The term "Luddite" originated from 19th-century English workers who destroyed machinery, and now refers to those opposed to new technology or work methods.

People may oppose new technologies due to fears of change, loss, and mortality, associated with digital transformation and staff reductions.

The 21st century Luddite movement is motivated by job loss to AI, which capitalists use to automate and destroy worker livelihoods.

The movement is concerned with the power and profit preserved by tech progress, largely held by tech billionaires.

Theodore Kaczynski and others advocate against technological progress, while experts like Martin Ford and Marshall Brains predict significant job loss due to automation.

Organizations can address 21st century Luddite concerns by providing education, fostering open communication, and emphasizing human-machine collaboration.

Leaders must prioritize community and provide opportunities for teams to learn new technologies.

Explaining the value of change can ease employee confusion, and leaders must communicate its benefits clearly.

Artificial intelligence at work can lower wellbeing and increase job insecurity.

A positive company culture can reduce technology's negative impacts on employee wellbeing.

Transparent communication is necessary to address concerns about new technologies, and leaders play a key role in shaping the company narrative.

Involving end-users in decision-making can improve system acceptance and uncover productivity enhancements.

Clear communication and transparency are key to mitigating organizational resistance to new technologies like GenAI, and employees should be taught new skills to leverage them.

Creating awareness and investing in training can ease employee concerns and facilitate successful AI implementation.

Effective technology implementation requires people, technology, and process, with tailored communication to individual stakeholders.

The term "Luddite" originated from 19th-century English workers who destroyed machinery, and now refers to those opposed to new technology or work methods.

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Why robots will take your job, and what to do - panic or rejoice
Why robots will take away your profession.
Increasingly, you can hear about the challenges posed by automation and cybernization to existing professions today.
And we are talking not only about unmanned vehicles and chatbots replacing call center operators, but also about programs that can calculate bank loans and insurance rates, depriving analysts and, moreover, neural networks that claim to compete with highly qualified and creative employees.
Exemption from routine or danger of unemployment?
A cause for concern or long-awaited freedom?
History of the problem
Mechanisms of ancient times.
Competition has always existed – professions disappeared and arose, people fought for jobs with each other and with technology, philosophers and economists built forecasts and tried to predict the prospects and are still doing it.
For example, you can assess how much automation threatens your profession and how quickly robots will replace you by using Will Robots Take My Job.
Aristotle was the first to think about the possibility of transferring “work ” to machines.
In the first book of his Politics, he suggested that they could evolve to such an extent that the need for human labor would disappear.
For him, quite in line with the views of work at the time, as something distracting from participation in public life and personal development, this was an extremely optimistic forecast.
“Work ” in ancient Greece was considered to be the lot of the lower classes, and the mechanisms would only liberate slaves, considered nothing but“ machines of flesh and blood. ”
The reorientation of the economy to the export of wool led to the introduction of a policy of “enclosures ”.
The real competition of a sufficiently large mass of people technology for the first time was only more than a millennium and a half later in England.
At first, the reorientation of the economy to wool exports led to the introduction of a policy of “fencing ”, in which landlords expelled farmers from the fields in order to free the territory for sheep grazing, which led to the first massive surge of“ unemployment ” – albeit not in the current sense.
The then arising vagrancy and poverty contemporary of these events, the Chancellor of England and philosopher Thomas More described the famous "sheep ate people."
However, after a few decades it became clear that no – not eaten.
The former peasants were absorbed by the growing cities, where they found a new job in textile manufactures, processing the same wool obtained from shearing sheep.
This was the first example of how, by taking away one thing, “technology ” is able to offer something different.
But we must admit: the process of urbanization was painful, the work that replaced the cultivation of land turned out to be hard and dirty, the gap with the traditional way of life was very traumatic, and the population of England as a result of hunger and the fight against vagrancy, which was conducted, including the use of gallows, decreased, according to some estimates by 30% (to understand the scale - the Soviet Union during the Second World War lost "only" 15% of the population).
Workers in a textile factory, late 18th century.
The next episode of the confrontation between people and technology occurred a century later in the same field of light industry - the invention in 1785 by Edmund Cartwright of a mechanical loom increased labor productivity forty times.
Jobs that had just been lost were once again lost.
But again temporarily – after spinning machines, others appeared and all of them demanded new resources, and their extraction – new types of labor.
Manufactures were replaced by factories, and muscle strength by the power of steam obtained from coal.
Machine Destroyers
The Luddite movement.
This time, the changes that occurred were met with bayonets - there was a movement of Luddites.
Sabotage of work and direct action: attacks on factories and the destruction of machines caused a harsh reaction of the state, which sent troops to suppress the “army of Ned Ludd ”.
It is characteristic that no one at the top bothered to convey to the workers the idea that there will still be work for them, even if not the one to which they had time to get used.
The fact is that the “top ” themselves at that time did not think too much about how all this was arranged, and people were perceived as expendable material, while the inertia of consciousness of ordinary workers who had just recovered from the transition from the agrarian to the urban way of life was also very high.
The First Industrial Revolution at the beginning of the 18th century.
The theoretical basis for the interaction of technological innovations and the masses of labor began to be summed up only by economists and philosophers of the middle of the XIX century.
They were the first to suggest that the disappearance of certain types of work in the process of technological development entails the emergence of new ones, and “work ” as a whole is not something final, which may be“ not enough ”.
The First Industrial Revolution was in full swing and the optimism of its apologists only grew stronger over time.
By the end of the century, it seemed that progress would eliminate not only social problems and contradictions, but could also rid humanity of wars.
However, while some spoke of the "Luddite delusion", others spoke of the "enslavement of the masses" and the need to hand over to the "factory workers", predicting that as long as the instruments of production are in the hands of the big proprietors, their employees will remain disenfranchised, and the lack of social security will cause explosions of unemployment at any moment.
Second wave
The Second Industrial Revolution.
The word “unemployment ” came into being at that time.
The fact is that a peasant working in the fields or a craftsman who provides for the needs of himself and the small surrounding community could not face something like this - he himself formed his employment.
When the scheme of selling labor on a strict schedule became mass within the framework of fulfilling a strictly regulated set of duties, the challenge arose to lose such an opportunity.
The Second Industrial Revolution was on the way.
The basics of streaming production were laid at the end of the 19th century, and by the beginning of the 20th century, the combination of Ford ’ s marketing strategy (he invented that the car was not an attribute of the elites, but a mass need) and the conveyor he introduced led to new changes that went beyond factories and factories.
On January 18, 1886, the first car invented by Karl Benz was released.
It was the emergence of technology on the streets of cities that brought a new wave of competition.
Look at the photos of the streets of the beginning of the last century: here they are dammed with carts, among which a lonely clumsy car is trying to maneuver, but ten years later, the only horse frightened by the roar of engines and sobbing of klaxons is clutching to the sidewalks.
Here it will be important to note how unpredictable this jump became: “At the beginning of the 20th century, the French Academy warned about an environmental disaster, which inevitably should lead to the accumulation of horse manure associated with the development of horse-drawn transport in Paris, ” recalls, reasoning about the prediction of the future Stanislav Lem.
However, note: in those regions where human labor is cheaper, technology can not replace it, as we are shown, for example, rickshaws, until recently used their own muscle power and only with a sharp drop in the cost of small vehicles motorized.
A more modern example is “computer rickshaws ” – hundreds of thousands of low-skilled Chinese, hacked captchas all day, because their work costs less than the introduction of scripts.
Technological unemployment
The line of the American unemployed during the Great Depression.
In the 1930s, Maynard Keynes, who gave the world the theory of the “social state ”, from the attempts of which many economies have not recovered so far, introduced the term“ technological unemployment ” into mass circulation.
Since then, the debate about whether the introduction of new technological solutions and opportunities can create a long-term job crisis or whether everything is limited to repurposing, when obsolete professions are replaced by new ones, and it is enough for people to change or improve their skills.
Until the end of the last decade, most experts were inclined to believe that “technological unemployment ” is always a temporary phenomenon, leading to the renewal and improvement of the professionalism of workers.
Mechanical labor was replaced by physical labor, the operator - a profession more status and highly paid than the worker, the reduction of costs leads to the release of time - these are the main theses sounded then.
Pessimistic views remained largely the domain of marginals, such as Theodore Kaczynski, famous for his terrorist struggle against progress under the name of Unabomber and primitive philosophers.
Pessimism
The first full-fledged computer in the USSR BESM-1.
Cautious voices expressing doubts about the correctness of this approach sounded even then.
And if in one of his speeches in 1962, President Kennedy said that “if people are able to invent new machines that take away their jobs, even more so are able to invent new jobs, ” then two years later, a letter from scientists and activists concerned with the problem of technological unemployment, sent to his successor, Lyndon Johnson, stated that“ a revolution in cybernetics will create a separate nation of poor, unskilled unemployed. ”.
Theorists disputed the impossibility of long-term unemployment, as did Martin Ford in the book “Light in the Tunnel: Automation, Acceleration of Technology and the Economy of the Future ” or Marshall Brains in“ Robotic Nation ”.
Gasne-Peter Martin and Harald Schumann, in their Global Trap, describe a society in which the labor of twenty percent of the population is enough for the world economy to continue to develop.
There are those who see it as a threat and a danger, like Paul Krugmann in his article “Sympathy for the Luddites ” or Frey and Osborne in“ The Future of Work. ”
In addition, in practice, it turned out that technology is not so freeing up time – for example, representatives of professions requiring high qualifications, at least in the United States today work more than 30 years ago, and technologies that provide remote access to working tools allow them not to break away from professional tasks and in their “free time ”.
It is also important that new jobs, as it was noticed at the beginning of the XXI century, are created not so much by technology as by the change in the way of life that they entail.
So in the mid-2010s, nine out of ten working people are employed in professions that did not exist a century earlier, but only 5% of the jobs that appeared from 1993 to 2013 are in high-tech areas, such as IT or telecom.
However, the question is whether this does not mean that indirectly they still arise due to technologies that provide an opportunity for development for the service sector.
Is it bad?
A shot from the film "I, Robot" (2004).
Harvard economics professor Lawrence Summers, who previously served as U.S. Treasury Secretary, said in 2014 that he no longer believes that automation will always create new jobs and that it is not some hypothetical possibility in the future; it is something that is emerging now.
In his opinion, the changes will be very global and will lead to mass unemployment not only among low-skilled employees, but also for “blue ” and“ white ” collar workers, because “there are many reasons to think that the software revolution will be even more significant than the agrarian one. ”
The robot prepares food.
However, this is what allows us to look to the future with optimism.
Summers ’ s thought of the meaning of the digital revolution echoes the position of futurologist Alvin Toffler.
As early as 1970, in his book Future Shock, he wrote that by comparing the Digital Revolution with the Industrial Revolution, we downplay its significance and it would be more correct to draw a parallel with the exit of mankind from caves and the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture and cattle breeding.
Potentially, this means that humanity is on the verge of an unprecedented, unknown written history civilizational leap of colossal proportions.
And, due to the fact that the speed of changes in the world has increased many times and now, the fact that in the case of the end of the Stone Age, took millennia, is being carried out in front of one, a maximum of a couple or three generations, this breakthrough, of course, will be painful.
However, having reviewed the usual way of life, the attitude to it and their values, will not humanity be able to break through to the conditions of life, previously even unimaginable.
"Terminator 2: Judgment Day" (1991).
We are easily accustomed to such changes in “work ” as freelancing and remote work, quite calmly came to a repeated change of professions, instead of a continuous, decades-long“ career ” and even were able to include them in your life, saying that this is the way to find yourself.
So is it not time to begin to accustom ourselves to the idea that, as economic historian Robert Skidelsky said, “Sooner or later we will run out of work ”?
After all, freelancing and remote employment are about freedom, about leaving the “office slavery ” and searching for the way of life that is convenient for us.
Yes, to get used to the idea that the traditional “work ” is over and now we will have to independently invent what to occupy ourselves will not be easy.
It will require responsibility, but it is freedom.
Isn ’ t it time for us, joyfully exclaiming “Glory to the robots! ”, to go in search of our place in the new world?
Why robots will take away your profession.
The fact that it is not only about robots, but also about the “work ” itself and the possibility of life without it, about the risks associated with negative scenarios of confrontation between people and machines and the possibilities of overcoming them, we will talk in the next parts of the cycle.
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People may oppose new technologies due to fears of change, loss, and mortality, associated with digital transformation and staff reductions.

