How CEOs Can Overcome Employee Resistance to AI

By Martijn Gribnau

As a leader you set the message, cadence, and tone of communication when introducing AI to your broader team. You must present a clear concise vision for why the company is adopting AI and ensure your team knows it is coming to help not only the company grow, but the team.

Artificial Intelligence may be the greatest invention and tool of man that has ever been created. It can transform entire industries, businesses and nations. But, that does not mean everyone is clamoring for more. In fact, 66% of Europeans fear AI will replace more jobs than it creates. But, as a leader it’s your job to get your teams on board with the coming transformation. 

It cannot be sugar coated; jobs will be eliminated. But, that doesn’t mean your team will be impacted. In fact, you can evaluate and work to ensure the team stays in-tact. And that is part of the process you can begin now to ready your business for the AI revolution.

Open and transparent communication

The quickest way for any new initiative to fail is poor communication. When surveyed, 86% of employees believe poor communication is the main cause of failure at work. As a leader you set the message, cadence, and tone of communication when introducing AI to your broader team. Your communication must be clear, purposeful, and lacking in any and all company jargon. 

• Present a clear concise vision: Clearly lay out why the company is adopting AI and how it aligns with the overall goals of the business. Ensure your team knows that AI is coming to help not only the company grow, but to help the team grow themselves and their careers. 
• Give employees ownership: Develop an implementation team not built just of IT people, but of members from every team and level of the business. This not only gives them ownership and a full sense of how and where AI will be used, but you in turn get a myriad of feedback channels you wouldn’t normally have access to. The more employees feel their voices are heard, the more likely they will buy-in completely. 
• Be realistic: Be extremely open and transparent about the way in which AI will be used and its potential implications. Acknowledge that yes, AI will alter roles and eliminate some completely, but the intent is to increase people’s efficiency and effectiveness. Here is where you highlight how AI can automate repetitive, tedious work, freeing up time for more creative and strategic tasks. 

These are things you must communicate at least eight to ten times in different modalities. Use email newsletters, town halls, internal podcasts, and smaller team meetings. You cannot over communicate when introducing such massive change. 

Invest in training and upskilling

A hard truth is that your current workforce does not possess all the knowledge and skills to fully leverage AI. This fact fuels fears among your current team. Alleviate this by rolling out training and upskilling programs. Your team hired every employee for a reason. You invested in them and have paid their salary. Invest more and see them become even more loyal, more valuable, and reach greater heights then they ever have. Plus, these reskilling programs are a cost savings as the tab for hiring a new employee can be as much as 33% of the salary of the position you want them to fill. 

Upskilling allows employees to feel more prepared and in control of their careers. Drive home that AI integration is a living process and that you will continue to invest in the team to learn to best use the technology. This creates a culture where learning and development are expected, supported, and continuous. 

Share wins early and often

As with anything new in life or work, start small and go slow. Overwhelming employees with a massive, company-wide AI rollout will increase stress and resistance to this new way of doing business. A gradual, strategic approach will build momentum, mitigate risks and mistakes, and give your team a runway to experience what AI will do. 

Pilot small, manageable projects in a single department or with a specific set of tasks. This allows the team to learn and adapt without major disruption to their day-to-day. It also shows wins that are clear and measurable. Then celebrate these wins publicly. Make sure to recognize and celebrate the employees and teams who saw success with AI. This will build enthusiasm and normalize AI.

Showcase human-AI collaboration

This is another opportunity to prove to the team that AI is a collaborative partner and not an agent to replace them. The skills your team possess are uniquely human and AI is a tool to help those skills reach full potential. Highlighting that human oversight is necessary for ethical considerations, critical thinking, and refining AI lets your team know they are irreplaceable. Creativity, emotional intelligence, and empathy are uniquely human and will become even more important as AI grows. 

Create hybrid workflows and develop new processes that leverage the strengths of both humans and AI simultaneously. For example, AI performs initial data analysis then a human expert interprets the findings and formulates a strategy. 

Commit to clear governance and ethical guidelines

If you fail to create clear rules of AI governance and ethics the trust you have built will begin to crack. Thoughts of “shadow AI” being used by the company will spread through teams like a prairie fire. Transparent governance shows that the company is taking the transition seriously and putting the needs of humans first. 

Develop an AI usage policy that creates and communicates clear guidelines on how employees can and cannot use AI tools. This policy should cover data privacy, security, and the different levels of human review needed. Within this is the need to vet AI tools with a diligence that ensures they are secure and align with your company’s higher ethical standards. This will help alleviate employee concerns about data privacy and bias.

Finally, designate a member of the current team that is respected and trusted by the greater employee base and appoint them as AI lead. They will lead the committee that oversees the ethical use of AI, and ensures accountability by addressing any potential issues.

In all, the deployment of AI will lead to better day to day work life as mundane tasks are eliminated, inefficiencies and red tape will be gone and you get to accomplish things that truly impact the business. Plus, increased revenue will be great for bonus eligible employees, and for higher raises company wide. But, you first have to build trust and get your entire team moving in the same direction via genuine buy-in. Spend the time needed for a slow and deliberate roll-out at the beginning and the end results will be greater than you, or your team, can imagine.

About the Author

Martijn Gribnau is Chief Customer Success Officer of Quant, which develops cutting-edge digital employee technology.