Integrating Artificial Intelligence: The Trust Factor
Executives are under immense pressure to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into their businesses, with AI being the top priority for many. However, the urgency to adopt AI does not necessarily translate to successful implementation.
While younger generations, such as Gen Z and millennials, are more excited about using AI tools to enhance their work, a significant portion remains skeptical. They are concerned about the ethical use of AI, potential job displacement, and the trustworthiness of the technology.
The key to successful AI adoption lies in building trust. Employees, especially the younger workforce, need to trust both the technology and their leaders before fully embracing AI's potential. This trust cannot be assumed or forced; it must be earned through intentional leadership behaviors.
Great Place To Work's analysis has identified three leadership behaviors that can help set up workplaces for AI success:
1. Celebrate innovative ideas: Employees who feel their leaders celebrate people who try new and better ways of doing things are three times more likely to report workplace agility.
2. Develop cooperative environments: Employees in cooperative workplaces are 53% more likely to report their workplaces are agile, and nearly seven times more likely to report high levels of discretionary effort.
3. Foster meaningful work: Employees who see meaning in their work are not only 35% more likely to innovate in the last year, but also more than twice as likely to stay committed to their organization long term.
Companies that have built a culture of trust, where leaders exhibit these behaviors, are more likely to succeed in their AI initiatives. These companies, like the Fortune Best Workplaces for Millennials in 2024, are thriving due to their high-trust cultures, which drive agility, productivity, and innovation – all essential for AI success.
The message is clear: AI adoption is not just about the technology; it's about the trust that leaders have built with their employees. Without this foundation of trust, AI implementation will remain a challenge, and companies may miss out on the significant benefits that AI can bring.
How the Best Workplaces are prepping for AI
Most workers today aren’t getting the AI training they need.
In contrast, leaders at the Best Workplaces for Millennials are including their workers in decisions and conversations around AI, upskilling them, and focusing on learning and development opportunities. At winning companies, 88% of millennials feel they’re offered professional training and development compared with 62% at typical companies. Here are some ways winning workplaces are involving employees:
1. Solicit employee input
Adobe solicited input from employees around Firefly, its generative AI tool, before the beta launch. The company held a voluntary company meeting addressing the ethical considerations of gen AI, which attracted thousands of attendees.
2. Create AI learning modules
–PwC developed a live trivia game, “PowerUp,” that quizzes employees on firm strategy and content from its AI curriculum, with players earning prizes. More than 9,000 people have participated in each monthly game across the U.S. and Mexico since its launch.
–In early 2023, Intuit created GenStudio, a custom, internal-only development platform where employees could use gen AI through various large language models to experiment and refine their experience. The company trained employees on creating effective prompts so they’d get meaningful results. Since then, Intuit has expanded the set of gen AI tools employees can use to include many of the popular third-party tools currently available. Employees are trained on AI through workshops and on-demand training modules and can share their use cases on Slack channels and other forums.
3. Offer AI-assisted learning and development
–Hilton has invested in “MentorcliQ,” an employee mentoring platform that uses an algorithm to help pair employees with mentors and mentees within the organization to promote development and networking opportunities.
–Employees at ServiceNow can take advantage of “frED,” a learning platform built on the ServiceNow platform, which uses AI to match and suggest courses from ServiceNow content and its education partner, Udemy. Employees can also map their career paths, with AI recommending courses and programs to develop technical and soft skills.
–Slalom has piloted an AI-infused meaningful work tool to help employees discover their passions and define meaningful work statements to match them with coworkers with similar aspirations as well as staffing opportunities.