Support and Empower Workers in the AI Age

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

Understand the human-centered strategy of AI implementation.
Enhance how your organization embraces AI change.
Increase trust within your organization when deploying AI.
Foster collaboration to ensure successful long-term AI implementation.

The People Part of the Equation

In the rapidly evolving landscape of generative AI, its true potential lies in how the people in your organization harness its capabilities. To thrive in this new age, you must adopt a human-centered strategy that thoughtfully integrates AI into your workforce.

What does it mean to take a human-centered approach to AI adoption (which seems like an oxymoron)? Well, it varies, considering your organization’s unique culture and progression. Nevertheless, certain aspects of change can be foreseen.

Prioritize People and Their Understanding:

Place people at the forefront of your AI transformation, valuing their expertise and insights.
Consider the needs and goals of individuals when aligning AI outcomes.

Embrace Inclusivity and Adaptability:

Promote inclusivity to accommodate the diverse factors that shape the ever-changing landscape.
Foster adaptability to embrace AI while maintaining a flexible and collaborative environment.

What’s in It for Me?

It’s important to view the AI implementation from an individual worker’s perspective. To successfully adopt AI, it’s imperative to communicate a compelling human-centered vision. Examples of this include:

Communicating the overall benefits of AI: Emphasize how AI can enhance a worker’s productivity and automate their tedious tasks. Present AI as a valuable asset that augments, not replaces, human work, and as a change that can expedite work and improve job satisfaction.
Finding and communicating specific benefits: Illustrate the time-saving advantages of AI adoption. Position it as a personal assistant that streamlines workflows and frees up time for more meaningful work.
Making a strong case for change: Communicate the consequences of not embracing AI. Reflect on industry best practices, highlighting the unprecedented pace of AI adoption and the low barriers to entry.

Implementing AI in your workforce and organizational culture presents complex challenges, but it becomes more manageable when change is embraced, trust is built, and collaboration is amplified.

Embrace the Change

Change in general is hard, and truly embracing the transformation of how work is done can be even harder. Introducing AI into your organization requires creating a safe and supportive environment where teams feel encouraged to take risks. This fosters a sense of security in their roles and motivates them to explore the full potential of AI.

To ease the transition, focus on these best practices for embracing change.

Foster a culture of transparency: Promote open and honest communication about AI initiatives, addressing concerns and providing clear explanations. Perhaps create a dedicated Slack channel.
Provide learning and development opportunities: Demonstrate organizational support by offering training programs, workshops, and resources.
Encourage innovation and experimentation: Create opportunities for your employees to explore AI technologies and experiment with new ideas, fostering a culture of innovation.
Recognize and reward contributions: Celebrate those employees who actively engage with AI initiatives, reinforcing their value and encouraging further involvement in the AI transformation.

Build Trust

As you venture into the realm of generative AI, it's natural for some stakeholders to have reservations, and addressing their concerns is essential to foster acceptance and enthusiasm. Building trust becomes a key factor in this process, as conversations surrounding AI can be met with uncertainty. To alleviate fears, you need a well-crafted strategy to introduce new technology to your workforce and equip them with the necessary skills.

As part of your strategy, employ these best practices for building trust around AI implementation in your organization.

Embrace the merits of AI: Approach AI as a productivity enhancement, emphasizing its role in supporting, rather than replacing, your workforce.
Establish effective communication: Listen and address specific fears by providing feedback mechanisms tailored to employees’ concerns.
Provide opportunities for upskilling: Implement upskilling opportunities promptly to empower teams with the confidence to embrace AI.
Hear from multiple perspectives: Include teams in decision-making processes, enabling them to adapt to the changing landscape of AI.

Increase Collaboration

Organizations, like people, often focus on outcome, over focusing on the product used to get to that outcome—and that influences their response to change. Some of your teams may readily embrace change and prioritize growth, while others may be more inclined to maintain the status quo.

By adopting an outcome mindset, your organization goes beyond viewing AI as a standalone tool and creates an environment that fosters user connections, knowledge sharing, and collaborative progress. Understanding what sets your platform apart and how users can derive maximum benefit from it allows your organization to harness the true power of AI in the workforce.

To increase collaboration as you implement AI, follow these best practices.

Call out the value of AI: Highlight benefits, collaboration opportunities, simplified processes, and innovation to emphasize the value of AI.
Share knowledge: Encourage networking, learning, and exchanging ideas among users.
Provide accessible resources: Offer comprehensive resources to help users navigate and use the AI platform effectively. This could include assigning a trail like Get Started with Artificial Intelligence or Salesforce expert-led classes (watch the latter for future offerings).
Listen and react: Seek feedback, iterate based on user needs, and stay cutting-edge to continuously improve your platform. Dedicated Slack channels for topics like feedback, tool updates, or best practices are always a great way to collaborate.

Through the use of change management and proper support/empowerment, Salesforce AI solutions boost productivity, streamline data analytics, and make it easier and cheaper for your business to deliver its products and services to the right customers. But it’s important to remember the human component when implementing AI. Change management ensures that employees at all levels understand the value of the AI solution and view it as a tool to help them work more efficiently in the long term.