In recent years, the advancements of artificial intelligence have been nothing short of incredible, and new technologies continue to shape and mould the roles of employees in the workplace.
Now, as employee engagement levels in the UK are among the lowest in the world, new research has revealed that a significant number of workers would prefer for their manager to be replaced by an AI tool.
The survey of 1,000 company employees in the UK examined what’s frustrating today’s workers, and the results revealed that on average, 26% of respondents think a robot would be better at performing managerial tasks over their current boss.
The results reflect a worrying trend in the UK business landscape. As human interaction becomes more infrequent, it seems that leadership skills like communication, leadership and teamwork are being forgotten, opening the workplace up to conflict.
But is replacing managers with AI tools really a solution? We don’t think so.
Bots or no bots?
The same survey found that one of the biggest gripes among today’s employees is feeling like their work is not being recognised by senior leaders, with 14% of respondents naming being underappreciated as their greatest source of frustration.
This was followed by a lack of empathy (12%), favouritism (12%) and unclear expectations (12%). As a result, a large proportion of employees today view machines as better at managing the ‘human’ elements in the workplace.
If it’s appreciation and empathy in particular that people want to see from their managers, however, we can’t help but see one very big flaw with bringing in the bots: robots aren’t able to give this to you authentically. (At least, not yet!)
And, whilst a third of respondents to the survey believed a robot boss would be fairer in making unbiased decisions and not favouring one employee over another, the truth is that a robot boss could be even more bias if there’s bias in the data it’s using to make decisions from – and could potentially land a company in hot water.
One example of this can be seen with global make-up brand, MAC, in which three of their make-up artists raised concerns about being unfairly made redundant because of an automated decision generated by AI software, HireVue.
These artists complained about the lack of transparency in the decision they were confronted with, and when challenged, their employer was unable to comment on why they were made redundant.
This situation highlights the necessity of the human element in rectifying issues like this, emphasising the vital role that real life employees have over AI.
The importance of human touch
We’re not saying there isn’t a place for AI in the workplace at all. We use AI tools like Chat GPT here at HR Star, and we appreciate how helpful it is in terms of time-saving and productivity. But when it comes to managing people in particular, we believe that a human touch is always needed.
Let’s imagine, for example, that you ask Chat GPT to write a letter to an employee to let them know that they’ve passed their probation or to terminate their employment. It will do it – and quickly – but will it deliver these messages in a way that shows emotions like appreciation and empathy?
We don’t believe so; a human touch is vital to ensuring the optimal final delivery of messages like these.
Addressing low engagement
To address low engagement levels in the workplace, such as those revealed by the report mentioned earlier, we champion soft skills training. This means training that focuses on the development of abilities such as communication, teamwork and problem solving, as opposed to going so far as to replace your senior leadership team with robots! If this type of training is something that you’d like to organise for your team, we’d love to speak to you about the different options that we have available – including our HR Star Membership