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Lessons Learned Selling Digital Transformation In A Risk-Averse Industry

Michael W. Levin, CEO and co-founder of Ideon.

In a 2018 McKinsey survey, 80% of respondents said their organizations had undertaken a digital transformation in the preceding five years.

And that was before the pandemic, which has, to say the least, accelerated such changes.

Of course it has. I’m preaching to the choir when I posit to this audience that digital change is necessary for the survival of almost any organization today, business or otherwise. That’s certainly the case for the industry in which my company operates—health insurance and employee benefits—and especially so for carriers, in part because of the rapid rise of InsurTech, which is helping to drive digital innovation throughout the industry.

And yet.

All too often, selling digital transformation within large organizations is an uphill battle. That’s especially the case at organizations in established industries—with ways of doing business that can sometimes date back decades—and is even more a truism if those organizations have a predisposition to manage risk. There are many reasons for this, of course, but three fears play a key role.

• Fear Of Change: It's human nature to favor the familiar over the unknown. We prefer what we know, even when shown a superior alternative. So it’s understandable that executives accustomed to analog processes may be wary of digital ones. There’s an entire field of study, behavioral economics, built around the status quo bias.

• Fear Of Loss: Digital transformation requires investment. And as a general rule, humans react twice as strongly to the loss of a given amount as they do to the gain of the same amount. So unless the ROI for a digital transformation project is clear and convincing, certain colleagues will tend to resist spending money.

• Fear Of Mortality: Not literally, of course. But bosses and employees alike often associate digital change with staff reductions. But even though such relationships are unclear, some executives resist change if they believe it will lead to a loss of headcount or otherwise erode positions of power.

The Way Forward

So how can an organization’s evangelizers persuade colleagues to embrace change? There’s no simple answer, but my experience over the years helping insurance organizations embrace data transparency and connected ecosystems suggests that four strategies—on their own or in combination—can help break through most institutional roadblocks:

1. Align proposed changes with business goals. Change for modernizing’s sake is one thing. Change that helps achieve already established goals is something else entirely. Good leaders are generally driven by big-picture aims. Tying digital transformation to company priorities allows evangelizers to harness existing momentum rather than requiring them to start from scratch.

2. Create your own stakeholders. Whatever their personality, human beings are much more likely to support an initiative if they feel invested in it. Quite frankly, we value something more when it's ours. And the best way to create investment in the idea of change is to involve colleagues early in the transformational journey. Ask the appropriate decision-makers or influencers for input about their problems and possible solutions. If the digital transformation you seek is the logical conclusion to that process, otherwise resistant colleagues will more likely support the idea because they had a hand in getting there.

3. Marshal your facts. Before investing resources in digital transformation, decision-makers want to know that it will pay off. Prepare information—statistics, research findings, anecdotes—on the ROI of digital transformation. Seventy-six percent of employees surveyed said having the digital tools they need makes them more productive. Additionally, Harvard Business School technologists report (paywall) that companies with the most effective digital transformations have higher net income than those with less-successful digital transformations. Data points like these can motivate leaders to prioritize tech imperatives.

4. Leverage FOMO. Regret aversion is a powerful thing. That is to say, many people are not as afraid of making a bad decision as they are afraid of feeling bad about a decision they made. It’s one reason people follow the crowd. We don’t necessarily believe that other people are smarter than we are. But many of us do believe (if only nonconsciously) that if we follow the lead of others we will have company if our decision turns out to be unwise. Regret aversion bias can be leveraged powerfully when selling digital transformation by framing a failure to adopt change as leaving an organization alone in the dark while the rest of the industry—or even its cutting-edge leaders—moves toward the light.

I know there is a reliable path to digital transformation because my firm has seen dozens of clients and partners complete such journeys. But accounting for the inevitable challenges, both structural and psychological, is key to achieving success.

Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?

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The 21st century Luddite movement is motivated by job loss to AI, which capitalists use to automate and destroy worker livelihoods.

