The Modern-Day Work Experience
The incredible advances we are witnessing in the tech space are fundamentally changing the way we seek, find, receive, view, and interact with information, and hasn’t it happened quickly? It is already transforming the very nature of how we do things, and I know many people and businesses I speak with are understandably cautious about where all of this is heading. And to be honest, I wasn’t deeply exposed to this world until recently and hadn’t grasped its full potential.
Now I see. There’s some great stuff going on out there!
My increased exposure over the past six months has helped me, and others, form a view that the rapid acceleration of AI, algorithms, machine learning, and other automation and intelligence-related technologies means we are all experiencing a pivotal moment in the evolution of work and the consumer experience, and it’s something we need to embrace. It’s here, it’s not going anywhere, and some of it is pretty cool.
Quite simply, what we are seeing is that new and emerging tech can handle a growing number of repetitive human tasks and can perform increasingly sophisticated knowledge-based work. And while this space was once accepted as part of our day-to-day grind, so much of this type of work just leaves us bogged down in layers of admin debt…eating away at our time, energy, and let’s face it, our soul!
Yes, the robots might be coming, but the convergence of AI and human specialist knowledge should not be viewed as a replacement strategy, simply because our “human intelligence” is still our greatest asset. What this time presents businesses with is an opportunity to bring all of their available resources together to unlock an entirely new level of serviceability and performance. We’re not removing people; we’re maximising their value and preserving the irreplaceable strengths of us all – our human intelligence, our judgement, and our expertise.
What an opportunity to connect the best technology in the market with your best people.
We’re talking about the speed, precision, and scalability of AI combined with “real human” domain expertise. And the goal shouldn’t be to simply bolt AI onto your existing practices and processes; it should be to reimagine business performance and strategy underpinned by the full firepower and potential of these ‘unreal’ technologies. I would encourage businesses to look ahead, not just at the now, to truly unlock where this could take you.
In saying that, we don’t need to overcook it. AI will continue to dominate the shallow-work space, effortlessly smashing all the repetitive tasks that we typically find time-consuming and boring. By offloading some of our rinse-and-repeat responsibilities and distributing this effort to our AI buddy, companion, we can start to focus on more valuable “deep work”, all the meaningful stuff that drives business performance: such as relationship building, talent development, stronger leadership, improved strategy, problem solving, cutting-edge innovation and critical decision-making.
Like all change and change management, this transition requires a certain mindset and operational commitment from key stakeholders for it to be successfully embraced, implemented, and adopted. At the end of the day, the absolute acceleration of this tech means that slow adopters will be left behind both in terms of the needs of the market and the inevitable rise in competition.
Modern business is being reshaped, realigned, and retooled, and therefore, your people will need to be reskilled and re-educated. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, we have been seeking efficiencies and productivity improvements…we are just taking another step forward in the evolution and progression of the ‘work’ experience.