AI in the Workplace: The Skills Your Employees Need Aren’t Just Technical
02 Jan 2024
When it comes to the skills needed for your employees to work effectively with AI, technical talent is a given. But just as important are skills that are definitely not digital. In an article in the Harvard Business Review, APB speaker Dr. Nada Sanders, a supply chain authority, futurist and AI expert, and John D. Wood, an attorney and author, discussed how business leaders can successfully incorporate this incredibly evolving technology into their companies and what expertise their workers will need to make the best of it.
The pair spoke in-depth with dozens of CEOs in multiple industries to identify “how generative AI has changed the practices of leading firms and extract lessons for success,” they wrote.
Topping the list are interpersonal skills, from good communication to teamwork to relationship building to emotional intelligence to start. Also needed are workers who are innovative, creative and solution-oriented.
“A study of 1,700 global companies found that companies that excelled on human capital metrics were four times as likely to have superior financial performance,” Sanders and Wood write.
Just as critical is domain expertise—expert knowledge in a field. As AI takes on more tasks, there is a danger of losing these skills. “John Sicard, president and CEO of the supply-chain-management company Kinaxis, pointed out that domain knowledge is essential to helping a business navigate through turbulent times,” they write. “He gave the analogy that when an airplane experiences anything unusual, the autopilot is immediately turned off and pilots take control—at which point the pilots need to know what to do. Developing and maintaining these skills is essential.”
The AI revolution is here to stay. But without human expertise and talent in the mix, it can lead to inaccurate decision-making and possible legal liability. “AI is still a tool,” Sanders and Wood say. “The centerpiece is people, but with enhanced human literacies, a well-thought-out business model and superb processes that integrate humans with their AI co-pilots.”