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Content: Science, Technology and Humanities Joint Lecture / Who will be Marx in the AI era?
A few years ago, I went to the Red Square in Moscow and saw the monument of Karl Marx ’ s bust at the southern end of the square. As I drew, I thought of Marx ’ s Capital in 1867, which pointed out that the development of machines led to the exploitation and destruction of the ecology of capitalism, affecting the working people ’ s labor and changing the mode of production, creating a vast proletariat.
"The steam engine itself did not cause the industrial revolution", but "the creation of the machine tool is the real reason for the steam engine revolution".
After the widespread use and continuous improvement of the "machine tool", the division of labor process resulting in "machine cooperation" enabled the industrial revolution, which began in the 1760s, to use large amounts of labor and machinery for rapid production.
But at the same time, the machine is also crowded to the workers, forming a competitive relationship.
The labor force of the machine appeared and immediately became a competitor of the workers.
Capitalists use machines to proliferate automatically, in direct proportion to the number of workers whose survival conditions are destroyed by machines.
The whole capitalist system of production is based on the fact that the workers sell their labour power as a commodity.
The division of labor makes this workforce one-sided, so that workers have only the skills to operate local tools.
Once a tool is manipulated by a machine, the exchange value of labor disappears along with its use value.
The workers will be immediately unemployed.
In order to combat the unreasonable exploitation of employers, many large-scale labor movements rose up, such as the Peterloo Massacre in Manchester, England in 1819, the workers ’ uprising in Lyon, France in the 1830s, and the first general strike in Britain in 1842.
The revolt of the German Silesian textile workers in 1844, which caused great casualties, became the benchmark event of the proletariat against capitalist exploitation. As the mode of production advanced, the existing social organization became inefficient and conflicted with economic activity, which in turn developed into a class struggle.
More than two hundred years later, human creativity in the 21st century has taken another giant leap, and artificial intelligence (AI) technology has advanced rapidly, resulting in a new wave of industrial revolution.
More than the steam engine of the 18th century, people found that in addition to carrying out a variety of heavy and complex tasks, AI can also reason, abstract thinking, quickly learn and understand complex ideas, with more efficient productivity, and modern law is difficult to restrain.
"AI itself did not cause an industrial revolution", but "the creation of AI machine tools makes the AI revolution necessary."
As the world repeats Marx's "Capital Theory" narrative, with the rapid development of the AI industry, many people's job opportunities are gradually reduced, many jobs are eliminated, and countless families are forced to face unemployment.
As a result, the 1842 general strike struck Hollywood ’ s largest strike in 2023 for similar reasons, with writers and actors protesting against the replacement of their creations and performances by AI, undermining the profit sharing mechanism on which they depend. History is repeating itself, and it will be lawyers, mathematicians, accountants, or professors who will rise next?
When the actor strikes, the male protagonist of "Destiny Poisoner" cries out loudly: "We will not allow you to take away our dignity!" And who will be the 21st century Marx, writing "AI Capital Theory", stirring up a revolution, subverting the evil capitalist who uses AI to exploit the white collar?
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The little money of the rich can save many poor children.
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The movement is concerned with the power and profit preserved by tech progress, largely held by tech billionaires.

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Content: Hey tech billionaires, if you want to talk about radical change, let’s abolish venture capitalism

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The future that technology elites like to imagine looks remarkably similar to the one we’re in

‘Any meaningful, progressive – and dare I say, hopeful – view of the future of technology must be willing to engage with its politics, history and consequences.’‘Any meaningful, progressive – and dare I say, hopeful – view of the future of technology must be willing to engage with its politics, history and consequences.’Do you support sustainability, social responsibility, tech ethics, or trust and safety? Congratulations, you’re an enemy of progress.

Andreessen lambasts academia for being “disconnected from the real world, delusional, unelected, and unaccountable – playing God with everyone else’s lives, with total insulation from the consequences”. I have never read a more apt description of Big Tech.

So why should we give this manifesto any time of day? As the co-founder of one of the world’s biggest venture capital firms, Andreessen holds significant power. And he’s far from alone in his thinking – the manifesto offers a glimpse into the belief systems of many tech billionaires. Echoes can be heard of Mark Zuckerberg’s infamous former motto:Tech elites like to cast themselves as radical revolutionaries. But we find ourselves in a relentless cycle of sameness. headtopics.com

Concealed within the rhetoric of tech progress is preservation of the status quo. The future that tech elites imagine looks remarkably similar to the one we’re in: unchecked power, consolidated wealth, low regulation and minimal consequences when technology proves to be harmful. If we want to talk about

It serves tech billionaires well to make it seem as though social progress is intrinsically linked to tech development. They cast themselves as our; here to save humanity provided they retain the power, capital and market dominance to do so. Anyone who dares get in the way is dismissed as backwards or ignorant. This mischaracterisation goes at least as far back as the early 1800s and the Luddite uprising. headtopics.com

Then as now, when elites misrepresent techno-scepticism as dangerous or backwards, they are trying to direct attention away from rational concerns about manifestations of power and profit.The brand of optimism wielded by prominent tech industry figures weaponises hope for a better future. It asks us to shy away from the political realities of technology as it stands in favour of a libertarian fantasy (or nightmare).

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Theodore Kaczynski and others advocate against technological progress, while experts like Martin Ford and Marshall Brains predict significant job loss due to automation.

Organizations can address 21st century Luddite concerns by providing education, fostering open communication, and emphasizing human-machine collaboration.

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6 Strategies To Alleviate Employees’ Fears Of AI In 2024

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The rise in AI has caused a mixture of excitement and fear as it becomes a standard part of our lives. Some say it’s a risk to civilization as we know it, while others insist it will transform the way we work, live and interact with one another. The part that is not debatable is that not only is AI not going away, it’s on the upswing. You can get that tattooed. So it’s important to develop a reasonable comfort around its use.

Is AI Coming For You Or To You?

One way to do that is to consider that AI is coming to you, not for you. The stigma and fear around the technology has caused some employees to shy away from a tool that can enhance productivity and certain mental health benefits like cognitive re-framing for anxiety. On the flip side, studies also show that workers who frequently use AI are at higher risk for burnout.

However, the opposite findings are reported in a new global survey from Sage. Out of over 1,000 HR leaders, 95% have experienced a workload increase over the last year, and 91% noted an increase in their responsibilities. Yet, instead of fearing AI usage, 77% of the respondents cite AI as having the potential to revolutionize their work processes by reducing time-consuming tasks and ultimately easing burnout.

Taylor Blake, senior vice president of new initiatives at Degreed, told me by email that there’s a lot of fear about AI, but avoiding the technology won’t make the risks go away. He explains that employees need to know what the AI tools are capable of, and they need to be experimenting. He also said that many companies want their employees to adopt this technology, adding that many workers are left wondering if AI will take their jobs in the next two years and what this means for their careers.

How Companies Can Help Assuage AI Fears

Mismanaged fear is responsible for most poor communication in organizations. It’s important that business leaders consider the psychological safety of their employees and how their mental health impacts the company’s bottom line.

The human mind is like Velcro for negativity and Teflon for positivity. Work-life’s inevitable uncertainties instantly arouse our fight-or-flight reaction. Our survival brain is constantly updating our world, making judgments about what's safe and what isn't. It will do almost anything for the sake of certainty because we’re hardwired to overestimate threats and underestimate your ability to handle them. Here is where business leaders can step in and offer a helping hand, according to the experts.

“Some companies are going all in on AI, wanting their employees to start adopting this technology, leaving employees wondering if AI will take their jobs in two years and what this means for their careers,” Blake says, adding that in this new reality, companies should be helping their employees navigate where they can best apply their skills and develop new ones simultaneously. “Many of us have the mindset that learning is something we do early in our careers, but we need to shift that to a mindset of being lifelong learners. Learning is the new competitive advantage in today’s AI-powered job market.”

