'Companies place unfair AI expectations on workers'
Very few employers globally have structured plans to support workers, build skills, and lead through artificial intelligence (AI) disruption, according to a recent report.
Specifically, just 10 per cent of companies qualify as “future-ready,” notes The Adecco Group.
Currently, 46 per cent of companies globally say their teams struggle to align around AI strategies, says Tao Qiu, country president, Adecco Group Canada, in conversation with Canadian HR Reporter.
“What we see in the future is that AI is still very much a force multiplier on the human,” he says.
“AI is an absolute requirement to help make each individual person more productive in the workplace, and that's how we see AI moving forward.”
The rise of AI in the work sphere is more likely to transform the jobs of workers who are more highly educated, according to a previous report from Statistics Canada (StatCan).
Meanwhile, just 38 per cent of companies in Canada feel they have strong alignment on an AI strategy, and only seven per cent can be classified as future-ready, according to the Adecco report.
“We're dead last in the 13 countries,” says Qiu.
“If we don't adopt it fast enough in Canada, we will further fall behind in terms of our worker productivity and our competitiveness globally.”
Small and medium-size businesses are confident with their growth prospects over the next three years, and they’re banking on AI and automation, finds a previous KPMG study.
What is the future of work?
By 2030, the three most influential megatrends are expected to be digital transformation, generative AI (GenAI), and AI, while skills scarcity is expected to fall to second-to-last place, according to The Adecco Group’s Leading in the Age of AI report.
Leaders rank “workforce strategies that cannot keep up with the pace of disruption” as the number one talent risk to business growth, based on the survey of C-suite executives from 13 countries, including 100 respondents in Canada.
While 42 per cent of Canadian leaders say the top talent management challenge threatening business growth is the lack of AI skills, just over half are delivering training and upskilling opportunities for workers.
“Companies place unfair AI expectations on workers,” reads part of the report.
Overall, 60 per cent of employers globally—and 51 per cent of Canadian companies—expect employees to update their skills, roles, and responsibilities to adjust to the impact of AI.
However, 34 per cent don’t have a policy on AI and leave it to employees to decide how to use the technology at work.
“What you should be really thinking about is ‘Do I have a talent upskilling strategy?’” says Qiu.
“There are actually very few people on the market that have either the educational background, and—especially important to most companies—the practical experience of having done any AI projects. So if you're expecting, as a company, to just hire somebody from the outside that already comes in with a ton of AI experience, that's not going to happen.”
While some employers are offering upskilling opportunities, they do not appear to be sufficient.
About two-thirds (65 per cent) of organisations that have a responsible AI framework are upskilling their workers in AI, compared with just 51 per cent of organisations that don't have a framework.
According to the report, leaders who take action to improve their AI readiness are in a better position to set the AI implementation strategy.
However, only one-third say they have engaged with a range of different learning measures over the past 12 months.
“Leaders need to understand AI before they can set realistic expectations for the rest of the workforce,” reads part of Adecco’s report. “Organisations might make faster AI progress if they hold leaders accountable: organisations that have an incentive structure are also more likely to have leaders that develop their knowledge.”
The most successful companies today have survived and thrived through generational technological shifts. That’s going to be crucial in the age of AI, says Qiu.
“Microsoft was able to bridge several technology shifts and still remain relevant today, and the difference is they adopted the right strategies at critical times. That’s the same thing for leaders of companies today. [If they] can adopt the strategy quickly, that will mean the survival of their company as they go through this next change.”
Currently, 71 per cent of employers say their organisation’s workforce is not ready to successfully leverage AI technology in the workplace, according to a previous report.
