Companies developing AI tools for the office promise they can help their employees increase sales and reduce stress. However, some employees have concerns about data collection and privacy.
Imagine this: when you come back from the weekend, on a Monday morning your boss presents you with a magical tool: an artificial intelligence that makes it possible in the office to fight professional exhaustion and stress and increase your productivity I follow you. Daily. How would you react? It’s hard not to think immediately that Big Brother is watching your every activity. However, companies have not hesitated to jump into this range of work tools intended for corporate employees, The Washington Post reports Wednesday, June 7th.
These companies believe their tools can enhance employee skills, well-being, and social bonds. This was noted by Amit Bendov, Gong’s co-founder and CEO, who explains that his company introduced an AI platform in 2015 to “monitor and support employees throughout the sales process”. Hesitant at first, the workers changed their minds when they realized the tool could be useful to them, explains the entrepreneur. “Once you get used to it, there’s no turning back. It’s like washing dishes by hand again,” he adds.
sales tracking tools, health
This type of sales tracking software is primarily used by salespeople, our colleagues explain. It would allow sales reps to become more organized by prioritizing their tasks, writing follow-ups, and also providing feedback on the best strategies used in the past when contracts were won. In addition to being a tool for monitoring ongoing cases, the software allows viewing whether the right questions are being asked during an appointment, whether a case is about to fall through the cracks… Overall, the tool is presented as it can Salespeople improve, especially when dealing with customers.
Another type of tool already used by some companies, but this time in the field of wellbeing: Pulse by Fierce, which allows you to monitor the heart rate of specific employees. It is possible to integrate it into his calendar to help the person concerned to recognize stressful situations – elements that the employer cannot see individually, our colleagues mention.
AIs detecting a break
Some tools go even further, stating that they are able to detect “the breakup” of certain employees, which is the moment when an employee wants to leave the company. Glue thus makes human resources available “to identify and offer assistance to people who feel less connected to their colleagues or the organization,” write our colleagues. The tool would monitor communications in work apps like Slack and Google Calendar, as well as promotions and compensation, in addition to field surveys.
“These tools lead to a real change of perspective within the company,” explains Darrell West, researcher at the Center for Technological Innovation at the Brookings Institution, in an interview with our colleagues. In the past you had to “lick the boss, now you have to wash the computer, the camera and the virtual reality helmet,” he summarizes. For a member of a Portland NGO, these tools are far from positive, they can create anxiety and, on the contrary, slow down the productivity of a person who would feel overly monitored. Aside from raising serious privacy and personal data protection issues, “technology will not solve the problems of motivation and happiness,” said an independent interviewee of our peers. “People will do it,” she adds.
For others, it’s all about balance. While in some cases the employer can legitimately “monitor” their employees, to a lesser extent, particularly for security reasons, moving the slider too far into the “monitoring” area could backfire. For Aaron, who would be willing to use this type of tool, employers and employees need to find an acceptable common ground. It remains to be seen which.
Source: The Washington Post