Technically HR: AI could reshape how employees grow at work

Most champions of AI predict the tech won’t replace jobs entirely, but instead take on the mundane and repetitive tasks most employees dread. But what about jobs organized around this kind of work?

Interns perform data entry; law clerks proofread opinions; medical residents are regularly assigned scut work. These tasks seem tailor-made for bots.

The availability of entry-level roles in professional firms in the legal, tax and accounting, and risk management fields is expected to decrease over the next 18 months to five years, according to a new report from Thomson Reuters.

“Professionals clearly understand that AI will be a transformative force in their industries,” said Mary Alice Vuicic, CPO at Thomson Reuters. “It will not replace the human element at the higher level, but it will drive significant change, a complete rethink of areas like apprenticeship, training, education.”

Vuicic said professionals in fields that lean on green employees to tackle mundane work to both familiarize themselves with the organization and industry and grow their early careers will need to reimagine what those positions look like. Some respondents to the Thomson Reuters report suggested that as AI becomes more commonplace at work, entry level roles in the future will involve more challenging work.

“It’s looking end to end at work,” she said. “What tasks can be better done by artificial intelligence? What tasks need to continue to be done by humans? And what new things can humans do now that they have more time?”

Talent acquisition teams will need to rethink recruiting and revise job descriptions for these roles. L&D pros will need to reshape how companies develop and grow early-career employees who, with more challenging assignments, could see their career trajectories improve, the report suggested.

Zoom out. Vuicic pointed to a renewed investment in the kinds of skills best associated with humans, such as creative problem solving.

“Humans don’t require skills to do the jobs that artificial intelligence can do and will increasingly be able to do, so when you look at the education system, the training that happens in corporations, you have to make rapid shifts to focus on the things that humans are now uniquely positioned to do,” she said.

At Thomson Reuters, editors review content and annotate, but Vuicic imagines leveling up that role in the future as an “innovation editor” focusing more on training the AI model, a job she contends is “much more exciting.”

People professionals can take the lead on reimagining how AI will impact work and start rethinking the recruiting and TA process, as well as how companies develop and grow their employees. And that work starts now.

“This is HR’s moment,” Vuicic said. “There is never going to be another moment like this,” she said. “It is all about working with business leaders, working with professionals in the organization to redesign work.”