Can AI Be The Key To Workplace Satisfaction?

In this segment of “Office Optional with Larry English,” Larry explores how artificial intelligence can bolster employee satisfaction.

Modern employees are struggling. A Deloitte report found that most people consider work a negative part of their lives. Burnout is high, in part because too many emails, meetings and other tedious tasks (read: the boring parts of work) are eating up the workday, leaving little room for the parts of work people actually enjoy.

While there’s been plenty of chatter about AI helping employees accomplish more in their day, the technology could serve a higher purpose: To help employees enjoy work more by finding better work-life balance and more meaning and satisfaction in their jobs.

Of course, employee satisfaction has business benefits as well. Employees who feel positively about their work are more engaged, more creative, more effective, and less likely to switch jobs. Employees benefit, the organizational culture benefits and the company overall does better work. It’s a win for everyone.

AI and Workplace Satisfaction

There’s a TikTok floating around that says, “I want AI to do my dishes so I can do my art and writing.” While AI isn’t going to do our household chores anytime soon, the technology can be used to offload some of the tedious parts of work — the work laundry, if you will — helping employees to focus on more interesting tasks and find greater satisfaction in work.

Early research supports this idea. One study found a positive correlation between high AI adoption and levels of employee effectiveness and joy. Additionally, a Slack study found that workers who’ve used AI score higher for employee experience, work-life balance, sense of belonging and the ability to manage stress and anxiety.

AI can lessen the “work laundry” in a few practical ways. For instance, generative AI’s ability to handle routine tasks like data entry or report generation frees up employees to focus on more meaningful and engaging work.

Using a generative AI assistant such as Microsoft Copilot, executives can avoid meetings that don’t require their direct input; instead, they can quickly review the summaries Copilot produces of those meetings, staying informed without wasting a ton of time.

But the benefits of AI extend beyond just productivity or efficiency. AI-powered automation can help employees manage their time more effectively, reducing overtime and stress. Generative AI tools can allow employees to disengage in the evening without fear of falling behind or missing out.

If you’re wondering whether the “work laundry” is that big of a deal, the answer is “yes.” Decreasing the time employees spend on things like email and meetings can make a real difference in how they feel about their jobs. A study cited in the Harvard Business Review found that when employees spend more than four hours per week on tasks they don’t enjoy, they tend to start thinking about getting hired elsewhere.

How To Deploy AI To Increase Workplace Satisfaction

All the benefits of AI for employee satisfaction in work come with a major caveat: The technology must be implemented thoughtfully to ensure it makes the employee experience better, not harder. Simply turning on an AI tool won’t do your employees any favors. Leaders need a game plan that includes the following elements:

A clear understanding of the employee problems AI will solve.

How will AI help make employees’ jobs easier? How will it free them from drudgery to focus on more exciting, meaningful work? What specific problems are you hoping the technology will solve for employees?

Use these questions to craft detailed user personas and AI use cases to get at the heart of why the AI tool is necessary and what real employee problems it will help solve. This exercise will help you consider more than how AI can help make your people more efficient and productive, unlocking the technology’s ability to improve the employee experience.

A training plan to encourage adoption.

Handing over access to an AI tool doesn’t mean employees will use it. In addition to poor adoption rates, a lack of training can mean employees who do use the tool may not use it correctly, leading to poor output and more work.

To ensure high adoption and that employees get the intended benefit from AI, you need a mature change management approach that aligns people and technology to work toward focused goals. Employees need to understand what’s in it for them. They need support as they build new habits around incorporating AI use into their daily workflows and processes. And they need competence in prompt engineering to get quality output from an AI tool that will accelerate, not hinder, their productivity.

A thoughtful plan to integrate AI into your organization.

Anytime you change how work is done in an organization, you also need to understand how your organizational culture might also shift. AI is no different — deployed carelessly, it could degrade some of the human-centric parts of your culture. Say you’re planning a piece of content or brainstorming a new business offering. Sure, you could use AI to help come up with some new angles — and you absolutely should explore what AI has to offer here. But it’s also beneficial both from a brainstorming and a culture perspective to still hold that brainstorming session with colleagues. Otherwise, you miss the human connection and the conversational tangents that can lead to fresh insights.

In other words, leaders must ensure AI use is purposeful and doesn’t lead to a lack of personalization in team interactions. You don’t want the technology to slowly erode your culture, thereby leading to rising levels of employee isolation and disengagement.

It’s also important to communicate to employees that just because an AI tool can make them more productive doesn’t mean they’ll be required to squeeze even more work into their day. Rather, they should be empowered to think through how the technology can level up their workday, freeing them up to focus on more meaningful, exciting work.

Leaders who focus solely on AI’s productivity benefits are missing out on an opportunity to improve the employee experience — helping workers find more satisfaction and meaning in their jobs. By thoughtfully implementing AI and empowering employees to integrate AI tools into their daily workflows, leaders can improve employees’ well-being, leading to healthier, happier, more engaged teams.

This blog was originally published on Forbes.com.

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