Artificial intelligence is rewriting the rules of many jobs, including management.
Aparna Nair, chief people, leadership and culture officer at IBM, says as more employees use AI on a daily basis, bosses need to change their management approach to account for this new way of working.
One issue they can address is employee concerns that their skills will be atrophied by the use of AI in the workplace. In an IBM survey of 1,500 chief human resources officers and 8,800 employees around the world released in September, three out of four employees concerned said that AI has already begun to undermine some of their skills, most often critical thinking.
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania coined the term “cognitive surrender” in a paper published in February, warning against “uncritically accepting an AI’s answers in place of your own reasoning.” In addition to completing specific tasks, relying on AI to make decisions rather than making them yourself can lead to a decline in skills. This, in turn, can have a negative impact on workers’ autonomy, confidence and reasoning abilities, which can have a negative impact on their career prospects and growth.
“Here, because management understands the job and knows the individual, they can be more targeted in how the individual develops their skills,” Nair told CNBC Make It.
One challenge, of course, is that many employers have cut back on middle management jobs in recent years.
A survey of 15,000 professionals around the world by organizational consulting firm Korn Ferry found that by 2025, about four in 10 employees will be cutting back on management at their companies. According to Gartner’s October 2024 report, by 2026, one in five organizations will leverage AI to flatten their organizational charts and eliminate more than half of existing middle management roles.
Apple’s new CEO, John Tarnas, is reportedly considering cutting some executive positions in an effort to speed up product development. The move follows in the footsteps of companies like Meta, Google and Amazon, which have cut thousands of middle-management jobs with the goal of eliminating bloat and making the organization leaner and faster.
While executives have traditionally focused on “meticulously directing work,” managers in the AI era should instead focus on “impactful coaching” to help employees build and maintain the right skills, Nair says.
IBM’s research suggests several ways managers and CHROs can prevent employee attrition. Identify where skills are changing and recommend personalized learning and practice accordingly. We support continued skill utilization through internal opportunities, stretch assignments, rotations, and other means.
Executive advisor Deborah Rovich told CNBC Make It in December that managers’ time can be better spent motivating and supporting their teams, rather than juggling administrative tasks like running meetings and tracking employees.
That’s because “managers are the only people who see the individual on a day-to-day basis,” says Nair, noting that managers are therefore in a good position to identify an employee’s strengths and weaknesses. “We need to coach where individuals are spending their time and what skills they are building.”
While AI may be able to help with simpler responsibilities, talent development is still best left to humans, she added: “Human coaching doesn’t scale to the level that AI can.”
