Management in the Age of AI
In the ever-changing landscape of AI, it is near impossible to feel confident of its value-creating and time-saving abilities. Alongside potential, leaders are now seeing employees input additional hours into AI (even without encouragement or mandate), and accidentally signing up for a significantly expanded workload. This can certainly lead to worse work, done more quickly, all in pursuit of efficiency. Others have warned that the AI landscape of content generation has made it even more difficult to determine real expertise from AI-generated “faux experts.” So how does a forward-thinking leader boost employee satisfaction and employee retention in a world of digital burnout? The answer might be found in the analog world of corporate beekeeping.
Certainly, it is impossible to ignore the potential upsides of AI training, but disorganized use of AI leads to time repurposed into answering emails and messages, rather than higher-order strategic work or problem solving. The recommendation then becomes finding ways to use any new time generated efficiently: IBM by creating opportunities for junior developers to chat with customers, Microsoft by moving into strategic time to create more efficient AI workflows. In both of these examples, the adoption of AI has clear parameters for when to be thinking about it (and using it), and when to be focused on “normal delivery schedules.”
Similar to tech expansion, beekeepers go through the same challenges when caring for honeybee hives. When we consider the work of beehive management, beekeepers maintain a similar annual schedule, which becomes important the more hives they are overseeing. Backyard beekeepers might be interested in the pollination benefits of a beehive (or several), the potential for candle making from beeswax (which also makes a nice water resistant finish for wood), and honey, but they might take on more than they can manage with multiple hives. Indeed, the idea of beehive management is hotly debated by beekeepers, in a way that strikes similarly to ideas about management intervention and AI adoption and training: what is the right amount to engage without overwhelming systems?
Training up employees, as we’ve written previously, leads to increased employee satisfaction while also limiting spillovers of problems to managers. But with AI adoption, not only is a new system required to be learned, but then overseen to check for potential mistakes. AI then becomes a new untrained employee that your current employee needs to manage. This mirrors the nuanced work of commercial managed beehives: a property may have the room for an additional hive, but without professional beehive services, the labor compounds. Professional corporate beekeeping ensures the 'system' thrives without adding to your team's workload.
Despite this seeming like a new problem, all new technology goes through the Gartner Hype Cycle: Innovation Trigger, Peak of Inflated Expectations, Trough of Disillusionment, Slope of Enlightenment, Plateau of Productivity. Every new technology courts inflated expectations before real data on results becomes available. )This is akin to quitting beekeeping in the first, laborious year, before real results—honey, beeswax, pollination—can be seen.) Once they do, the unnecessary expansion is cut back, people lose their jobs, and eventually settle into a realistic use case for the new technology. Same with professional beekeeping. So what might a company do to avoid the Garner Hype Cycle, and improve employee retention?
Assume the Market has Inflated Expectations. In a time where we are hearing from Anthropic that AI (LLMs) could have a theoretical impact of 95% on current worker tasks and is currently having an effect on 33% of workers, the Yale Budget Lab remains skeptical of the dataset, and finds that there are no significant changes in the occupational mix and no correlation with unemployment in the AI usage data. This might point to the different speeds at which real change (such as technology diffusion, usually over decades) happens versus alarmist headlines. Additionally, when it is those that stand to make a fortune from praising the potential of a product who are singing its praises, always retain skepticism.
Have a Plan. It’s easy to allow your team to experiment with a new technology and discover their own new workflows and strategies, but remember that one of a leader’s duties is to provide macro-level strategy, vision, and objectives. This may mean limiting AI exposure to current processes, or setting aside time to brainstorm ways to include AI in your current workflows (as Microsoft did). As the beekeepers would say, a beehive is a self-managing marvel. But without professional oversight, a novice can accidentally miss an upcoming swarm or colony collapse. AI requires "apiary-style" management—a steady hand on the till, so to speak, with decisions driven by strategy and not on vague opportunities.
Build the Right Environment. We’ve spoken already about the benefits of clear communication, solid onboarding, and growth opportunities for employee retention, but everything about a company’s environment contributes to employee satisfaction and retention. Happy workers are more productive: 12% more, according to the University of Warwick. Employee satisfaction is also deeply correlated with connection to the company’s mission, especially for Millennials and Gen Z. How does your company communicate about its ethical and moral obligations regarding AI, its employees worries about job loss, and about potential environmental impacts? What you say and do matters, whether it is planting trees for carbon offsetting or installing corporate beehives on your property to take more direct action within your area to increase local biodiversity, connecting your company’s values to action on the ground speaks volumes to employees.
Though the landscape is ever-changing, fundamentals remain the same: take care of your hive and its workers, make decisions based on strategy (and not vibes), and stay deeply connected to your vision.
Free Range Beehive offers on-site corporate and real estate installation and maintenance services alongside opportunities for engagement and education, hive tours, corporate event hosting, and access to all the honey your beehives produce. To learn more about creating rich and sustainability-conscious environments for your workers and the services that Free Range Beehive offers, visit http://www.freerangebeehives.com/ or give us a call at (720) 320-5517.