According to Rick Hammell, founder and CEO of Helios, leaders play a crucial role in alleviating employees' fears of AI. He shared with me six strategies companies can implement to mitigate fear and misunderstanding

  1. Providing comprehensive education and training programs. By offering employees a deeper understanding of AI technologies, their benefits and limitations, Hammell suggests that leaders can demystify AI and address misconceptions that often fuel fear and uncertainty.
  2. Fostering open communication within the organization. Hammell believes that creating a culture where employees feel comfortable expressing their concerns about AI allows leaders to actively listen to these fears and address them with empathy and clarity.
  3. Emphasizing the concept of human-machine collaboration. Hammell advocates highlighting how AI can complement and enhance employees' skills and productivity rather than replace them. He insists that this will enable leaders to help employees see AI as a tool that can improve their work experiences.
  4. Establishing clear ethical guidelines and policies for the use of AI in the workplace. Hammell sees this as crucial in addressing common fears related to AI. He acknowledges that employees often worry about job loss, privacy concerns, skill obsolescence, bias and discrimination and a lack of control when it comes to AI. To assuage these fears, he advises that leaders reassure employees about job security by emphasizing that AI is meant to augment their work, not replace it entirely.
  5. Implementing robust data protection measures and transparent data handling practices can help address privacy concerns. Hammell recommends offering upskilling and reskilling programs to help employees adapt to the changing skill requirements in the age of AI to alleviate fears related to skill obsolescence.
  6. Promoting diversity and inclusion in AI development and deployment. Hammell argues that it is essential to address concerns about bias and discrimination. “By involving employees in the design and implementation of AI systems and providing opportunities for feedback, leaders can empower employees and help them feel more in control of AI processes,” he concludes.

A Final Wrap-Up

Companies are developing technology to help people feel more confident with the inevitable technology. A study by Genesys, for example, finds a consensus among most employees who say they don’t fear AI replacing their jobs. Only 10% of GenZ/millennials and seven percent of GenX/boomers worry about this in the long run. Instead, 23% of GenZ/millennials and 19% of GenX/boomers see its potential to make their jobs better. The study concluded that organizations should seize this opportunity to educate and train their employees on AI’s benefits.

Bill Salak, the CTO and COO of Brainly, is on a mission to ensure the country’s future workforce is well-educated and ready to wield AI properly. His company has validated its commitment to the future workforce with the launch of Test Prep, an AI-driven tool that builds good time management skills and bolsters their overall understanding of AI use. The new Brainly feature uses AI to generate personalized study experiences—boosting confidence and reducing anxiety.

The conflicting findings that are emerging around AI reflects our human inability to accept uncertainty. It shows that some workers have fear; others have appreciation, which raises the question, “Is AI a sword or a shield?” Too much or too little of anything can be harmful. In the final analysis, it’s how corporate America uses the technology to improve humanity that ultimately matters.

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Leaders must prioritize community and provide opportunities for teams to learn new technologies.

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Empowering A New Class Of Agency Creatives

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Amber is the Co-Founder & CEO of Invisible North.

For leaders of creative agencies, the heartbeat of our success resides in our people and their ideas. Creating a balanced agency ecosystem demands that the team feels valued, supported and heard, equipped not only with the tools for their craft but also the empowerment to experiment, push boundaries and boldly innovate.

Today, a major shift is underway, marked by the integration of emerging technologies like AI and thus a fear of job security with automation. And with it, there is a persistent undercurrent—the sense among many creatives that their work is being undervalued.

As leaders steering through this transformative journey, we recognize that these new tools and processes, though intimidating, harbor the potential to spark increased creativity when truly understood and approached with intentionality. Over the years, I’ve uncovered a few tried-and-true methods to help empower teams to utilize these new tools, experiment and enhance their craft amid our evolving industry.

Create Safe Spaces

Agency leaders play a pivotal role in shaping the company narrative for their teams and uplifting them from within. It begins with fostering an environment for open communication in which team members are comfortable expressing their concerns, ideas and opinions, especially at a time when many have mixed feelings about bringing AI into the workplace.

To truly empower our communities, we must acknowledge these emotions and encourage a workplace where they can feel valued and motivated. In doing so, their best work can come to life.

We have a strong culture in our agency of show-and-tell, inspiration trips/research and challenges. If there are areas that team members want to learn about, we find time to dig into research, insights and workshops with best-in-class partners so that we can enhance collective brain trust and overcome the fear of unknown barriers to comfort and flow.

Champion Wins

In a creative field where individual expression and innovation are highly valued, it’s crucial for leaders to create an environment that fosters personal inspiration. Getting results from soup to nuts on a project is not an easy feat—so much goes into it across departments. Oftentimes, we move from one project to the next and forget to stop and celebrate the wins or embrace the learnings. By acknowledging the diverse efforts it took to bring the campaign to life, along with any new tools or methods used, you’re reinforcing the efforts needed to create success.

We use our monthly companywide newsletters, quarterly town halls and biannual all-team meetings to share individual, team and project accolades alongside other agency updates.

Embrace Change

The introduction of new technologies in any space often triggers a fear of the unknown. Teams should view these changes as catalysts rather than inhibitors. Through thoughtful integration strategies, leaders can help harness emerging technologies to enrich the creative process rather than impede it.

We’ve seen time and time again that when you curate a supportive environment to freely experiment, magic happens. It is imperative to encourage teams to explore with new tools and also hold space to share their discoveries. That’s where the real learning begins. It’s also essential to tackle any concerns or anxieties team members may have, leading with transparent communication throughout.

Foster Community

Emerging technologies will inevitably shape the way agencies and creatives approach their craft, ultimately opening new doors for how we tell stories, create experiences and personalize content. No matter the changes, the thing that must remain constant is continuing to prioritize the people who truly make the work special.

As the heartbeat of the creative process, we must protect our community above all else—recognizing their anxieties, celebrating their experimentations, championing their well-being and helping them navigate this new frontier. So, as we embrace a new year, let’s carry these principles forward into 2024—a commitment to cultivating a community that not only adapts to change but propels it. Let’s create a legacy of inspired, valued and empowered creative professionals.

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Explaining the value of change can ease employee confusion, and leaders must communicate its benefits clearly.

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Content: Reimagining the workplace was a common theme during the final session of the 2021 Digital Workplace Experience conference series, produced by Reworked and Simpler Media Group.

In his opening keynote address at the fall virtual conference on Oct. 14 and 15, Adam Grant, organizational psychologist at The Wharton School and bestselling author of “Think Again,” shared where he thinks workplace collaboration goes awry, why good ideas don't get put into practice and how employers must rethink their workplace culture. It comes down to having an experimental mindset as a leader.

“My favorite alternative to preaching, prosecuting and politicking, is to think more like a scientist," he said.

The conference brought together over 20 speakers to share insights on topics such as innovation inside the workplace, the evolving intelligent workplace, collaboration and digital transformation. Access to recordings of the fall sessions, as well as all the presentations from the four-part 2021 Digital Workplace Experience series, is free after registration.

In addition to two days of sessions, Reworked and Simpler Media Group also recognized the finalists for the 2021 Employee Experience Leader of the Year award during event, and named Tom Dewaele, vice president and global head of employee experience at Unilever as the winner of the award.

Here are five takeaways from the fall finale of the event series:

We’re Only as Good as the People Around Us

Mike Prokopeak, editor in chief of Reworked, kicked off the conference by discussing the conference theme: “Future Workplace: Emerging Technology, Innovation & Intelligent Platforms.”

“To be honest with you,” Prokopeak said on Oct. 14, “that theme is actually already a bit out of date. It implies that the future is somewhere off in the distance. If there's anything the last year-plus of innovation and change has shown us, it’s that the future of work is now.”

The world's seen a massive investment in workplace tech and the convergence of work and home, Prokopeak said, and “there's no time like the present to be doing the work that you're doing.” And that means investing in agility, experimentation, rapid prototyping, integrating systems and processes, and, above all, learning what is demanded of us for work — now.

“It's the human element of work that is most important,” Prokopeak said. “And also the most complex and challenging part of this ongoing transformation: we're only as good as the people around us. The team we build, the people we develop and support, and the mission we choose to pursue together. ... It's the values we share, the dreams we pursue together, and the quality of our relationships that will define whether or not we succeed. Tech will only get us so far. It's what we do with that tech to work better, to fulfill our purpose as organizations and benefit individuals that will make all the difference.”

Related Article: 7 Takeaways from the Digital Workplace Experience Summer Conference

Employee-Centric Model is Needed for the Modern Employee

Jaime Neely, chief culture officer at Trend Hunter, encouraged employers to consider the toll the pandemic has taken on employee wellbeing.

