Will AI reduce the bureaucratic burde

Over the last several decades society - and work - have become more complex, more complicated - with vast increases in rules, regulations and associated bureaucracy.

This has created entire layers of employment focused on managing this complexity. In both the public and private sectors, millions are primarily engaged in navigating rules sand ensuring compliance.  These workers are not focused on creating output or value.

There has also been a major shift in the nature of our politicians which now are more likely to be lawyers - and their key role, as part of government, is seen as creating more laws.  As they do so, companies have to pay for more expertise and/or employ more people to enact the rules and ensure compliance.

We find ourselves caught in a vicious cycle: Governments enact laws and regulations and then hire people to enforce and control them. Consequently, businesses are compelled to expand their staff to meet these excessive compliance requirements.   Companies become less competitive - perhaps not in the domestic marker where rivals face the same burden - but in international markets where competition may come from less-regulated economies and companies

So, look around at the people you know. How many of them are employed making rules and regulations, enforcing them, ensuring compliance with them or implementing them.  

Even those in productive jobs suffer by paying additional taxes to pay for these non-productive sectors of society.

Will AI help remove this burden on productivity?  It could … but I am not that hopeful.  A government of lawyers and rule makers will want to build a regulatory framework around the use of AI which might add to, rather than reduce, this burden.

What Are Your Employees Doing?

 This question is easy to answer if you manage a factory or other work involving physical effort. You see items coming off the production line, being modified in some way. beingg painted or whatever.  But in an office environment where there is no significant physical output, observation of performance is harder.

You can look out from your office over your domain and see people beavering away at their desks and computers- but what are they actually doing.  You see people holding meetings - but what are they actually achieving.

In recent years, since COVID and the great WFH revolution, many staff have become adept at performative behaviours - looking as if they are working hard, but actually making little positive contribution.

You may have some simple measures in place which attempt to show levels of performance but often these are too simple to be effective.  The most simple - and the most ineffective - is time. Time spent at work - or on specific tasks - is not a good measure of effort or contribution.  I can be at work playing solitaire, or some other more engaging game - but that hardly makes me a star employee.  And of course you may have two members of staff working on broadly the same types of work but one is doing so with talent, skills and commitment whilst the other coasts along making errors.  The time they spend on the same tasks can have very different 'value created' figures.

This common problem - of measuring what is both obvious and easy to measure - leads to a loss of control and poor decision-making. 

Establishing metics is not always simple - but it is always important - to help establish and maintain control.  However it needs a focus on output or achievement rather than on input factors. 

So think carefully about the out come factors of administrative and clerical functions and relate measurement and appraisal to these outcomes - directly if possible, but if not then by using linked or proxy measures.  So, think and then create a basket of measures which balances all the key output factors.  If this is difficult, hire someone with measurement expertise and experience to help.  It is is so important, you can't afford to get it wrong.

AI enhances productivity - or Does It?

 There seems to be two major views about the impact of the increasing use of AI on the productivity of organisations.

One school of thought suggests that AI can streamline processes and systems, enhance knowledge and skills and generally have a positive impact on productivity.

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The other ays that AI will simply reduce costs by reducing headcount.

Of course this is not a dichotomy or a conundrum.  Both can be right at the same time.

Signifiant technological change can often change the nature of an organisation - even an entire sector - in terms of size and shape.  The problem is that the actual changes are not always predictable and foreseeable.  There are almost always unintended consequences of major change. There are changes to culture, to employee engagement, to employees well-being that happen alongside the intended, major change.

If we can't predict these consequential changes, we can't plan for them. But we can observe them as they happen and address them in whatever way is appropriate - without hindering progress on the major change.  We can ensure that the organisation is flexible and adaptive.  We can have processes and procedures in place to communicate details of changes to the workforce  and additional processes and procedures to swiftly address potential conflicts. We can ensure our recruitment and onboarding processes help us create diverse, inclusive, flexible, high performing teams. We can let employees know why the use of AI should improve their work - and their lives.

If we are really clever, we can use AI to monitor what is happening and help us identify any problem areas, any specific successes and any areas of issue.  It does this by analysing data from all points of measurement and providing summaries and insights to improve decision-making and future planning.

Now using AI to help solve the problems of AI introduction - we are starting to get smart!!

What Are We Missing?

We all know that productivity growth has slowed over the last decade. There have been numerous shocks to the global economy and trading system - the biggest being the financial crisis and the COVID epidemic - and catalysts such as advancing technology have lost their impetus as dramatic change (in the technology) has slowed.  Of course some predict AI will spur a new growth phase but simply waiting for this to happen is too passive an action for these troubled times.

So, what are we missing In our search for solutions?

Well, we do seem to have forgotten the human factor.  The global challenges mentioned above have significantly changed the attitude of many employees to their work.  Work is now simply seen as a transactional process of earning enough to live on and provide the next holiday.  The number of those seeking to  pursue longer-term, meaningful careers  has declined.  We need to re-motivate and re-excite those dulled by COViD, by working from home, by the continuing fear of redundancy.

Secondly, the reliance on technology to provide productivity growth means we have forgotten to concentrate on the basics- on the regular, ongoing, consistent search for improvements to products and processes. 

If we can get our employees involved in the search, we 'kill two birds with one stone'.  We get increased engagement of the workforce and we get more incremental improvement.

This takes real involvement of the senior team - and it needs people versed in productivity principles and improvement tools and techniques to work with the workforce to help them bring about improvement.  (Productivity initiatives are always more successful and more sustainable when they are something done WITH the workforce, rather than TO the workforce.)

It is not 'rocket science' but nor is it easy.

So, I suggest you commit now - and start immediately.