AI in the Workplace: Balancing Employee Mental Health, Productivity, and Stress

The adoption of new technologies is the foundation of growth for stakeholders irrespective of edges they are. Artificial Intelligence is making lots of buzzes with new products and services rolling over every day with claims of seamless consolidation in procedures, processes, functions connecting from connected devices to DR.

The bigger buzz is about taking over the roles and responsibilities of human driven skills by AI tools or agents, which raises multiple queries and, in many cases, we have observed both the positive and negative impact. It’s always good to experience positive impact but one must be ready with fall back activities to absorb the negative impact and that too on mental level.

I shall be very honest while talking about the mental or psyche level of an employee who used to be confident about their skills and considered themselves an important contributor in any company environment. I also agree that every organization is accountable to be on the competitive superiority to ensure the growth and profitability as well as to maintain the proactive and positive environment among the resource pool.

The recent announcement by multiple companies came out with restructuring their resource pool by adopting AI tools, especially in sectors like finance with rising fintech developer opportunities

Humans’ tendency is to analyze the current situation and map it with their past and future to analyze the threat perspective with respect to their professional and personal level. One negative news changes one’s thought process from proactive to defensive. This triggers the cycle of worries, stress, anger and ends with depression.

Being into Recruitment and Staffing Business, analyzed multiple resources looking for changes clearly indicated their AI Phobia that they might lose their job. It’s also observed that most of them try to hide their real fear in fear of being embarrassed.

It’s true that AI is going to bring many benefits for ecosystems but at the same time the negative buzz of job losses news is putting pressure even on the AI professionals too.

The above is authors observation based on numerous interactions with professionals. Let me know reader views points on below open queries:

1. Don’t you think that any employee would be productive under a constant thought process of potential job loss?
2. Don’t you think that companies should arrange counselling or stress management seminars?
3. Don’t you think that companies should invest heavily in vulnerable employees who are reskilled?
4. Do you really feel that adoption of AI is not going to impact your thought processes?
5. Are you reskilling yourself to tide over the potential change in industry and convert challenge into opportunities?

In my opinion, it’s high time professionals should work on their mental strength, upskilling to ensure the adoption of new technology and be relevant.