Her company's innovation assessment found that among the 60,000 professionals they surveyed globally:

  • 38% feel their ideas are not heard or acknowledged.
  • 47% feel they aren’t provided the time and resources to pursue their ideas.
  • 52% don't think their company adapts quickly enough to remain relevant.

“It may be hard to say but what we know with certainty is that the workplace is forever changed,” Neely said as she shared Trend Hunters’ "4 E’s of Modern Work Culture," which include:

  • Evolution
  • Engagement
  • Experience
  • Excellence

Workplace leaders need to be cognizant that work never ends for most people today, with endless notifications and pings from always-on collaboration tools. This wasn’t always the case in the workplace.

“There wasn't any email or mobile phones or Slack notifications,” she said. “And this meant that for the most part, work actually stayed at work. And there was a very clear, dare I say, healthy separation between work and life. Today, however, it feels like there's hardly any semblance of separation.”

Neely spoke about millennials and Gen Z’s dominance in the workplace over the next 10 years — something for which workplace leaders must adapt. These generations “bring very different expectations and norms with them that they expect in the workplace,” she said. The modern employee expects the right to choose when and where they want to work, she said.

Workplace Learning Never Ends

Tammy Grant, senior expert for learning for McKinsey & Company, shared with attendees some data and lessons for reimagining the future of work and learning in 2022 and beyond. Her overarching point? Companies need to be reskilling and upskilling their employees. All of them.

“We have lots of jobs out there, and we have lots of people looking for work,” Grant said. “... As many of you probably know, jobs are being redefined by technology. And the thing is that people don't necessarily have the skills they need to fill these new jobs.”

The idea that you're going to be in the same job for the rest of your life? Thing of the past, Grant said. We know that people need to upskill, so why aren't we doing it? A lot of adults haven't been trained in how to be lifelong learners.

Employees in today’s workforce should be able to:

  • Add value beyond what can be done by automated systems and intelligent machines.
  • Operate in digital environments.
  • Continually adapt to new ways of working and new occupations.

McKinsey research found four main categories of skills:

  • Cognitive
  • Interpersonal
  • Self-leadership
  • Digital

“So,” she said, “continuous upskilling and reskilling is a must. Learning now probably has the amount of shelf life as a glass of milk sitting on your counter. By the time it gets out and released it's probably out of date. So the constant need to reskill is upon us.”

Related Article: 6 Takeaways from the Spring Digital Workplace Experience Virtual Conference

Change Is Coming to the Digital Workplace

Sarah Kimmel, vice president of research at Simpler Media Group, shared key findings from the 2021 Q2 Edition of The State of the Digital Workplace report, including where organizations are in terms of implementing the core elements of their digital workplace.

The percentage of organizations reporting that their digital workplace is now “fully implemented” has doubled from last year, jumping from 15% to 31%. The overall proportion of organizations we can consider to be in implementation or post-implementation has also increased from under half (49%) in 2020 to over two thirds (67%) in 2021.

Kimmel also reported that those organizations stating they are either at a “mature” phase or “mid-way” phase toward digital workplace maturity have grown from 58% to 69%, and those “not yet started” or “not sure” have shrunk from 8% to 3%.

Related Article: 10 Takeaways from the Winter 2021 Digital Workplace Experience Conference

Communication Matters in Digital Workplace Tech Rollouts

Michelle Braden, vice president of global talent development at WEX, was transparent about her personal experience with implementing new workplace technologies in her company. She said that it was a learning process implementing new technology, and while it was challenging to get things rolled out during the pandemic, the reaction that resulted from the new technology made it worthwhile.

Braden reinforced that communication is crucial when it comes to implementing new workplace technology. She said that it will ease any confusion that may arise due to assumptions made by employees. Braden said that it is as easy as explaining what’s coming and why it’s coming. Holding out on this information will confuse employees and cause unneeded headaches for the company leaders.

“Communications," Braden said, "articulate the value of the change."

Artificial intelligence at work can lower wellbeing and increase job insecurity.

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Content: Using AI For Work? It's Bad For Quality Of Life, Finds Study

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Updated on Mar 18, 2024, 12:41 IST

The clamour around Artificial Intelligence continues as humans try to navigate the impacts of this technology. While concerns often focus on AI replacing human jobs, a recent survey has shed light on more concerning effects, notably the negative impact of AI usage at work on overall quality of life.

Interaction with AI led to lower wellbeing

A recent study by the Institute for the Future of Work, which surveyed 6,000 individuals, looked into the effects of various technologies on wellbeing.

They examined four types of technologies commonly used across different sectors: AI-based software, wearable trackers, surveillance devices, and robotics.

IT

The findings revealed that the more workers interacted with these technologies, the lower their overall health and wellbeing tended to be.

On the other hand, the use of traditional information and communication technologies (ICTs) like laptops, tablets, and instant messaging in the workplace generally had a more favorable impact on wellbeing.

Why is health & well being impacted by AI?

Their discoveries rehashed previous studies indicating that such technologies may worsen job insecurity, increase workload, standardise tasks, diminish work significance, disempower workers, and reduce autonomy, all of which diminish overall employee wellness.

indiatoday

It's not necessarily the technologies themselves that pose a problem, but rather how they are implemented, said the study lead author Dr Magdalena Soffia, as quoted by The Guardian.

"... it really depends on the context: on lots of structural factors, on environmental conditions, how it is designed and how it is deployed. So lots of human decisions," she said.

Mary Towers, the TUC's lead on AI, expressed concern, stating that these findings should alarm us all.

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They indicate that "without robust new regulation, AI could make the world of work an oppressive and unhealthy place for many."

Professor Sir Christopher Pissarides, the economist leading the review, thus emphasis the importance of understanding how our engagement with new technologies affects our overall quality of life as these innovations increasingly permeate our work environments.

For more news and current affairs from around the world, please visit Indiatimes News.

A positive company culture can reduce technology's negative impacts on employee wellbeing.

