How AI Motivates A Remote Workforce Posted on : Jul 06 - 2020

The COVID-19 virus has caused millions of white-collar knowledge workers to work from home, and while this could be seen as a boon to productivity, unfortunately it is not.  These remote workers battle hundreds of daily distractions from helping children to making dinner along with the usual online breaks.  Over time, these non-company activities add up and can yield at least 3-4 hours of unproductive work time.

Yet, these workers are worried about their jobs and want to hold on to them during a time of record unemployment. They want to show their organizations that they are as productive and valuable as ever to retain their coveted positions.  High levels of productivity are equated with professional advanced and personal well-being.  These workers want to do the “deep work” – the work that really matters to an organization, drives profits and innovation, rather than do “busy work” or process-oriented tasks.

At the same time, organizations are very worried about the lack of productivity plaguing this new remote workforce.  Salary.com reveals that 89% of workers admit to wasting time during work hours with 61% squandering at least 30 to 60 minutes each day – and 64% of those blame it in on the Internet, a huge temptation for those toiling from home with no one watching.

But there is a silver lining to all of this bad news.  New advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning will help workers stay focused on the most important work by automating tedious, time-consuming tasks and providing guidance that helps them deliver the most important initiatives that drive profits for their organizations.  AI can serve as a valuable personal career coach for workers that want to achieve new heights for their organizations – not the job eliminator that people once thought it was.

AI has been automating mundane tasks for at least 24 months now. But who knew that it could provide guidance and insight to individual workers looking for a career boost?  Right now, at the world’s most successful airline and most profitable advertising conglomerate, AI is being used by department leaders to provide the guidance and insight to keep teams highly focused.   AI excels at using accurate data to produce powerful business insights – often better than humans can.  We simply don’t have the ability to observe and process the same volumes and at the same speed as AI does.

An average executive does  not have a full view of the business. Lets’ face it – we often make decisions with very limited and biased input.  This incomplete and biased view leads people to made inadequate decisions that often hurt the business.

Thankfully, AI provides the accurate data in real-time to make better decision-making a reality.  Of course, we cannot let AI and machine learning take over all aspects of leadership. But we can use it to give us a better starting point to make better decisions from the get-go. View More