divide between leadership and employees, often due to lack of communication that results in decreased trust. Large salary disparities between executives and workers can also sow discontent, especially during times of economic crisis.
And an unhappy workforce becomes a disengaged workforce.
“Engagement is a huge tax on organizations,” she said. According to data from Workforce ADP, she said, “A single disengaged employee can cost $2,246 annually. For a company with 2,000 employees, it can add up to $4.5 million a year.”
As a result, Greenhous said establishing trust is essential.
“My big piece of advice for leaders is to communicate with optimism but infused with a bit of caution,” she said.
When it comes to AI, she said building trust starts with transparent communication, even and especially if the company doesn’t know what it’s doing yet.
“We don’t want the rumour mill going,” she said. “One thing we know from working with clients is that employees want to know where their organization is going and why. They want a glimpse into the future. So sharing that is absolutely something that you need to do and it’s okay to not have all the answers. It’s okay to say we’re figuring it out, we’re making assessments. When you share openly, that builds trust.”
It’s a principle that applies to any big transition period.
“When we communicate change, there are a few important rules,” she said. “One is to create a vision – a vision for where AI is going to take you. Communicating with compassion. This evolution of technology is creating a lot of emotion in people and communicating with empathy and recognizing those emotions.”
With AI specifically, she said it helps to emphasize core values.
If one of the company’s core values is learning, she said it's important to provide educational resources and allow employees to experiment. But if another value is empathy, some time may need to be spent considering how that could be taken into consideration.
Whatever the values, she said fostering a culture of curiosity around the change can counteract some of that fear.
“The ability to fail is really critical to adapting to any kind of change,” she said.
But what if employees’ fears do come true?
Greenhous herself said AI has “taken the drudgery” out of a lot of the work at her firm; automating, analyzing, summarizing and freeing up time for more important tasks.
She said if AI improves efficiency to such an extent that an existing role becomes obsolete, reskilling that worker for a new position may be a better move than laying the person off – a process that she says makes more financial sense for companies and prevents dips in morale.
In the end, she said, it’s all about adapting.
“I’m 30-plus years into my career and the tools that I’m using, the knowledge I’m using, are not the same even from five years ago,” she said. “All kinds of things change the world of work, so how do you equip your organization to thrive? If we have a clear vision, the tools we use, the technology we use, is going to change but the goal remains the same. That’s the message that employees want to hear.”