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Content: Importance of company culture to attract talent
Company culture is the lifeblood of any organization, influencing its internal operations and external image.
It embodies the values, beliefs and practices of the organization and plays a key role in determining the overall morale, motivation and performance of employees.
So it ’ s no surprise that company culture has become a key factor for top talent to choose their next career.
In today ’ s competitive job market, companies need to do more than offer attractive salaries and benefits to attract the best professionals.
They have to create a cultural environment where employees can truly thrive and feel valued.
Having a strong company culture not only improves employee satisfaction and loyalty, but also helps an organization stand out from its competitors, making it the employer of choice for technical professionals.
The impact of company culture on attracting top talent cannot be overemphasized. According to a Glassdoor survey, 77% of job seekers regard company culture as a fundamental factor when applying for a job.
In addition, research shows that organizations with a positive culture enjoy higher rates of talent retention because employees are more likely to stay in a company that aligns with their values and supports their personal and professional growth.
Core elements of an attractive company culture
To develop a strong company culture that attracts top talent requires a clear understanding of what professionals are looking for in their employers.
The following elements are essential to creating a company culture that attracts and retains top talent:
• Clear Mission and Values: A clear and clear mission statement, along with core values that guide organizational decisions and behavior, helps employees understand the greater purpose of their work.
This, in turn, makes them feel more connected and committed to the organization.
Diversity and Inclusion: A diverse and inclusive workforce fosters a culture where people from diverse backgrounds and perspectives feel valued and respected.
This sense of belonging has a significant impact on employee engagement, creativity and retention.
• Continuous learning and development: A culture that supports career growth and development is critical to retaining top talent as employees are more likely to stay at a company that invests in their continuing education and skills development.
Recognition and rewards: Recognition of employees ’ hard work and achievements is essential to maintain employee satisfaction and motivation.
Implement a fair and transparent reward system that conveys the message that organizations value their employees and their contributions.
• Open communication and collaboration: Encouraging open communication and collaboration among team members can foster a sense of trust and responsibility.
This gives employees the ability to express their opinions and ideas, which contributes to innovation and problem solving.
By focusing on these core elements, companies can build a company culture that resonates with top talent and makes them stand out from the competition.
Creating an inclusive and diverse workplace
An inclusive and diverse workplace is a powerful driver of innovation and employee satisfaction.
By fostering an environment where people from diverse backgrounds and perspectives come together, businesses can leverage a wealth of experience and creativity to drive their performance.
Here are some strategies to create an inclusive and diverse workplace that attracts top talent:
Leadership Commitment: A company ’ s leadership must be committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace.
This commitment should be reflected in their vision, mission and values and demonstrated through their actions, including the allocation of resources to support diversity and inclusion initiatives.
• Corporate policies and procedures: Develop clear and inclusive policies and procedures related to recruitment, mentoring, promotion and employee evaluation.
Such policies should actively promote diversity and prevent discrimination.
• Training and awareness: Provide training programs and workshops for employees at all levels to raise awareness of unconscious biases, stereotypes, and the importance of respecting different perspectives.
This helps to create an environment where employees feel comfortable discussing and addressing these issues.
Support Employee Resource Groups (ERGs): Encourage the formation of employee resource groups that bring together people with a common background or experience.
These groups can provide a sense of community and mentorship and help drive positive change within the organization.
Measure and track progress: Set goals for diversity and inclusion and track progress regularly.
Sharing these metrics with employees and stakeholders demonstrates the organization ’ s commitment to maintaining an inclusive and diverse workplace.
By prioritizing inclusion and diversity, organizations can create a positive work environment that makes them more attractive to top talent while promoting innovation, creativity and better decision-making.
Promoting continuous learning and development
One of the key factors in attracting top talent and having a positive impact on employee satisfaction and retention is the company ’ s commitment to continuous learning and development.
By providing opportunities for growth and skill development, organizations show employees that they care about their professional growth and career aspirations.
Here are some strategies to foster a culture of continuous learning and development:
To develop and maintain a learning culture, top management should lead by example and encourage employees to adopt a growth mindset.
Discussing your own development openly and constantly learning new skills demonstrates the importance of career growth.
• Provide training and development programs to invest in your employees by providing training and development programs tailored to their needs and goals.
These programs can cover a wide range of topics, from technical skills to soft skills such as leadership and communication.
Consider offering different forms of learning, such as seminars, online courses and webinars, to suit a variety of learning styles and preferences.
• Encourage cross-functional collaboration The opportunity for employees to work on cross-functional projects can help them gain new skills, improve their understanding of other departments, and expand their professional network – all of which can lead to career progression.
Cross-functional collaboration can also foster innovation by bringing together employees with different skills and perspectives.
• Provide performance feedback and career development plans Regular performance reviews and feedback can help employees identify areas for improvement and set goals for skill development.
Ensure that managers work with employees to develop a personalized career development plan outlining the steps they can take to achieve their career goals.
• Support for continuing education and professional certification Provide financial assistance or leave to continue education or obtain professional certification related to employee roles.
Encourage employees to share the knowledge they gain from learning with other employees of the company, further promoting a culture of continuous learning.
Recognize and reward employee achievements
Honoring and rewarding employees for their achievements helps build a company culture that attracts top talent, fosters a sense of belonging, pride, and alignment with organizational goals.
Here are some ways to implement recognition and reward programs in your company:
A structured recognition program can include the use of awards, bonuses, and other incentives to recognize outstanding performance, dedication, and innovation.
Recognition can be based on peer nominations, demonstrated team spirit, or achievement of predetermined performance indicators.
Design your plan to align it with the company ’ s values and goals.
Celebrate small victories and milestones In addition to major achievements, remember to recognize and celebrate small successes and milestones. Celebrating these achievements can increase employee motivation and engagement and maintain momentum towards greater organizational goals.
Consider offering non-monetary rewards such as extra breaks, flexible work schedules, or unique experiences that meet the interests and needs of employees.
These benefits can indicate your appreciation of their efforts while also promoting work-life balance and well-being.
Fostering a culture of gratitude and appreciation encourages a culture of gratitude and appreciation by promoting regular verbal and written acknowledgement of employees ’ achievements both internally and externally.
Share employee success on company social media platforms or company newsletters to provide recognition beyond the workplace.
Encourage open communication and collaboration
Open communication and collaboration are an integral part of an attractive company culture.
A transparent, accessible environment promotes the free flow of ideas, knowledge sharing and team cohesion.
Here ’ s how to foster open communication and collaboration in your company:
Create a transparent working environment.
Encourage leaders and managers to openly discuss business goals, challenges and successes with their employees.
This will help build trust, foster team spirit, and encourage employees to contribute ideas and solutions.
Provide communication channels and tools.
Equip your employees with communication tools that encourage open dialogue and collaboration, such as instant messaging, virtual conferencing platforms, and project management tools.
These will facilitate real-time knowledge-sharing and exchange of ideas and increase the speed and efficiency of decision-making.
Encourage feedback and sharing of ideas.
Develop a culture that enables employees to freely provide feedback and share ideas, regardless of their position in the organization.
Consider implementing a suggestion box or anonymous feedback system to make it easier for employees to express their opinions and ideas.
Promote knowledge sharing.
Encourage employees to share knowledge and expertise by organizing workshops, seminars or lunchtime learning sessions.
This can help foster a collaborative environment where employees feel their contributions are valued and learn from their peers.
Promote cross-sectoral cooperation.
Create opportunities for employees to work together on projects or initiatives across sectors.
This enables them to develop an understanding of different areas within the company while broadening their skills and offering different perspectives.
Implementing these strategies can help your organization create a company culture that is attractive to top talent.
By promoting continuous learning, recognizing and rewarding achievements, and encouraging open communication and collaboration, you can foster an environment where employees feel valued, motivated, and eager to contribute to the success of the organization.
Provide work-life balance and well-being measures
One of the most important aspects of an attractive company culture is providing employees with support for work-life balance and well-being.
Adapting to and promoting a work-life balance is critical to ensuring employee satisfaction, engagement and, ultimately, retention.
By proactively providing welfare measures, companies can create an environment where employees feel cared for and supported in their professional and personal lives.
Flexible working arrangements
Flexible work arrangements, such as remote work and flexible working hours, can enable employees to manage their personal and professional needs more effectively, thus greatly promoting work-life balance.
These choices demonstrate that the company respects and values the time and well-being of its employees.
To implement these initiatives, companies should invest in necessary technologies and tools, such as collaborative platforms and project management tools, to support remote or partially remote workforces.
Employee Assistance Program
Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) provide professional counseling and support services to help employees deal with issues such as stress, anxiety or family related issues.
By providing EAPs, companies demonstrate their commitment to employee well-being and help mitigate work-related or personal issues that may affect job performance.
It ’ s important to educate employees about the availability of these items and make sure they know how to use them when needed.
Health and wellness initiatives
Companies can further improve employee well-being by providing health and wellness measures.
Some examples include on-site fitness facilities or gym membership discounts, healthy canteen options, or health challenges.
In addition, providing employees with nutrition and stress management resources, as well as mindfulness and meditation sessions, can promote their overall health.
By implementing these initiatives, companies demonstrate their dedication to promoting the physical and mental health of their employees.
Leave policy and paid leave
Generous leave policies and paid leave have a major impact on tilting work-life balance toward employees.
By offering more vacation days, personal days, and flexible sick leave policies, companies show that they understand the importance of rest periods for restoring physical strength and prioritizing personal life.
Paid parental leave, bereavement leave and leave are also examples of benefits that contribute to a healthy work-life balance, demonstrating that companies care about the well-being of their employees.

Transparent communication is necessary to address concerns about new technologies, and leaders play a key role in shaping the company narrative.

Involving end-users in decision-making can improve system acceptance and uncover productivity enhancements.

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5 Mistakes To Avoid When Replacing Your Communications Technology

After working on projects replacing hundreds of phone systems over my years as a consultant, I have noticed some common trends in the projects that are the most challenging.

Here are the top 5 most common mistakes we see when replacing a telephony system:

  1. Skipping the needs assessment. Often a move to a new telephony solution occurs when the existing system reaches end of life. In these cases, it’s easy to think that your goal in replacing your existing solution is to simply duplicate what you have. But you are missing a big opportunity for improvement.

Communication technology has changed considerably in the last few years. New solutions go beyond telephony to include collaboration tools and support multiple forms of communication. Users can move seamlessly between devices and incorporate SMS text messaging and IM in addition to voice. There are usually opportunities to improve outdated workflows caused by limitations of the old technology.

If you are looking at a replacement due to inadequacies of the existing technology, a thorough needs assessment is still a good idea. Most organizations have some percentage of power users who will benefit from higher-level “tools,” and the most successful implementations recognize these users and provide the tools to make them more effective. Standard users can benefit from enhancements such as voice mail messages in their email, and the ability to work remotely, if they don’t already have these capabilities.

