Why Employers Need to Think of Artificial Intelligence as an Employee

The future workforce will consist of three segments: traditional, agile, and AI “workers.” The latter two are the faster-growing by far—driven by employee preference, financial pressure, and the ability to pivot at moment's notice. Within the next few years, 40 percent of a business’s workforce should be agile: deployable at any time. Companies need to effectively utilize agile workers, delivering experience to them in exchange for output; in return, the employer will have a group of employees willing to have another work experience with them in the future. Companies can use a more demand-based employment model, contracting with workers who possess the skills for the task at hand as well as an agile, results-first mentality. HR leaders should rethink and redesign their employment models to ensure business sustainability, helping hiring managers see how companies’ needs can be met by non-full-time employees.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand why and how to make AI, robotics and automation a true employee segment, using it as a scalable means of handling entire tasks and interactions (and anticipating more than small efficiency gains).
• Uncover which functions are prime for agile workers—even core functions capable of being completed as tasks and projects by contractors or AI, rather than by full- or part-time dedicated employees—and model an ideal employee/function mix based on the outputs your company needs.
• Learn how to set up an infrastructure for agile workers, starting with the hiring and evaluation processes, and break with the traditional way of evaluating employees; longevity and promotions can't be the mechanism by which people are judged for a job.
• Find out how to tap into the existing pool of agile talent, and cultivate a talent network based on resources that employers have been leveraging for years (such as alumni networks, reverse-mentoring and referrals).
• Gain insight into how to sell the agile workforce to management and talent acquisition, since it's a lucrative relationship for both; employees can benefit in terms of finances, diversity and work-life balance.
• Lay the foundation for an agile workforce model that leverages artificial intelligence (AI), project-based, and full-time employees.