Debbie, thank you so much for being here.
From your research, what can you tell us about the relationship
between Gen-AI adoption
and employee joy and effectiveness?
I know you wonder, like, what are those things have to do with
one another?
But every company is rolling out Gen-AI,
and they're doing it with a sole focus on productivity.
And if they focus on productivity alone, guess what?
Employees are not going to engage and use it.
And what we need to do is focus on, yes, productivity, but also
how do these technologies make work better and make work more
enjoyable for employees.
And you may ask, well, why should I care about employee
joy?
Well, obviously, you should care about whether your employees
enjoy their work.
But our research shows that employees who enjoy their work
are half is likely to quit.
OK, so just imagine, you could keep your high performers
longer.
You can motivate people more.
You can keep your knowledge in-house.
You could reduce attrition.
So that's why we should worry about whether these technologies
are helping employees enjoy their work. And how can managers
really foster Gen-AI adoption,
and why is it important for them to do so?
Well, you're never going to realize the productivity promise
if your employees don't embrace these new technologies.
And so, what you need to do is two things.
One, you need to point these technologies at the parts of the
workday that are really frustrating for employees, the
parts that create what we call toil, and don't point them at
the parts of the job that your employees love because you're
going to make them like their work less.
So that's the first thing you need to do.
The second thing you need to do is actually don't just say
here's the new technology, here's how you should use it,
and expect them to adopt it.
You should co-create it with them because they know where
they need it the most.
And once they feel part of the solution, not only will the
solution be better, but they'll actually want to use it
themselves and tell their peers to use it.
What advice would you have for business leaders trying to
balance efficiency gains and employee joy? To first recognize
it's not a tradeoff.
It's not like, well, either your employees can enjoy their work
or you can get more efficiency gains out of technology.
It's an "and," right? If employees enjoy their work,
their customers are going to be happier.
If employees enjoy their work, they're going to bring their
whole self and all their effort.
Like there are employees who just show up, right?
It's like punch the clock.
They just show up.
And then there are employees who show up. And their worth, they
just generate so much more value.
And so they're synergistic.
Productivity and joy go together.
They're not a tradeoff.
Thank you so much.