As the founder of an HR tech company will undoubtedly be impacted by an AI-enabled future, it’s important to me to stay up to date with technology trends. We recently partnered with our amazing investor No Moss, a consultancy that specializes in software development and product innovation, to host a one day ChatGPT Hackathon. We wanted our teams to road-test the tech and use their skills to design rapid prototypes that they believe will shape the future of work.
We learned a lot in a single day and since then I’ve been hooked! And I’m not the only one. In an open letter to employees, Nick Thompson, CEO at the Atlantic urged employees to experiment with ChatGPT and other tools, likening the evolution of AI as potentially “as important as the invention of the internet”.
Who is set to win?
There is little doubt that companies will win big here - through productivity gains and cost savings, I predict this will produce a new wave of ultra-rich CEOs who understand the impact that “efficiency” has on share-price.
I've yet to discover a company that has mandated the use of Generative AI (and can only find evidence to suggest that the opposite is true) and yet millions of us signed ourselves up and use it every day for work. After all, who here doesn’t want to be better at their job or make their own life easier?
Rather than focus on the negative, I wanted to find out more about which professions will be POSITIVELY impacted, so after reading several academic papers and running some tests on our own career pathway tech and ChatGPT, here’s what I came up with:
Personal Tutors and Teachers: AI can generate personalized learner content, provide instant feedback, and analyze student performance.
Software Developers: AI can generate code, assist with bug identification and testing, and enhance documentation which few developers love let’s face it.
Business/Management Consultants: AI can generate insights, automate report and presentation generation, and identify industry trends.
Medical Professionals: AI can automate transcriptions and patient notes (which is a win for us all!), summarize reports, and help identify diseases earlier.
UX/Product Designers: AI can generate design ideas, streamline design iterations, and facilitates data-driven decision-making for optimized user experiences.
Recruiters: AI can identify candidates, automate and personalize outreach at scale, and analyze job market trends.
So what next?
If you’re a CEO or an HR Leader, there are some practical steps you can take that will help you prepare your workforce with the skills and resilience to seize this opportunity:
Promote awareness and understanding: Educate employees about generative AI, its applications, and its impact. Encourage employees to experiment, organize workshops, hackathons or training sessions to help them understand the technology and let them identify its benefits as well as learn about the risks.
And this is where GoFIGR can help you!
Identify skill gaps: Assess the current skill set of the workforce and identify areas where employees may need additional training or support, especially where their job may be impacted in the future. This is now possible to do quickly, automatically and at scale.
Invest in reskilling and upskilling: Offer training programs and resources to help employees develop new skills, such as programming, data analysis, and AI-related skills. Encourage participation and provide incentives for completing programs. (Contact me to find out how GoFIGR helps companies create personalized learning journeys to plug critical skill gaps)
Encourage cross-functional collaboration: Promote collaboration between departments, especially those working with AI and data-driven technologies, to foster innovation. (We built a project marketplace that connects employee’s skills and interests to existing project opportunities that works perfectly for use cases like this)
Provide support and resources: Establish support systems for employees impacted by generative AI OR those who are keen to develop, including career coaching and mentorship programs. (I will soon publish a case study of how we helped a client reduce regrettable turnover and boost employee engagement thanks to their investment in internal career coaching)
In summary, generative AI is poised to significantly impact jobs and employment in fascinating ways. While there may be some hurdles to overcome, the potential of AI to boost creativity and innovation is undeniable and I truly believe it could contribute to a more vibrant and rewarding workplace experience. We're on the brink of a new era where AI will play a key role in creating a resilient and inclusive workforce and it's genuinely exciting to be part of a company helping to shape the future of work.
Don't wait to be disrupted—embrace the change (and reach out to me or the talented folk at No Moss if we can help!)
Helena Turpin spent 20 years in talent and HR innovation where she solved people-related problems using data and technology. She left corporate life to create GoFIGR where she helps mid-sized organizations to develop and retain their people by connecting employee skills and aspirations to internal opportunities like projects, mentorship and learning.
