Employers need to prioritise humanness and connection to avoid sleep-walking into an automated, isolated workplace which is bad for wellbeing and productivity: this was a key theme speakers were warning delegates about today, on the first day of The Watercooler Event at Excel London.
As Peter Cheese, CEO of the CIPD, emphasised in a panel session on AI, it’s crucial that the industry “consciously designs” good work, but too many are currently slipping into tech-led cultures which sideline humanity and connection.
“We need to lean in as a profession to design jobs of the future. There’s big opportunities but we need to design them. It won’t happen by accident,” he said.
AI is the greatest mirror yet
A particular opportunity he cited was the ability for AI to be the “greatest mirror yet created to understand inherent human bias”. This awareness would then enable organisations to better tackle bias in their individual cultures.
He added that this would require addressing tough questions about what it means to be human and what kind of humanity we want to design into the workplace of the future.
“The more we talk about tech, the more I’m hearing about the importance of human skills like collaboration, critical thinking and empathy. We need to train our managers better through this change,” he said.
The panel agreed that there are many positive opportunities for AI to boost both productivity and wellbeing by facilitating connection and humanness, rather than detracting from these.
Free up time for people related work
Kirstin Furber, People Director, Channel 4, for example, advocated for using AI to free up time for more “challenging” people related work to enhance working relationships. Similarly, with tasks like copywriting and preparing presentations, while AI can increase productivity and reduce stress by saving time, it only works she said “if we add the human element ourselves”.
Likewise in the session on the future of EAPs, a key point to emerge was that employers can have all the sophisticated technological solutions in place but, if you don’t communicate to employees about them in a human, relatable way, you will not get high uptake.
Panellist Farah Khan, EMEA Head of Wellness at Goldman Sachs, who spoke about how a new approach using Lyra Health had led to an increase in EAP uptake said:
“It’s all about how you package your support. It can be confusing for employees. Should they use the EAP? PMI? The NHS? You have to communicate that you will help them understand the support there for them. It has to be succinct and relatable.”
Humanise work again
Similarly, Dr Eliza Filby, Author of Inheritocracy, in her fireside chat with Dame Carol Black about the multigenerational workforce emphasised the power of connection and humanness to create thriving workplace cultures which work for all ages.
She called on the industry to put human to human connection at the heart of their intergenerational strategies as the best way to foster better, more productive working relationships. She talked about the detrimental effects of the “destroyed bonds of connection” in society – like the demise of the Church, increased remote working and automisation of daily living, such as automated supermarket checkouts – and how this has created an opportunity and responsibility for employers to provide essential connection to fill the wellbeing gap.
“We have so few human interactions now. Life is being dehumanised. And at work we’ve tried to turn robots into humans, and humans into robots. We need to get back to humanising the culture of work, and that doesn’t mean running a wellbeing programme. It means giving time and space to delivering human-centric management and connecting on a human level.”
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