Smarter, Not Harder How AI Is Changing Employee Experience - Reworked Connect Masterclass

Smarter, Not Harder:
How AI Is Changing
Employee Experience
Wed., May. 10, 2023 3:15 PM (CDT)
#RWConnect

My Twitter is @RHarbridge, I’m super friendly & proud to work at @2toLead.
Richard Harbridge
2toLead Chief
Technology Officer &
Microsoft MVP
Speaker & Author
Super Friendly

Agenda
Navigating This Major Change
Working With AI Today
Working With AI Tomorrow
Considerations For Tomorrow

Navigating this major change
AI & Employee Experience

It’s tempting to say the technology and digital employee experience should be IT’s responsibility,
but the truth is technology is a very human, and very real part of the employee experience.

It is imperative that AI be led and owned by the business. It is too important to be left in
the hands of technologists alone. This is not a linear technology.

Many technologies revolutionize how we do business and the employee experience, but the changes
technologies represented have occurred over generations or decades.
This Led To:
The Spread Of
Societal Literacy
This Led To:
The Spread Of
Systematic
Management
This Led To:
The Spread Of
Information
Management
This Led To:
The Removal Of
Communication
Barriers
This Led To:
The Removal Of
Presence & Access
Barriers
New Work:
Printing
New Work:
Standard Docs
New Work:
eDocs
New Work:
Websites
New Work:
Apps

AI change will be measured in years, not decades or generations. It’s a bigger change and faster.
This Led To:
The Spread Of
Societal Literacy
This Led To:
The Spread Of
Systematic
Management
This Led To:
The Spread Of
Information
Management
This Led To:
The Removal Of
Communication
Barriers
This Led To:
The Removal Of Skill
Barriers & Spread
Of Hyper-
Personalization?
New Work:
Printing
New Work:
Standard Docs
New Work:
eDocs
New Work:
Websites
New Work:
Perspective?
New Work:
Apps
This Led To:
The Removal Of
Presence & Access
Barriers

People who know how to use AI effectively are going to take your job.

Not against each other, not instead of each other, but together.

For every one automation opportunity inside an organization there are 10+ more AI collaboration
opportunities. Collaboration with AI can be hard, but with the help of others it can be easier.
:

The stakes in early days with AI are lower. So it’s important to embrace and learn sooner.
Image Source: Thomas Friedman, 2017

AI is changing employee experience, but
if we embrace it sooner, and focus on
collaborating with AI we will be better
off and so will our organizations.

Working with AI today

You will love the way we work. Together. ™
Jacob Morgan in “The Employee Experience Advantage” suggests three environments that support and reinforce each other.
With the shift driven by Hybrid Work, it has pushed greater weight on cultural and technological environments.
The feeling employees
get working for your
organization
The actual spaces in
which employees
work
The tools
employees use to
get their jobs done

The way we see digital employee experience at 2toLead is based on 3 primary areas of investment.

Employee communication focuses on the technologies that improve the employee communication
technology experience. Let’s start by exploring the current trends around key technology here.

Arguably the Intranet has undergone a few major transformations. Are we in the midst of another major
transformation? How impactful is the change that Microsoft Teams, Loop and Viva have on Intranets?
Intranet 0.1
•Portals
•Links
•Simple News
•Technical To Update
Intranets 1.0
•Search
•More Content
•Services
•Audience Targeting
•Updatable By
Business
Intranets 2.0
•Enterprise Social
•Engagement 1.0
•Personalization
•Mobile
•Digital Workplace
Intranets 3.0?
•Engagement 2.0?
•AI Powered & More
Intelligent?
•More Dynamic?
•Richer Integration?
•Where You Work?

How do we communicate more effectively? Especially as we think about the enterprise channels
and employee experience landscape that exists today?
Intranet
•Boosted Until
•Personalization
•Targeting
•Content Mixture
Email
•Newsletters
•Priority Messages
•Personalized
Integration
Social / Engage
•Polls
•Q&A (Bots later)
•Storylines
Teams / Slack
•Targeted Individuals
•Targeted
Channels/Teams
Knowledge Tools
•Search Optimization
•Associated Topics
•“Books” Of Content
•Videos Of Popular
Content
Goals / Learning
•OKR Connection &
Alignment
•Learning Resource
AI, Profiles, Work Modes, Mobile & Digital Excellence

A great example of AI design support is that provided by PowerPoint Design Ideas.

News digests allow for automated and intelligent notifications of news you might have missed.
Automatically sending news post digests with branding - Microsoft Support

Contextualized navigation and discovery based on where and how users work benefiting from
cloud scale AI, digital behavior capture & continual content analysis.
In emails, instant messages,
team messages, pages, news,
documents and more… the
knowledge, people, digital
spaces, and more are
available in context.

Viva Topics as an example doesn’t just help in traditional enterprise search, but by computing topics
and connecting information accelerates our understanding of our own content and expertise.