It's useful to document your common user requirements in addition to the more complex special requirements. When you understand the workflows of your users and how they utilize the features in your current telephone system, it will help you select a better replacement technology.

  1. Not involving business users in the decision. When a system is selected only by the IT team, it often does not fully meet the needs of the wider group of end users. We once saw a solution selected based primarily on what would be best for enhancing the IT team’s resumes.

Including end users in your needs assessment will help to uncover both business and technical requirements. This has multiple benefits:

  1. Reveals productivity enhancements offered by mobility and collaboration capabilities not available in the current system.
  2. Uncovers communications issues. Often, we find that many user complaints can be resolved through changes in business processes.
  3. Improves system acceptance. When business users have had input into the process, they are less likely to resist adoption of the new system.

Involving business users in the selection process results in a better decision in the end, although a larger group can slow the process. Business users often help to clarify what is truly needed versus what is nice to have. They typically aren’t swayed by the coolest new toys, and offer insight into areas where true productivity gains can be achieved.

  1. No end-user communications plan. End users are much more likely to accept and adopt a new technology tool when they understand how it can benefit them. A good communication plan can go a long way in reducing resistance to the change. The best communications plans take a custom approach and target messages to specific groups of users, explaining the benefits of the new tool that are most relevant to each group.

You can download an eBook that explains the adoption and change management process in greater detail

  1. Skimping on user training. UCaaS providers typically don’t offer “classroom” training on live phones. They offer virtual classes with live instructors, recorded sessions, and train-the-trainer options. While these methods save a lot of labor for the vendors, they can be insufficient for the users. On the surface it seems OK. After all, how hard can it be to use a new phone?

But new telephony solutions bring many new capabilities that users may have never been exposed to previously. They may not know how to manage calls and features using a computer instead of the hard phone.

And there are cell phone apps, collaboration tools, and presence and status information. There may be multiple tools that offer the same capabilities. Your new tool may offer chat, or video conferencing. Which tool should they be using?

All of this complexity creates confusion for your users. If your new solution has any feature depth, then there will be complexity. In order to get full use of the new capabilities, users must be trained on them, and given guidelines on which tools are to be used.

  1. Underestimating the difficulty of porting numbers. This process can be quite dysfunctional, especially if you have been with your carrier for several years. Records can be inaccurate, and the entire process is based on this information. At times, this can be a headache (or worse). For a breakdown of common problems, check out this article

Often the process takes longer than expected, so build extra time into your process to allow for that.

For more tips and advice from people who have gone through this process, check out these sessions at Enterprise Connect:

Tuesday, March 26 | 2:00pm - 2:45pm

UCAAS CASE STUDIES: HOW YOUR PEERS MADE THE MIGRATION

Moderator: Melissa Swartz(Swartz Consulting)

Panelists: Steve Panton (Gannett Fleming), Brian Harrison (Broward College), Karen Gordon (King & Spalding)

Wednesday, March 27 | 2:00pm - 2:45pm

ENTERPRISE LEADERS SPEAK OUT: VOICE MIGRATION--CRITICAL ISSUES FOR A (STILL) CRITICAL CAPABILITY

Moderator: Melissa Swartz (Swartz Consulting)

Panelists: Scott Johnson (Cargill), Georges Habalian (HCA Healthcare), Eric Zweigbaum (Conair)

Clear communication and transparency are key to mitigating organizational resistance to new technologies like GenAI, and employees should be taught new skills to leverage them.

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Three Change Management Priorities For Seamless GenAI Deployment

President & CTO at ContractPodAi.

There is no question that generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is emerging as a powerful, transformative force in today’s business. In its 27th Annual Global CEO Survey, PwC looked at how GenAI would significantly change how organizations operate. They concluded the technology is "approaching a critical juncture, seemingly poised to transform business models, redefine work processes and overhaul entire industries."

In the next year, more than 50% of CEOs surveyed said they expect GenAI to "enhance their ability to build trust with stakeholders," while roughly 60% expect it to "improve product or service quality." Within the next three years, nearly 70% also anticipate that GenAI will "increase competition, drive changes to their business models and require new skills from their workforce." The lasting business impacts that CEOs expect from the technology include boosted efficiency and increased time-to-revenue.

Generative AI comes with a low barrier to entry, empowering organizations to start small and grow their usage of this technology over time. Because of this, I recommend starting with a particular use case and scaling it to the greater organization from there. The secret to the scaling process is for senior leaders to keep a close pulse on their change management efforts. After all, if your organization does not have a smooth adoption and implementation process and is neither aligned nor trained sufficiently around new technology, you'll likely fall short of reaping the full ROI from your digital investment moving forward.

Here are three change management strategies to keep in mind if you’re planning to embrace GenAI in your organization.

Taking A Phased Adoption Approach

Integrating AI into the day-to-day work of the organization necessitates a simple and seamless adoption process. To foster this digital transformation, senior leaders should consider a phased approach that sees AI deployed gradually and refine processes as needed. This gives employees time to familiarize themselves with the technology to maximize its benefits and minimize its disruption to the business.

Additionally, they can build a digital infrastructure characterized by robust digital resources, dedicated support teams and user feedback loops. All of this goes a long way in preventing the problems that typically arise in the adoption process.

Fostering A Culture Of Trust

Another change management strategy is mitigating organizational resistance around AI. This is achieved through clear and direct communication about the business objectives and expected outcomes of AI adoption, and an open discussion about the collaborative partnerships that can form between employees and the technology.

Transparency is key here. On top of establishing these lines of communication, senior leaders should ensure that AI solutions are designed with security, transparency and accountability measures in place. It’s also important for employees and customers to be assured that their data privacy will continue to be top of mind as the technology becomes further scaled to be used within day-to-day workstreams. Be sure to communicate that protocols and guidelines will evolve in the spirit of fostering an ethical and socially responsible AI culture. All of this translates to more support and buy-in across the enterprise.

Redesigning Career Paths And Skills

The advent of GenAI does not have to mean the disruption of traditional job roles but rather a redesign of professional skills and career paths. As AI is gradually integrated into everyday operations, employees should be taught new skills, allowing them to leverage the technology to its fullest.

Some examples of this include advanced training in applied AI, machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP). As AI scales to take on both repetitive and complex tasks, organizations should concentrate on bolstering employees' built-in business instincts and reinforcing their natural human skills. This involves nurturing areas such as business creativity along with strategic and critical analytical abilities and enhancing emotional intelligence within the workplace. This effort should be coupled with a special focus on fostering employees' continuous improvement.

At the end of the day, having a successful digital transformation journey calls for prioritizing the change management strategies mentioned above and exploring other best practices.

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Creating awareness and investing in training can ease employee concerns and facilitate successful AI implementation.

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How HR Professionals Can Coexist With AI Tools

Jagdish Chugani is the Chief People Officer at Appfire.

Artificial intelligence has been top of mind as everyone wonders how this powerful technology will impact their day-to-day work. There's been an explosion of AI-based solutions being leveraged across industries to streamline processes, garner more insights from data and improve employee and customer experiences. But as AI has become more mainstream, preconceived notions among employees about what it will mean for their future have emerged.

One popular belief is that AI-powered tools will replace jobs. With ChatGPT already being used to write code, draft news articles and elevate the customer experience, it's easy to understand why people might be concerned. However, instead of rushing to believe we'll be replaced, we should instead discuss how this technology can complement existing roles and responsibilities.

How AI Elevates HR Teams

When we look at the human resources industry in particular, generative AI has already made its way into people processes, with some teams using the tool to write performance reviews or shortlist candidates. While some individuals may continue to be weary of it, there's a great opportunity for AI and HR professionals to coexist.

Talent Acquisition

One of the main benefits of AI is its ability to comb through enormous amounts of data quickly. In the world of HR, this could be anything from market data around compensation trends to public information about candidates' job histories. With AI-based solutions, talent acquisition teams can focus on higher-level tasks such as building candidate relationships and sharing valuable insights about the company to facilitate the right hire.

