The Rise of Symbiotic Organizations: Calibrating Human Workforce and AI

The market scenario across the world is a little negative with so many layoffs, so I am apprehensive while writing this article. It can be a natural reaction, “HR folks are a pain”!! Well, I believe I am an unconventional HR, and I call myself a Human Remains specialist, in a lighter note, the objective is not to justify layoffs.

We need to accept the reality of an industrial revolution that led to many job losses from traditional workers to machines, outsourcing led to job losses in some countries, and now we are witnessing another disruption, AI, or rather generative AI in the workplace. As per one of the Harvard Business Review articles - AI is becoming good at human jobs. Some of the emerging themes from this phenomenon are as follows:

• Workplace AI entices worker-AI interactions by offering to augment worker abilities.

• Workers' distrust in workplace AI stems from perceiving it as a job threat.

• Workers lose specific skills to workplace AI, but they retain critical skills.

• AI and worker coexistence require workers' technical, human, and conceptual skills.

• Technical skills benefit coexistence but cannot outweigh human and conceptual skills.(source: Science Direct, Technovation volume)

  
  

For the HR community, business leaders, and Org Behaviour experts, it is time to relook into the org culture, communication, talent engagement, and development through a different lens. No organisation, economy, and society can thrive where people live in perpetual fear of losing their jobs and livelihood. We are witnessing rapid technical disruption which needs to be embraced and transformed into a “symbiotic environment” where Human and generative AI co-exist to enhance customer experience, productivity, employee development & growth, and impact society positively.

Workplace culture is no longer employee-centric; it is a Human and generative AI Symbiotic coexistence.

As a Human Resource business partner and Org Behaviour specialist, I will recommend the rule of 5 (normally I prefer the rule of 3) to transform the org culture to make it a productive Symbiotic culture:

1. Build Trust: Leaders need to build trust through transparent communication with employees about digital transformation and its impact on the workplace.

   
   

2. Drive Conceptual Upskilling: Leaders need to clarify and train conceptual skills regarding AI and Human coexistence. We need to break the myth that AI = Job loss. Rather, employees have a huge role in implementing AI at the workplace to enhance their productivity. Employees need to perform three crucial roles:

   • Train machines to perform certain tasks.

   • Explain the outcomes of those tasks especially when they are counterintuitive.

   • Sustain the responsible use of machines.

     
     

3. Well-defined Technical Reskilling Strategy: A well-defined strategy needs to be in place for reskilling employees to newer technologies and skills like complex decision-making processes, performing complex tasks, identifying, and delegating routine tasks to AI, and focusing on productive areas. Training strategy has to be focused on the short term during transformation and the long term for sustenance.

   
   

4. Value of Human and Generative AI Collaboration: The definition of collaboration is no longer centered between Humans. Organizations benefit from optimizing collaboration between Humans and AI. As per a study by HBR, 5 principles can enable them to do so:

   • Reimagine business process.

   • Embrace employee involvement in transformation and sustenance.

   • Well-defined AI strategy with clear implementation plans.

   • Responsibly collect data.

   • Re-design work to incorporate generative AI and cultivate related employee skills.

     
     

5. Well-defined Ethical Guardrails: to ensure that generative AI is not counterintuitive or not being used to negatively impact Humans within and outside the organisation.

   
   

Generative AI can boost our analytic, and decision-making capability, and heighten creativity but can never replace the Emotions of Humans. The next generation AI will be intelligent enough to react based on perceptions (90% of our brain functions on perceptions), so let’s evolve as a society to move forward in using machines and AI to our benefit.

It is time to evolve and coexist. Symbiotic organization work culture is the new world order, let’s be proactive in adopting the transformation and not take reactive steps which adversely impact the organization's culture, employees, and society at large.