From Viva Connections dashboards to Viva Topics navigation can be targeted, dynamic and
integrated where users already work (Microsoft Teams, Outlook, Teams Mobile App & More)

Contextualized insights based on the topic discovery that includes people, resources, sites,
communities and more can improve our curated assets and support traditional Intranet needs.
Content leaders can
leverage the insights
provided by Viva Topics by
rationalizing them with
curated resources to
improve them.
Does that product site
internally have
links/connections to the
people, resources and sites
suggested by topics?

AI has been incrementally improving how we communicate for some time now.

Employee collaboration focuses on the technologies that improve the employee collaboration
experiences. Let’s start by exploring the current trends around key technology here.

Today compliant collaboration is the default and it’s made possible by scaled models of DLP
,
dynamic protection and AI in security, compliance and governance already.
Compliance
Collaboration
Compliant
Collaboration

Today Microsoft adds intelligence to many experiences such as email or teams to improve collaboration
further whether for the individual, team or org such as this example of delaying a message send.
Blurred
boundaries
75% of people have
experienced burnout at
work with 40% of people
report work disrupts
personal/family time at
least weekly

The distribution of collaborative work is often extremely lopsided. In most cases, 20% to 35% of
value-added collaborations come from only 3% to 5% of employees.

AI is integrated in our collaboration technologies already in supportive ways that effect certain
employees more than others.

Employee management focuses on the technologies that improve employee management
experiences. Let’s start by exploring the current trends around key technology here.

AI is integrated in work, employee and organizational management technologies but still needs
more work to be always relevant, predictive and optimal.

All three areas directly benefit from AI today in significant and meaningful ways.

AI has been a part of many
organizations modern employee
experience strategy, but not every
organization has learned how to
leverage it well.

Working with AI tomorrow

technology experience. The change AI is driving is accelerating significantly in communications.

Whether you use GPT or other industry tools, or whether you embrace copilot soon; the reality is
that these tools can have an immediate and notable impact and are in use by many.
Accelerate & Optimize Communication
Summarization
Research Assistant
Intelligent Recaps
Tone Awareness & Messaging Style
Writing Support
Writing Suggestions

Summarization
Research Assistant
Intelligent Recaps
Writing Support
Writing Suggestions
Testing & psychographic profiles, connecting messaging, amplification opportunities, etc.

When combined together humans and I can lead to not just faster and more skilled
generation of communication through collaboration with AI, but better quality results.

We accelerate our start, and we get integrated assistance on how to drive from good past great.

Summarization
News TL;DR, simplification like ELI5, news digests (summarize multiple news articles), etc.
Research Assistant
Intelligent Recaps
Writing Support
Writing Suggestions

While waiting for Microsoft copilot organizations can take advantage of these technologies today
using custom header controls and more in SharePoint with some simple code.
sp-dev-fx-webparts/samples/react-openai-summarise-
page-content at main · pnp/sp-dev-fx-webparts · GitHub

Summarization
Research Assistant
Extensive data collection & analysis, identify relevant sources, etc.
Intelligent Recaps
Writing Support
Writing Suggestions

It can start from a simple place of catching up or aggregating the information you need as an
employee or as a communicator.

For every suggestion or recommendation, and every insight it enables for us we can
explore to see what sources, references, citations and processes were used to get there.

Summarization
Research Assistant
Intelligent Recaps
Highlights, topics, insight, processing & more from videos, transcripts, etc.
Writing Support
Writing Suggestions

It can be used before, during and after to improve how we communicate. Providing us insights,
skills and the ability to listen, react and understand better as employees or communicators.

Summarization
Research Assistant
Intelligent Recaps
Getting a sense of how people feel, acting as an agent for feedback & insight, etc.
Writing Support
Writing Suggestions

Summarization
Research Assistant
Intelligent Recaps
Writing Support
Rewrite, optimization, suit channels, audiences, personalization etc.
Writing Suggestions

The collaboration takes place throughout the content lifecycle and each human will
leverage it in different ways to improve and build off one another's results.

Writing Suggestions
Recommended topics, starter content, best practices adaptation, etc.
Summarization
Research Assistant
Intelligent Recaps
Writing Support

The collaboration can support navigation challenges and understanding gaps not just help
with the creation and distribution of communication.

technology experience. The entire experience in both consumption and contribution will change.

Employee collaboration focuses on the technologies that improve the employee collaboration
experiences. Will the majority of our employee collaboration activity shift to collaborating with AI?

Accelerate & Optimize Collaboration
Empower Access To Skills
Research Assistant
Feedback & Recap
Intelligent Connection

Research Assistant
Feedback & Recap
Amplify ideation, ideas to improve your contributions, differing perspectives etc.

In essence the whole is greater than the sum of it’s parts. This is because other people’s capabilities
amplify our own and together, we deliver higher quality and better results when we collaborate.