People Operations

For HR professionals in people operations or compensation and benefits roles, the process of compiling a competitive compensation package can be time-consuming. This is primarily because there's so much information to comb through and make decisions on; it’s like piecing together a very complex puzzle. With prediction analytic technology, the mundane part of the project—data gathering and analysis—is eliminated. That way, teams can spend more time fine-tuning the package components to ensure they offer what matters most to prospective employees.

Employee Engagement

Employee engagement is another area where AI-powered tools can be valuable. Many HR teams rely on annual employee surveys to assess engagement, which are often lengthy and produce copious amounts of data to sift through to extract notable trends and takeaways. Today, some companies have pivoted to quarterly pulse surveys, which tend to be shorter but still collect a great deal of written feedback. With either survey approach, AI can help gain valuable insights on the status of employee engagement and sentiment more quickly. Thus, HR teams can focus on implementing initiatives that address feedback, improve morale and optimize team performance. AI tools can also highlight trends related to employee departures and any common factors that resulted in them leaving.

Learning And Development

With today's economic downturn resulting in teams shrinking in size while expectations on performance and results remain the same, upskilling is even more important to ensure dips in productivity don’t happen. By leveraging AI-powered tools, organizations' L&D teams can develop and implement personalized training programs that are aligned with each employee's learning pattern and style, resulting in more meaningful trainings. This AI-as-a-service concept is one that will likely see increased adoption as L&D continues to play a critical role in retaining talent.

How To Successfully Integrate AI Into HR Processes

It's clear that AI-powered solutions can offer a variety of benefits to HR teams and departments. As organizations look to deploy them, it’s important to keep in mind that successful integration hinges on two factors: a mindset shift in employees and guidance from the leadership team. Here are some tips for supporting AI integration.

1. Create awareness. It’s important that employees understand how these technologies will ultimately help them hone their skills and level up their careers. Clearly communicating the benefits before any kind of AI implementation helps ease any concerns about job replacement or elimination.

2. Be transparent. For some employees, change is hard. To work through any resistance, communication and transparency are key. Be open about why you decided to implement these solutions, what the rollout timeline is and what progress is being made. The more transparent you are about the process and how it's evolving, the more comfortable employees will feel.

3. Invest in training. Any tool has significant advantages when used properly, but when misused, it can create more work and frustration. To avoid challenges when you introduce new technology to your team, be sure to invest in proper training. This way, teams will fully understand the capabilities of the software they're using and the right way to use it. This can help ensure successful implementation, as well as employees' confidence in the tools.

4. Take a bottoms-up approach with implementation. Your teams will help you determine where AI tools fit best into their workflow. So provide overall guidelines for use, then give teams the space and time to test them.

There's always some uncertainty when it comes to introducing new technology, especially AI. But it’s always worth a closer look because it can be a huge asset. When AI is properly introduced and integrated, and there's acceptance from team members, HR professionals can spend their time on the high-value tasks that support their organization's success.

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Effective technology implementation requires people, technology, and process, with tailored communication to individual stakeholders.

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Content: Procurement and digital banking in the UAE

Banking is changing.

As the world continues to embrace more and more technologies and innovation, this creates an ever growing and ever demanding customer base. With the rise of smart payments, shifting towards a completely digital experience, the financial sector has to change and evolve with this shifting world.

For Dr Arafat El Mourad, Author and Acting Head of Procurement and Contracts, Xbank, this evolution should be a process that avoids the somewhat cliché term of “digital transformation” that is bandied around the industry so frequently.

“It’s not just technology. You can have the best technology in the world but if you don’t have the right mindset, the right people driving that innovation, it simply will not work,” he says.

As per his published book (Innovation in Procurement and its added value to United Arab Emirates Banking Sector, Islamic & Conventional) El Mourad says that in procurement you need the right people and you need communication, transparency, reliability, skilled and competent staff, quality innovation and, most importantly from a stakeholder viewpoint, cost optimisation and added value.”

Over the course of more than 20 years working in IT and procurement, studying in Zurich and working in the UAE at Xbank, he has seen first-hand how the industry has changed and must continue to change in order to provide the best possible services and solutions for its customers.

“Throughout my career I have become much more strategically driven, as opposed to focusing solely on the process,” he says. “I’ve spent the best part of it looking at how technology can be deployed to add value, not only in terms of cost optimisation but also how it we can add value to the customer that does not compromise on quality.”

El Mourad is a firm believer that for any push for technology and innovation to be successful, it must be built on three main pillars.

People, technology and process.

The people element is key to all of this, as without the right people with the right mindsets and possessing an open mind to embracing technology and striving for innovation then nothing else will work.

As El Mourad says himself, people represent the first pillar of change.

“You have to be innovative in the way you approach technology and approach process,” he says. “You need those three pillars to make it work and you need to be innovative in the process, and the communication.”

Of course, working with people and attempting to change mindsets and approaches to the industry, mindsets that have been built up over years of working in a consistent and reliable way. The financial industry, despite its upswings and downturns over the years, remains a hugely profitable and ultimately successful sector so why try to fix what isn’t broken?

“It takes time [for people to get on board with technology transformation]” says El Mourad. “But the key is how you communicate what will happen, the benefits we can reap and translating the added value that it will bring to the organisation.”

El Mourad points to a time where he planned to introduce a new technology system into Xbank, a process that took three years to fully implement. The first two years of this journey were spent trying to convince people and stakeholders to embrace this change.

“It’s all in the language,” he says. “I cannot present this technology to the CEO in the same way that I could present it to my peers on procurement. I have to translate it into a business case.”

“I approach the communication in a way that can be understood by every stakeholder because I communicate it in a different way to every stakeholder, or CEO, or CIO. There is no one size fits all to this.”

With technology and transformation there is an unavoidable element of risk involved. Risk of failure, risk of losing customers and perhaps most importantly, particularly from an operational standpoint, risk of significant costs associated with that failure.

This is a fact of life when it comes to implementing technology and it has developed a mindset that is somewhat consistent across the banking industry the world over and not simply within the UAE.

“There is a risk and a concern. I’d argue that risk is actually up there as an important discussion with the working out the added value,” says El Mourad.

“The question becomes more about what are we actually doing to measure the risk and most importantly mitigate the risk.”

This calls back to El Mourad’s strive for clear and open communication. With regular meetings with top tier management and stakeholders, El Mourad ensures that from top to bottom all levels of the company understand the technology implications but also the risk implications in any new venture.

He attributes this to a cost ownership mentality. After all, cost is often king.

“It’s about cost ownership,” he says. “How much you’re spending on technology? How much on security?  It’s important to show that while technology costs, it saves you money – technology is all about reducing those costs and saving money, not incurring more costs.”

The banking industry in the UAE is changing at a rapid rate and this is driven by the customer. The banking customer of 2018 wants a digital experience. El Mourad himself points to a conversation he had with board members; upon asking them when was the last time they visited a branch in person over the course of the last 12 months between a group of six, there was only three visits.

This is a perfect encapsulation of where banking stands right now in the USE and Xbank, along with all banks, must continue to innovate to continue to serve this growing demand.

This turn towards digital not only affects the bank’s external operations. Over the last few years Xbank has continued to invest more into machine learning, automation and AI wherever possible as it looks to streamline its internal operations to enable its external operations to grow.

“I was involved in discussions about how the bank was moving towards digital.” Says El Mourad. “They want to become more AI focused. It’s a trend in the UAE. More banks are moving to AI, instead of just automation. This helped me build my case and the added value that procurement can bring on this front.”

A key example that El Mourad notes is the implementation of an automated procurement system that will see what he describes as the end of emails. Through this one centralised system, the procurement team can access all documentation from approvals to supplier lists at the click of a button.

Over time, this function will begin to utilise AI and for El Mourad this is crucial in growing as a business.

“This makes it easier to learn,” he says. “AI will help us mitigate risk, learn from where we could potentially improve, and continue to understand the customer requirements and ultimately meet them. Therefore, procurement should transform and shift their focus from internal customers to internal and external customers.”

As the banking sector continues to grow, banks and financial organisations must continue to push the innovation boundaries in order to grow with it and ultimately survive.

For El Mourad, the key has always been the people.

“The banking sector right now is rigid,” he says. “It needs to embrace innovation. People fear change and it needs a leader to inspire.”

“For me, it is all about inspiration, not transformation. Through inspiration, we can unlick the innovative mindset that will allow the sector to reach new heights.”

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