How to keep a “human touch” in a workplace that is fastly dominated by the artificial intelligence domain? The introduction of AI into the work including process automation, robot adoption, and decision-making, human-centric skills like emotional intelligence (EI) are now necessary more than ever.
In the case of HR tasks, where AI is taking control of the hiring process, performance management, and employee engagement, the challenge is understandable: how to make AI our ally, not our enemy and to ensure the human touch? The answer is combining emotional intelligence in the AI workplace, which helps companies to remain flexible, employee engagement-oriented, and collaborative.
Table of Contents:
What is Emotional Intelligence? [Understand the Meaning in the context of Workplace]
Emotional intelligence (EI) refers to the ability to identify, handle, express, and respond to emotions of ourselves and others in the workplace. EI plays an important role in teamwork and conflict resolution in the workplace and also boosts leadership skills. The primary components of EI are:
- Self-awareness: Realising the emotions being experienced and how they affect the situation and relationships both at work and in personal life.
- Self-regulation: Using positive means to channel the emotions to prevent the immediate and negatively developed responses.
- Motivation: Making use of emotions in a way that leads to the achievement of set goals and creativity.
- Empathy: Being able to recognize coworker’s feelings, and offering them understanding and comfort for their troubles.
- Social skills: Developing effective communication and collaboration in work relationships.
Why Emotional Intelligence is a High Time Need in AI-Driven Workplace? [5 Things You Can’t Ignore]
The main goal of an AI-driven workplace is to boost efficiency by automating processes but it can never replace the emotional touch of humans. Here is why emotional intelligence in workplace is important:
1. Enhance Human-AI Collaboration
AI cannot predict existing human emotions, motivate, or even decide which is right or wrong for human values. On the flip side, AI can be programmed to automate monotonous tasks like data analysis or gathering insights, something a human finds difficult to do. Hence human-AI collaboration can get the best results.
Let’s say, technology can monitor the outputs of the HR team, but it still takes the managers to decide on how to direct their employees for the benefit of the company. The level of human tone to the data can result in fairness and accuracy. Beyond the data, the lack of human touch and input might lead AI to misunderstand workplace issues such as morale, motivation, and team dynamics.
2. Facilitate Workplace AI Adaptation
Adaptation of an AI-driven workplace often causes issues in the futuristic company’s goals and significant changes in the workplace. These challenges can be overcome with the assistance of human input. Qualified leaders can deal with transitions with empathy and address the fears and uncertainties of the changes the AI-related workplace brings.
People are concerned that AI could eliminate their jobs, but since then emotional intelligence has become a part of the workplace, it’s high time to realize that AI is just a tool, not a replacement.
HR professionals with high EI can do this:
- Explain AI’s role as a human work helper and not a complete substitute for human work.
- Deal with negative attitudes by providing emotional and psychological support.
- Help shape a culture of growth, where employees are motivated to up-skill and adapt to AI-powered jobs.
- Draw attention to positive inputs of AI which leads to new career paths within the company.
3. Reinforcement of Leadership Talent in AI-Driven Workplace
A good leader is not only skilled technically but also can understand and process emotions. As AI starts dealing with tasks involving a lot of data, the leader is the person who needs to concentrate on handling the employees, motivating them, and developing teamwork. Emotional intelligence-based leadership makes it possible to do the following:
- Realizing the problems employees face and the factors that motivate them.
- Establishing trust and an AI-driven workspace the employee will be willing to participate.
- Coping with moral and emotional challenges of employees.
- Being a leader with flexibility and emotional resilience.
Therefore, HR professionals and other managers have to imbibe emotional intelligence in workplace, which is the primary responsible part of making a connected workforce. Emotionally intelligent leadership, thus, keeps employees in the loop and uplifts them despite the expanded use of automation.
4. Promoting Employee Well-being and Mental Health
AI not only benefits productivity but can also lead to stress, exhaustion, and job insecurity among employees. Thanks to Emotional Intelligence, which helps HR teams to foster an environment of employee well-being by:
- Allowing transparency of opinion sharing and insights about job roles influenced by AI.
- Building the wellness of employees by offering AI-connected mental health practices.
- Creating an environment where the employees are cherished despite all the technological challenges they face.
- Directing the employees towards career coaching and reskilling programs to enhance their potential.
5. Driving Ethical AI Implementation
As AI-driven workplaces get more popular, ethical dilemmas come to the fore. AI can easily sort, and filter data, however, it is incapable of making moral judgments which is a core part of decision-making in justice and equality.
By being aware of not only their decision-making balances but also the sociological aspects of ethics and AI, EI professionals become indispensable in ensuring responsible AI usage.
HR professionals with high EI can:
- Spot existing biases in AI-driven recruitment, promotions, and performance evaluations.
- Recommend complete transparency in AI-led decision-making.
- Make sure AI programs are ethical by checking their congruence with company values and standards of human rights.
- Balance ethical issues that may result from AI-induced choices with human-centered principles.
Effective and emotionally intelligent communication makes the workforce more dedicated. It also helps to resolve conflicts and develop the cooperation required for more productive professional relationships.
Wrap Up
In India’s competitive HR market, HR professionals always seem to walk on an ethereal tightrope between AI’s powerful abilities and EI’s human-centric approach to engaging the workforce. The collaboration of AI and EI aims to use interventions that improve people’s ability to recognize, understand, and control individual emotions.
Furthermore, along with AI, the environment is supposed to be a tech-supported workplace rather than a tech-replaced workplace. A workplace that recognizes the contribution of both AI and emotional intelligence will be well-positioned for the upcoming new world of work, where human and innovation combination will provide productive business.