Evaluate the Risk-Reward of AI

As a first step, leaders must understand how AI can be used to benefit their business goals. This requires an understanding of AI in general, and its constantly evolving abilities. Some organizations may choose to build their own AI engines, specific to their workplace and brand. This gives them the advantage to measure the control over the technology, however, it requires a significant investment not attainable for many companies. For the majority of organizations that choose to utilize existing AI tools (like ChatGPT or Jasper) to enhance their work, ensuring AI is used in a way that doesn’t compromise integrity, data security, and quality control is critical.

Despite the inherent risks – which arguably exist with any technology – it’s important not to fear AI, because there is tremendous potential for its benefits. AI can greatly increase productivity at work. It can help automate repetitive tasks (think: triaging IT tickets, data entry, or invoice processing). It can support employees with e-mail management and calendar management, allowing them to spend valuable time on more complex tasks. The risk-reward analysis will favor AI use for many, as long as policies exist to safeguard the organization.

 

Developing AI Policies that Minimize Risks and Maximize Benefits

The abilities of AI are advancing rapidly and ensuring company policies reflect its evolving uses will protect your employees and your brand. Begin by going back to basics and ensuring your employee handbook contains these policies. A handbook that is digitally available to all employees can evolve as quickly as AI does. What policy content is important to consider? Flex HR recommends starting here.

• Acceptable Use: Your organization may choose to determine specific scenarios in which AI can be used. This list of acceptable uses may evolve over time, but putting clear boundaries in place that define when it is or isn’t appropriate to utilize AI is a helpful first step.
• Permissions: Perhaps your organization wants to limit the use of AI to employees in certain roles or at specific levels of leadership. In this case, be sure to explicitly state who has permission to utilize AI and in what capacity, and any subsequent steps required to obtain that permission.
• Ethical Considerations: Despite its intelligence, AI is not an emotional being and will not always recognize ethical nuances. As such, consider an AI ethics policy that addresses the importance of mitigating bias, and maintaining impartiality and fairness.
• Data Security: Any AI system, proprietary or purchased, is only as good as the data it receives. If your company is using AI to serve as an extension of your brand, it will require sharing considerable amounts of company data to “train” it. Developing policies that put parameters in place as to what data can be supplied to a machine learning tool, such as encrypting sensitive data or prohibiting certain data inputs entirely, is an important step in protecting the privacy and security of your organization.
• Accountability: Consider a policy that places accountability on the user (or other identified employee/team) for ensuring AI produced work is accurate. One of the biggest risks with AI is that the content is not always factually accurate. Placing accountability on the user to proofread and fact-check will minimize embarrassing errors.

 

The Importance of Employee Education and Training of AI

Once your policies are written, it’s time to train your employees on appropriate AI usage. Because of how quickly AI evolves, training will likely be an ongoing initiative, so be sure to devote adequate time and resources to its success. Initially, ensure your managers understand business goals around AI usage and compliance. Invite them to share insights on how AI is and isn’t working for their teams. Remain agile and adaptable – utilizing AI effectively will be an evolving process for everyone.

Develop training plans based on expected AI usage. At the most basic level, be sure your employees understand how AI actually works. Don’t assume any level of familiarity, as for many workers, AI is a real unknown. For more advanced users, be sure to educate them on prompts engineering and the importance of good data inputs. Garbage in will push garbage out, so ensuring the accuracy of prompts is critical.

Technology and our workplaces are changing rapidly, and companies willing to roll with these changes instead of resisting them will benefit. As shared with Fox Business by Flex HRs CEO, Jennifer Morehead, “I think history has proven that the companies that are most aware and adapt to the technology changes thrive, while those who don’t accept the technology changes don’t do as well.” She also notes “Artificial intelligence and the software that it’s being built into is here, it’s not going away.” It’s time to embrace AI with a healthy dose of caution, and if you’d like expert support in developing policies to successfully integrate AI into your workplace, reach out to Flex HR today!