The collaboration can range from ideation suggestions to sense making and summarization.

The way AI works is it gives each person their own contextualized and personalized collaborator,
one that has access to an incredible number of skills, information, and processing capability.

help inspire and aid leaders to connect with their employees more effectively through assistive prompts, inclusive
communications, and valuable insights.

Improve digital excellence, improve contribution quality, AI assisted design, etc.
Research Assistant
Feedback & Recap

Whether that be based on preparing the way for things like Microsoft 365 copilot or more.

Research Assistant
Feedback & Recap
Highlights, topics, insight, processing & more from videos, transcripts, etc.

Research Assistant
Feedback & Recap
Connecting answers, relating content, helping contextualize applicable resources, etc.

Collaborating with AI will be part of all employee collaboration and will indirectly or directly effect
all employee collaboration experiences.

Employee management focuses on the technologies that improve employee management
experiences. AI will change the way we manage ourselves, our work, our teams and our orgs.

Accelerate & Optimize Management
Research Assistant
Feedback & Recap

Research Assistant
Feedback & Recap
Improve visibility, advance alignment, provide relevant and actionable insights, etc.

Sometimes it might be as simple as how you get started and caught up.

Sometimes it might be as simple as how you get started on managing projects and work.

Whether that be key learning opportunities, opportunities to connect with your peers or reports or
much more based on established interests, skills, direct or indirect signals and more.

Provide recommendations based on behavioral, sociological and psychological guidance, etc.
Research Assistant
Feedback & Recap

While Viva Learning provides the ability for employees to share, recommend, discover and connect
their learning in places they already work – it’s taken even further when AI assists the process.

Analyze strengths and opportunities, compare performance, and leverage suggested actions to
drive business outcomes. Included with Viva Suite today.

Research Assistant
Empower managers and leaders to more rapidly explore and understand insights and actions, etc.
Feedback & Recap

Research Assistant
Feedback & Recap
Highlights, topics, insights, processing, etc.

Research Assistant
Feedback & Recap
Help individuals connect with people at the right times, escalate opportunities for support, etc.

Some areas like how AI helps us manage signals (direct and indirect), data, and more is clear, but
how it effects how we manage our own work, teams, employees or our orgs is still developing.

The next 5 years may see more change in EX due to AI than the last 50 years.

AI can improve every part of the leader
and employee communications
experience, but it’s easier to start with
your own personal productivity.

Considerations for tomorrow

Which of the following skills do you think will be most essential for your employees to learn to
evolve with these potential changes? – 2023 Work Trend Index: Annual Report
Illustration by Manuel Bortoletti

There's a huge cost premium on work that has to be split across people. There's the communication
overhead, there's the miscommunication, etc. 2x might be equivalent to 3x or 4x in cost benefit.
While 49% of people say they’re worried AI will replace their jobs, even more—70%—would
delegate as much work as possible to AI to lessen their workloads. – 2023 Work Trend Index

27% of leaders say that emotional intelligence is an essential skill for an AI powered future.
This is the ability to determine when to leverage a human capability instead of an AI capability.
– 2023 Work Trend Index: Annual Report

Humans are trained on data, just like AI. Computing power uses binary, but computing
intelligence and artificial intelligence is non binary.
False Binaries
Male or Female
Masculine or Feminine
Straight or Gay
Black or White
Left or Right
Us or Them
Human or Non-Human

22% of leaders say that bias detection and handling is an essential skill for an AI powered future.
This is the ability to evaluate fairness in decision-making.– 2023 Work Trend Index: Annual Report

The reality is this is going to continue decreasing at a significant rate. Since GPT4 release the
number of new papers/patterns established that take an already much more reliable tool (vs 3.5).

This is going to continue decreasing at a significant rate. In the past few months many new
papers highlight the impact of step by step, reflection and more that drive improvement here.
[2303.11366] Reflexion: an autonomous agent with dynamic memory and self-reflection (arxiv.org)

21% of leaders say that AI delegation is an essential skill for an AI powered future.
This is the ability to direct AI with the right prompts.– 2023 Work Trend Index: Annual Report

By leveraging your data we improve the quality of the prompt, and the quality of the response
while doing responsible AI checks, security, compliance, privacy review and command generation.

The benefits are clear, and the data shows that is almost always the driver for communications.

With Viva Engage you can help inspire and aid leaders to connect with their employees more
effectively through assistive prompts, inclusive communications, and valuable insights.

The reality is we value both of them, and many people struggle to communicate and this helps.

AI enables entirely new ways to scale
and support employee experience, but,
at the core, the intent around AI
communication, collaboration and
management is the same.

Let’s connect and find ways to do more and work together.
Message me on LinkedIn or email Richard@2toLead.com
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Richard Harbridge
2toLead Chief Technology
Officer & Microsoft MVP
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Smarter, Not Harder How AI Is Changing Employee Experience - Reworked Connect Masterclass

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