Why Companies Should Center Worker Voices in the Age of AI

Fear of being replaced by artificial intelligence (AI) has many expecting the worst from employers. But one researcher TriplePundit spoke with is confident that centering employee needs equitably will remain integral to the bottom line. 

“AI, in itself, is neutral,” said Angela Jackson, Harvard University lecturer and founder and director of the Future Forward Institute. “What we're seeing from companies is that it means remodeling and rethinking of what the job can be, and there's a real emphasis about who is that human working alongside that computer.” 

While Jackson doesn’t deny that some businesses see AI as a way to shrink staff, others are more intentional about how they integrate the technology into the workplace. These companies would rather focus on what kind of value their employees can create with AI, instead of using it to replace them.

“I think that presents a really great opportunity for employees,” said Jackson, who is also the author of The Win-Win Workplace: How Thriving Employees Drive Bottom-Line Success. “When you think about your role, how are you thinking about your role in relation to AI?”

As an example of how Fortune 500 companies are using equitable, employee-centered AI strategies to strengthen the bottom line, Jackson spoke about a global financial firm included in a recent study by the Future Forward Institute. Instead of dictating to employees how they were to use AI, the firm set out to determine how employees could use the tech to improve their own performance.

In doing so, the company was able to capture 200 different uses for AI, she said. These uses included tasks like analyzing patterns and trends for future opportunities and challenges, risk mitigation, and developing a stronger understanding of customers.

“These use cases weren't about, ‘How can we eliminate people?’” she said. Instead, they have the potential to make both the individual and the team stronger, and ease their workload. “The use cases were really around, 'How can we increase productivity? How can we save time?'” 

Retrenchment from remote work reflects poorly on companies

Anxiety around AI is only the latest in a string of disruptions to hit the modern workplace. When the COVID-19 pandemic forced the world indoors, the response turned traditional business conventions on their head.

Manufacturers transitioned their assembly lines to produce protective equipment, CEOs gave up their salaries to lessen layoffs among their teams, and employers increased pay and benefits for workers struggling to cope with the fallout of the global health crisis. Though less than 10 percent of the U.S. labor force worked remotely in the months before, suddenly millions around the world were working from home.

“We had a transition during COVID,” Jackson said, referring to the change as: “the workplace before COVID and the workplace after.”

Many saw the changes as a sign of a workplace revolution, in which employees no longer felt beholden to toxic cultures and employers were compelled to treat workers fairly in order to stay staffed. 

“The veil has been pulled to the side,” Jackson said. “We know what it looks like when employers are truly investing in us. We saw employers spin on a dime and make workplace conditions possible that we didn't think would ever be available to us.”

Many businesses still give their workers the option to work remotely or combine a couple of days in the office with a couple at home. But others are forcing their employees back to the office in spite of higher productivity associated with remote work and the increased cost for employees associated with commutes, parking and meals away from home — not to mention the time wasted on those unpaid activities.

“What we're seeing with the companies with retrenchment is more people actually exploring their optionality and actually voting with their feet,” Jackson said. “People who are staying there, when we interview them, they will tell you they're not happy. But they're staying because, 'I have a child that I just need to finish high school. I just need to get my child through college.'” 

From COVID-19 transitions to a win-win framework

Jackson’s win-win workplace framework is based on what she learned from running the Future Work Grand Challenge, which helped transition 25,000 people who lost their jobs during the pandemic. “Six months after those placements, there were certain groups of workers who were thriving, and there were certain groups of workers who were still struggling,” Jackson said.

This led her to question what companies were doing differently, and from there, she developed the framework. It lays out nine strategies for improving employee experiences at work that include centering employee voices, improving benefits and work-life balance, building inclusion programs, and hiring based on skills rather than academic credentials alone.

“When you look at those nine practices, it's really centered on what we saw in the workplaces that led not only employees thriving, but also … correlations to financial output,” Jackson said.

Jackson’s recent research found a strong connection between the nine pillars in her framework and financial performance markers in the top 25 percent of the 355 Fortune 500 companies that were studied. 

While none of the companies in the study utilized all nine pillars, those that focused on the first — centering employee voices — were more likely to include one or more of the other pillars in their employee-related procedures. Centering employee voices was also integral to creating an equitable workplace for workers dealing with a multitude of identities, from responsibilities like caregiving to managing health and safety issues.

Nearly half of companies with a strong record of centering employee voices saw above-average market performance, and 39 percent saw stronger performance in their assets under management, according to the study. 

“These are numbers that any company lives and dies on,” Jackson said. “It goes from … doing something because we think it's the right thing to do … to actually being a driver of profits.”

Similar results were seen for strategies like cultivating mutualistic working relationships and reimagining employee benefits. Likewise, Jackson noted a 20 to 30 percent increase in stock price and higher asset values among companies that are more transparent with their employees.

Not all of the data played out the way she hoped, specifically outcomes related to diversity, equity and inclusion. But that is not because any of the strategies were ineffective. “The challenge we see around that was surprising,” she said. “There wasn't enough data of companies actually tracking this to actually report on it in a meaningful way.” 

The study results ultimately act as a harbinger on the importance of not walking back policies that are actively benefiting employees, as well as the importance of purposely integrating AI into the workplace. How AI is implemented will say a lot about whether an employer values its employees, and employees will perform accordingly — including finding an employer that will do better by them.