Employers advised to 'integrate AI into employees' work'
Organisations have yet to see substantial business value from artificial intelligence tools, according to Gartner, as employees struggle to find the technology's relevance to their work.
Most HR leaders (88%) in Gartner's latest research said their organisation is failing to realise meaningful business value from adopted AI tools.
The findings, presented during the Gartner HR Symposium/Xpo Conference, may stem from employees not knowing how to integrate AI tools into their work.
A separate poll from Gartner showed that 65% of workers are excited to use AI for work. However, only 42% of employees know how to identify where AI can be used to improve their work.
"Employees struggle with AI's relevance to their work and many are not using it due to this as well as a belief that their coworkers are not using AI, and AI cannot improve their work," said Benjamin Loring, Research Director in the Gartner HR practice, in a statement. "Employees need guidance on how to apply AI to realise its benefits."
Sam Wilde, Practice Vice President in the Gartner HR practice, underscored that empowering employees to learn, explore, and innovate may not be enough.
"Empowering employees is not enough and has no significant effect on the likelihood of exceeding revenue goals," Wilde said.
"Instead, HR needs to integrate AI into employees' work to drive the desired growth."
What can HR leaders do?
According to Gartner, HR leaders should evolve work, not the workforce.
"This means leveraging employees and business leaders to help identify process inefficiencies that restrict performance while also evaluating work processes and operations for change, including but not limited to roles and governance models," it said.
It further advised HR leaders to help employees identify use cases for AI, such as addressing bottlenecks and workflow tension that waste time and cause inefficiency.
HR leaders should also consider teaming up with their chief information officers to further build AI skills at scale and encourage employees to think deeper about AI possibilities, according to Gartner.
Its research found that 62% of employees have been able to save time due to AI, with those in AI-relevant roles saving an average of 1.5 hours daily.
However, Gartner noted that some employees are held back from achieving high performance because they are unable to optimise their free time effectively.
"To guide free time, CHROs should collaborate with their C-suite peers to identify expected outcomes of AI tool use and then communicate the organisation's expectations to employees," Gartner said.
"Time should be redirected to high-value tasks, specifically work that drives organisational growth, as well as skills development for future organisational needs."
