A CEO's Take on AI in the Workforce

By Mark Marron, ePlus

Technology continues to evolve at a staggering pace, changing the way the world operates and driving businesses into a state of near constant change. While it's a challenge to ensure that the exact right staffing is in place for every evolving technological need, there are things a company should be doing that can help provide longevity for existing employees and benefits the business.

According to Gartner, 86% of CIOs reported increased competition for qualified candidates, and the U.S. Bureau of Labor confirmed that talent shortages will grow by 1.2 million by 2024 in the U.S. alone. At the same time, many tech companies are opting for layoffs to replace qualified and skilled staff with AI, hoping to save on costs.

With a widening talent gap in security and AI, among other areas, and upward hiring trends among IT leaders, companies are missing opportunities to use the pace of change to their advantage and stay competitive without losing critical talent. Rather than looking at AI as an opportunity to replace staff, companies should be leveraging the chance to uplevel and repurpose them.

As it relates to AI and security, many existing staff do not currently have the skillsets to meet the demands of the AI era, and upskilling is a cost-effective, productive way to maximize the return on investment you have already made in your talent.

Related:Employees Beginning to See Benefits of AI Autonomy in the Workplace

AI will have major consequences on everything from our professional lives to our personal ones, but the key to unlocking long-term success with AI means finding a middle ground between human touch and technology. The key for leaders is to recognize the risks associated with AI, while understanding the opportunity it presents, and taking a balanced approach.

A CEO's Perspective

Taking a conservative approach to AI can lead to misses on ROI. Those ignoring the AI transformation and not uptraining their skilled staff are not putting themselves in a position to make use of untapped data that can provide insights into other areas of opportunity for their business. Making minimal-to-no investments in emerging technology merely delays the inevitable and puts companies at a disadvantage at the hands of their competitors.

Alternatively, being too aggressive with AI can lead to security vulnerabilities or critical talent loss. While AI integration is critical to accelerating business outputs, doing so without moderators, data safeguards, and regulators to keep organizations in line with data governance and compliance is actually exposing companies to security issues. Replacing talented personnel who understand your organization's business model with AI is not the solution and can drain critical company resources while feeding competitors' talent pools.

The Future Is an AI-Integrated Workforce

AI should not replace people, but rather presents an opportunity to better utilize them. AI can help solve time-management and efficiency issues across organizations, allowing skilled people to focus on creative and strategic roles or projects that drive better business value. The role of AI should focus on automating time-consuming, repetitive, administrative tasks, thereby leaving individuals to be more calculated and intentional with their time.

This allows skilled employees to reallocate their workday, driving business decisions, focusing on more strategic work or even analyzing AI outputs to identify additional process inefficiencies that could be a resource drain for organizations. 

Upskilling

Companies will see higher returns on their AI investments if they train their existing talent, not to do an entirely new job, but to work in concert with AI to use their time more efficiently. That starts with a thorough understanding of the technology itself and where it can have the highest impact on the organization. Business leaders should seek industry guidance on what AI tools and use cases would benefit their company, based on their long-term goals, before making any major commitments.

Once the use cases have been identified, the next step is focusing on how staff will interact with and evolve their roles to support the implementation and output. Not only will this save the company resources from lengthy and costly onboarding processes, but it shows a commitment from leadership to the entire workforce, bolstering company loyalty.

By investing in training services, companies can attract and retain top employees by offering robust and high-caliber technical training that boosts employees' careers and skill sets while simultaneously promoting enthusiastic adoption of new technologies that will benefit the organization.

About the author:

Mark Marron became the Chief Executive Officer and President of ePlus inc. on Aug. 1, 2016, and was appointed to the Board on Nov. 14, 2018. He began his career at ePlus in 2005 as Senior Vice President of Sales and became COO in 2010. A 30-year industry veteran, he was formerly with NetIQ, where he held the position of Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Services. Prior to joining NetIQ, Mr. Marron served as General Manager of Worldwide Channel Sales for Computer Associates International Inc., a provider of infrastructure software products and solutions. Mr. Marron has extensive experience throughout North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from Montclair State University.