Can AI solve wellbeing at work?

Back in 2019 an Israeli production team called Sweaty Machines fed tons of Eurovision songs and lyrics into Artificial Intelligence with the intent of creating the most ‘Eurovision-y’ Eurovision song made solely by AI. 

The result was a song titled ‘Blue Jeans and Bloody Tears’ - and in my opinion, they succeeded. You can listen to the full song here.- is it bad if I sort of like it?

At the time, the idea of AI creating media like music was a novel one. Fast forward to 2022 and we saw the launch of Chat GPT - AI that could write content like a human (kinda).

Today we’ve got AI content coming out of our ears - whether it be art, written content, videos, music… The point is, AI creations are everywhere right now, and it doesn’t look to be slowing down any time soon.

No matter your opinion of the ethics of AI, it’s caused a whole host of different industries to consider how they can use it to improve their workflows - to varying levels of success.

Google, for example, has recently implemented AI to provide a brief overview to summarise key information to do with your search. The problem is that it often gets things wrong. And in some cases, very wrong. 

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It turns out there’s a lot of useless and incorrect information online and AI doesn’t quite know the difference between good and bad content.

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AI in HR and Employee Wellbeing

As AI tools become more common it’s also being considered how it can be used to support employee health and wellbeing at work.

The problem right now is that most of these AI ‘solutions’ are very surface level. They include ideas around AI chatbots to drive employee engagement, virtual assistants to help employees with their wellbeing, and algorithms to examine sets of employee data. 

We’re still in the early stages here, and it’s not to say that AI won’t have a place when it comes to employee wellbeing - but maybe it shouldn’t right now.

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Using AI as a tool instead of a replacement

In the last two decades we’ve heard plenty of conversations around machines replacing jobs and putting people out of work. Traditionally, it was always considered that manual labour would be replaced by machines first.

Today however, it seems AI is taking on creative industries. The question is, will AI replace people, or is it simply a tool to enhance productivity and reduce workload?

This is where things get tricky. AI can be a useful tool to make boring jobs quicker and easier to do. For example, generating the text for a new office policy.

But most likely, the generated text isn’t going to suit your needs. Instead, it needs a human touch to make it relevant. But having some baseline content with the right formatting and tone of voice is likely to make the task much quicker and easier for the person responsible. 

In many ways, having the text generated could be compared to researching other company policies and rewriting them to fit your business - just without the effort.

That’s what we mean when we consider AI being a tool - not a replacement. Without someone to sense-check, rewrite, and edit the generated content, you’re likely to end up with something contradictory, confusing, or just plain wrong.

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Can AI help reduce employee stress and burnout at work?

With AI helping employees get through tasks in a more optimised way, it can mean much higher productivity, reduced workload, and reduced stress as a result.

For example, tools that can direct or encourage employees to use your available employee benefits can help boost employee engagement without you needing to get as involved.

In fact, research by the University of Law found that 66% of 25-34-year-olds would prefer to talk about their feelings with Artificial Intelligence than a loved one. This could mean that these AI solutions that can direct employees to your benefits that help with personal issues, such as mental health, are more likely to be used.

But there can be some problems here. Just like any technology, AI can do things wrong. 

If you and your teams have a heavy reliance on AI, there could be the likelihood that you are down-skilling your employees since the skills previously required are covered by your AI tools. 

This could make it harder for employees to grow and develop their skills OR it could mean they have more time to learn the important skills to grow in their role that AI doesn’t help with.

When any important tool at a business breaks or stops working, it’s going to cause much more stress in the workplace. For employees reliant on AI, this could drastically increase stress and burnout among the team.

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Can AI solve the challenge of employee wellbeing?

To offer a blunt answer; No, not yet.

But it’s actually not that simple. What it will (or could) do is help with the discoverability of adoption.

For example, if your private medical insurer offers nutrition advice, a hypothetical AI system might allow the employee to ask “I want to lose weight.” and the AI system will connect this employee with the nutrition section from the insurer.

In theory, that sounds perfect. But not really. 

Yes, it might be increasing the awareness of the health and wellbeing tools that the employee can access, but it’s unlikely to have that huge impact as a result.

What’s actually happening in this situation is that employees are sent to the nutrition section from the private medical insurer which might include healthy recipes, blogs, or videos around eating healthier.

But there’s a common misconception in the wellbeing industry right now where we are misunderstanding the line between intent and action. The truth is that just because an employee is shown a blog or a video, it doesn’t mean that it’s going to have a fundamental impact on that person’s health and wellbeing.

Any wellbeing benefits on the market that's worth its salt is asking:

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• How can we get an employee to share intent? 
• How can we get them to think differently? 
• How can we get them to use this mindfulness app? 
• How can we get them to read a blog about eating healthier?

We can do all of those things, but if we’re not actually allowing employees to take action in the simplest possible way on their terms, there’s always going to be a level of employees saying “that’s not for me.”

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Conclusion

AI is a buzzword in every industry right now. There’s interest in it. There’s money in it. But wellbeing is fundamentally human and using AI to communicate with employees suffering with poor wellbeing might not be the best solution. 

However, as always, it depends on how it’s implemented, dependency on it, and how your employees feel about it. 

We’re in the early stages of this decade of AI tools and it’s inevitable that the technology will develop and improve. Conversations around the ethics of using AI will also likely continue, with some people boycotting it entirely. 

Either way, as new AI technology and solutions arise that might be able to support employees and their wellbeing, you can be sure that ‘I’ll be back’ to report on them. (Sorry, I couldn’t help myself!).

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