How to Ensure Employees Use AI to Enhance Skills, Not Avoid Work or Knowledge Gaps
AI is changing how we work by streamlining tasks, boosting efficiency, and supporting smarter decisions. However, it’s not all sunshine and roses. Without proper management, integrating AI into your workflow can lead to serious issues like data errors and skill loss. Understanding how to use AI responsibly is more important than ever, and it’s especially integral in the workplace..
Understanding the Role of AI in the Workplace
AI is now better than ever, so naturally, more and more workplaces are encouraging employees to use its abilities to assist them with daily tasks. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this! You might even be using AI at your job without even knowing it.
Simple tasks that were often time-consuming for employees can now be handled by AI, which is great as it frees up real people for the jobs that require a more significant amount of human interaction. Some examples of tasks AI is commonly handling include email sorting, document processing, and even scheduling. Other great uses for AI in the workplace include data analysis and reporting, automated customer support, cybersecurity, and many other applications. You get this idea — AI is good for a lot of things.
While this advancement in technology is a great aid in business, it should be treated like any other tool in your toolbox, as it also comes with its own unique set of problems that can potentially hinder employees.
The Dangers of AI Misuse: Avoiding Over-Reliance and Knowledge Gaps
The reality is that currently, AI is not perfect, and so its use needs to be scrutinised. If employees are given free rein to use AI in the workplace, they can come across major issues with data errors, over-reliance, and a range of other problems.
AI does its best to provide insights and answers based on the data within its model, but if that data isn’t correct or current, then your result won’t be what you’re after. For that reason, it’s important to still have a competent professional at the wheel. Using AI for everything without practising the skills that relate to that task often may cause knowledge gaps that lead to mistakes, and nobody wants that.
For a more realistic example of this, think about emailing. AI is a useful tool to draft a quick, professional message for email, and that’s totally acceptable. However, if you’re using it to craft every email, that’s where it becomes abused, as you won’t be practising the ability to manually write professional messages, and you may lose that skill entirely over time.
While the outcome in that example might seem extreme, the over-reliance on AI is a serious problem that can get worse in any business unless expectations are set by the employer.
How to Set Clear Expectations for AI Use in Your Team
Any team leader needs to assess the tasks that are being completed and monitor where AI can and should be used. If expectations with AI are clearly set out and shared with employees, then there is a lower chance of knowledge gaps showing up, which in turn should mean fewer errors.
Monitoring AI Usage: Tools and Strategies for Team Leaders
If AI is going to be used in your business, then monitoring its use is important to ensure its use remains within acceptable boundaries. The good news is that it’s quite simple to document and manage AI use in most businesses, and here are some tools we would suggest looking into.
Establish Clear Guidelines on AI
The first step that any business using AI should take when managing a team is to set clear guidelines that must be followed. Develop a framework that educates team members on what the intended use of AI is, and establish accountability protocols.
Implement AI Auditing and Logging Tools
If you’re noticing that AI is being used for complex tasks or to an excessive amount, then you can always implement auditing tools. There are many on the market, but some include Microsoft Purview, which helps businesses keep track of how data and AI tools are being used. Think of it like a security camera and logbook for your digital tools—it shows who did what, when, and how. There are also tools with AI-specific logging capabilities like Salesforce Einstein and Google Cloud AI. This is something you’ll need to get your IT department to set up if you’re not using it already.
Training Employees to Use AI for Skill Development, Not Task Evasion
An integral part of integrating AI into your workplace will always be training employees to use it efficiently and effectively. This is a golden opportunity to establish with your team what the expectation is for AI usage, along with showing them how to use the technology for the best results.
Learning how to use AI tools is one part, but teaching employees its limitations is equally important. You must explain what is happening effectively so that your team can understand how to critically evaluate the outputs they receive. If you skip this step, then you may have some staff trusting the machines a little too much, which is a recipe for disaster.
It’s also important to discuss with and educate your team on the ethical complications of using AI in the workplace. Of course, this will differ between businesses, but no matter what space you are in, there will likely be some guidelines that must be adhered to so that problems can be avoided.
Addressing Knowledge Gaps: Encouraging Lifelong Learning with AI
While it is true that over-reliance on AI technology can cause knowledge gaps in business, it’s important to remember that it can also be an incredible tool to educate and expand skills. Using AI to educate staff and streamline learning is a great way to integrate this technology into the workplace right from the jump.
Having access to a model that can scour massive amounts of information in seconds for answers will, in time, become an unmatched resource for those looking to learn new skills, and that’s a much more effective way to leverage AI than just relying on it to do tasks for you.
How to Foster a Culture of Accountability While Using AI
Ultimately, the best thing that you can do when implementing AI in your team’s workflow is to foster a culture of accountability. To recap all we’ve covered, here are the key steps you need to follow to set your business on the right path with AI:
Clarify who is the one responsible for AI-generated decisions, outputs, and actions, and make it explicit that a human is always that person.
Ensure that your developed policies around AI are effectively communicated and followed by the team.
Educate your team on how AI is to be used as a tool, not a replacement for them.
Encourage reporting and feedback from staff so that AI guidelines continue to remain current.
If you’d like to explore how to lead your people through the evolving business landscape, while strengthening capability, engagement, and performance—let’s chat.
