AI Skills Are Becoming Everyone’s Job: Why HR Must Lead the Workforce Transformation

Professor Fiona Robson, Head of the School of Business, Design and Social Sciences & Edinburgh Business School, Heriot-Watt University Dubai, call for action from HR.

AI & EDTECH

Professor Fiona Robson

9/24/20263 min read

AI is now part of everyday life and is used across a broad spectrum of jobs; it is no longer something only the IT Department or early adopters do. This means employees need to understand what it is and how it can support both their individual and organisational performance.

This can be a scary prospect for some employees who don’t have a technical background and may have been doing their job and tasks in the same way for a long time. Of course, there will also be concern that AI is going to take their jobs away, so this can lead to significant anxiety. The HR Department should work with the IT specialists to shine a light on how AI can make their lives easier, for example how it could streamline processes or reduce the amount of time taken to complete tasks.

AI literacy should be rolled out across the workforce, as this sends out a strong message about its importance in the organisation. This will also reduce the anxiety of people who may have heard rumours about robots taking over! The benefits of attending the training should be clearly articulated and ideally some AI champions will also be able to provide reassurances. Given that people will have varying levels of existing competence and confidence, it might be useful to do pre-workshop assessments and where there are distinctive levels of experience, offering differentiated programmes could be sensible.

Ideally the training will be specific to the organisation and its context as this will help employees to understand how and where they can use it. Using real life case studies also enable the transfer of learning when they return to the workplace. Delivering training alone isn’t sufficient, they will need time to be built into their work days to allow them to practice their learning and develop their confidence.

Of course people won’t take in this new knowledge and skills in one go, so the HR team should ensure that supporting materials are provided which can be used when the employees go to use AI functions in the future.

It is important to recognise that it isn’t just about being able to use AI to complete tasks, they also need to develop the skills in being able to assess and analyse the outputs taking a critical lens where the results may not be as expected. Emphasising the importance of human judgment is important as computers can’t do everything, understanding ethical implications also needs to be included.

After improving general AI literacy, training needs to be focused on how it can be used in specific departments and teams. This may be more technical and role-specific so the HR team will need to work clearly with senior managers to identify where up-skilling will be needed and ensuring they have the capability for it.

Training alone isn’t enough to get the full value of AI. This can be a sensitive process as it involves considering what tasks and roles could be completed by technology instead of humans or whether hybrid models are needed with inputs from both

The fundamental questions that the HR team need to ask are:

· Are there tasks that can be automated? What are the people implications?

· What are the tasks that could be augmented by AI but still require people interventions?

· Which tasks will need to be carried out by people – this could be for ethical, governance or legal reasons.

· How does the skills profile of teams, departments and the organisation need to change? How can this be implemented?

· Where will they access people who can provide training on the very latest developments?

· How will performance expectations change?

HR teams could also think about having AI champions who can give real, practical examples of how they are using AI. Ideally these champions won’t all be from the IT Department.

The organisations that succeed with AI will not necessarily be those that adopt it fastest. They will be those that build the confidence and capability of their people to use it appropriately and intelligently. AI may reshape the work, but people will determine whether that transformation creates value.

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