When you think of AI and machine learning, what’s the first thought that comes to mind? For some, it’s sheer terror: Oh no! The robots are coming! My job is in jeopardy! There is even a website that looks at different jobs and ascertains the risk level of a particular position of an AI robotic takeover. For example, if we search for “customer service representatives” on WillRobotsTakeMyJob.com, we see the following:
The image above shows that customer service reps are at 55% risk of robots stealing their jobs. The data is further expanded by how many people are currently employed in this role and their median annual wage. You can visit this website, enter your role, and feel anxious about losing your job...to an AI robot!
There’s no denying that robots, AI, and other innovative technologies have entered our workplace and are here to stay. But just how worried about them should we be?
Let's explore the idea of AI, machine learning, and other new technologies currently creeping into IT helpdesk workplaces to help provide IT professionals with some helpful tips on how to prepare for the inevitable takeover of AI as an everyday tool and how to benefit from this innovation to make your business thrive.
Use Technology to Augment Your Skills
One of the reasons IT helpdesk techs are hesitant to implement AI technologies within their workplace is because, as we said above, they are worried robots will take their jobs. However, this is not the case, especially when used correctly. The thing about AI is that it’s most effective when you use it to augment your skills.
Think about it like this: You are a HR manager and have several tasks to complete on average. Some of those tasks are very mundane and don’t require a lot of brain function, but still take up a lot of your time. Other tasks require you to spend time thinking and problem-solving. Imagine a situation where you could offset the mundane tasks to a robot, thus gaining more time to focus on the important tasks that help your business grow. In this situation, you’re using technology to augment your skillset. You’re not handing your entire job over to an AI computer but giving the computer specific tasks that will allow you to focus on what you do best. Back to our HR example, An AI computer program can easily scan resumes and pick out crucial elements related to a job description. But where you, as an IT Helpdesk manager, are best placed is conducting in-person interviews to ensure you’re hiring the right people with the right cultural fit for your team. So instead of looking at hundreds of resumes, you now have the creative freedom to focus on the work that will truly make a difference to your organization.
AI Will Help You Understand Your Workforce
When we think about how teams work, we often picture a hierarchal system where there are directors, managers, associates, and executives. Traditionally, for an executive to come up with an idea and allow it to come to fruition, they have to sell that idea to several different people higher up than them. As you can imagine, this is time-consuming and often results in ideas falling off the radar and never seeing the light of day. When a business uses AI for this task, the computer can accurately put together a group of like-minded people to work on specific tasks based on their skill sets and availability. This way, you can create cross-functional, self-forming teams that can achieve more than they would by simply working on their projects. If you want to foster innovation within your company, you need to give everyone in your team the freedom and tools to come up with new ideas - not just those deemed to be ‘decision-makers.’
In a recent study, 1 in 4 employees stated that their job satisfaction would improve with a virtual assistant. The increased chatter about AI allows you to understand better your workforce and what they need to do their jobs.
AI Will Create New Roles
There’s no denying that although artificial intelligence will do away with some people’s jobs, it will also create a plethora of new roles. If you want your business to be ready for AI shortly, you need to ensure that you have the right people within your organization who can handle the new roles AI will create. The truth is, if we’re using robots to augment our skillset, then for every robot's job, a new role will be created in its place to serve the opportunities created by AI technology.
In the image above, you’ll see the top key industries that AI will affect in the coming years. When you think about your job, you probably have several different tasks. Some of these might be vulnerable to automation, but that doesn’t mean every task is. Where AI tech lags currently is in the ability to complex problem-solve or in interactions that require empathy or common sense. AI also depends on access to as much data as possible. Human intervention will still be needed to make decisions in areas with little data.
AI is good at reading and analyzing data, but where it falls short and where humans will always win is in the ability to work with and manage people. Future jobs will involve companies and employees increasing their knowledge and proficiency to handle new challenges. It’s the job of a future-thinking organization to help its employees learn, unlearn, and then relearn the necessary skills needed to take the company forward in an ever more complex and competitive world with the help of AI.
Use AI to Transform How You Acquire Top Talent
Over the past five years, searches for the phrase “AI talent” has increased quite dramatically.
This tells us that more people are considering the benefits of using artificial intelligence within their businesses to hire top talent. You’ll know as well as anyone that getting the right person in the right role at the right time is pivotal to your organization’s success. But hiring the right people is a big challenge for most businesses. With the advancement of AI and other forward-thinking technologies, you can ensure you’re attracting the right people to your business. AI can help you predict what skills you’ll need today and in the future and help you hire accordingly. In the next five years, you’ll need workers proficient in sought-after skills like data analysis and DevOps. AI can help you hire effectively now.
Without AI, you don’t have access to the data needed to predict what skills your business needs today, tomorrow, and in the future. So as well as saving time by automating high-volume tasks, you can improve the quality of your hiring processes by standardizing job matching. Using data, you can effectively see what happens to candidates after getting hired for specific roles, how long it takes them to develop their skills and be promoted to a new role, or, worst case scenario, how long it takes them to leave. Not only do you want to hire top talent, but you want to keep them too. Suppose you have access to data about why a particular team member left. In that case, you can prepare yourselves for this situation in the future and, most importantly, prevent it from happening.
Takeaways
The best way to prepare for AI and other innovative technologies within your workforce is to ensure you understand their best use cases. What you want to avoid is simply implementing new technologies within your organization for the sake of it. Each technology you adopt will require significant training for all those involved, plus people who understand the tech well to upkeep it. But if you genuinely need these new AI technologies, then the time is now to start implementing them in your business.
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