Is AI Really Helping Your Employees?

A recent article in the Harvard Business Review (HBR) had this to saw about the usefulness of AI in the workplace.

"A confusing contradiction is unfolding in companies embracing generative AI tools: while workers are largely following mandates to embrace the technology, few are seeing it create real value. Consider, for instance, that the number of companies with fully AI-led processes nearly doubled last year, while AI use has likewise doubled at work since 2023. Yet a recent report from the MIT Media Lab found that 95% of organizations see no measurable return on their investment in these technologies. So much activity, so much enthusiasm, so little return.'

IF AI IS SO GREAT, WHATS THE PROBLEM?

If you've vetted and hired experienced, talented people, you should logically expect to get good results. And prior to AI, that has mostly been the case. However, embracing AI has created an unexpected problem.

For all it's advantages, AI has one consistent attribute. It often sets a low bar.

WORKSLOP

The authors define "workslop" as AI generated work content that masquerades as good work, but lacks substance to meaningfully advance a given task."

Of course, when used correctly, AI can polish and format the employee's work product and create articulate summaries of the (good) work.

When not used correctly, AI will create content that is unhelpful, incomplete, and devoid of context. As the result, the burden to create a usable work product then falls to whoever is relying on this work to complete their own task. It also adds an additional burden of requiring the downstream employee to untangle the mess sent to them.

The survey associated with the HBR report states, "this is a significant problem. Of 1,150 U.S.-based full-time employees across industries, 40% report having received workslop in the last month. Employees who have encountered workslop estimate that an average of 15.4% of the content they receive at work qualifies. The phenomenon occurs mostly between peers (40%), but workslop is also sent to managers by direct reports (18%). Sixteen percent of the time workslop flows down the ladder, from managers to their teams, or even from higher up than that. Workslop occurs across industries, but we found that professional services and technology are disproportionately impacted."

INVERSE PRODUCTIVITY

Another finding of the on-going HBR survey finds that, "Each incidence of workslop carries real costs for companies. Employees reported spending an average of one hour and 56 minutes dealing with each instance of workslop. Based on participants’ estimates of time spent, as well as on their self-reported salary, we find that these workslop incidents carry an invisible tax of $186 per month. For an organization of 10,000 workers, given the estimated prevalence of workslop (41%), this yields over $9 million per year in lost productivity."

IMPACT ON MORAL

"The most alarming cost may be interpersonal. Low effort, unhelpful AI generated work is having a significant impact on collaboration at work. Approximately half of the people we surveyed viewed colleagues who sent workslop as less creative, capable, and reliable than they did before receiving the output. Forty-two percent saw them as less trustworthy, and 37% saw that colleague as less intelligent. This may well echo recent research on the competence penalty for AI use at work, where engineers who allegedly used AI to write a code snippet were perceived as less competent than those who didn’t (and female engineers were disproportionately penalized)."

"What’s more, 34% of people who receive workslop are notifying teammates or managers of these incidents, potentially eroding trust between sender and receiver. One third of people (32%) who have received workslop report being less likely to want to work with the sender again in the future.

Over time, this interpersonal workslop tax threatens to erode critical elements of collaboration that are essential for successful workplace AI adoption efforts and change management."

SUGGESTIONS TO OPTIMIZE AI

Don't use AI where it's not needed. An organization must use discernment when applying the technology. The old adage garbage in garbage out still applies. Providing guidance and utilizing feedback to establish when and when not to use AI is a critical first step.

Mindset matters. As found in the HBR survey results, "...workers with a combination of high agency and high optimism are much more likely to adopt gen AI than those with low agency and low optimism. We call these workers “pilots,” as opposed to “passengers.” Pilots use gen AI 75% more often at work than passengers, and 95% more often outside of work.

Perhaps even more importantly, though, given these findings on workslop, is how pilots use gen AI. Pilots are much more likely to use AI to enhance their own creativity, for example, than passengers. Passengers, in turn, are much more likely to use AI in order to avoid doing work than pilots. Pilots use AI purposefully to achieve their goals."

RECOMMIT TO COLLABORATION

"So many of the tasks required to work well with AI—giving prompts, offering feedback, describing context—are collaborative. Today’s work requires more and more collaboration, not only with humans but also, now, with AI. The complexity of collaboration has only deepened. Workslop is an excellent example of new collaborative dynamics introduced by AI that can drain productivity rather than enhance it. Our interactions with AI have implications for our colleagues, and leaders need to promote human-AI dynamics that support collaboration.

Seamless collaboration in 2025 must include the ways we incorporate AI work products into our common workflows, in service of shared outcomes, rather than as a vehicle for subversively dodging responsibility. This is a new, critical frontier of organizational citizenship behaviors that will differentiate between companies that maximize the value of AI and those who churn through AI activity without impact.

Workslop may feel effortless to create but exacts a toll on the organization. What a sender perceives as a loophole becomes a hole the recipient needs to dig out of. Leaders will do best to model thoughtful AI use that has purpose and intention. Set clear guardrails for your teams around norms and acceptable use. Frame AI as a collaborative tool, not a shortcut. Embody a pilot mindset, with high agency and optimism, using AI to accelerate specific outcomes with specific usage. And uphold the same standards of excellence for work done by bionic human-AI duos as by humans alone."

ASN CAN HELP

The pace of change in today's workplace is unrelenting. Just when we think we understand a new technology or a new requirement, the rules change. Keeping up with all of it doesn't need to be your job. That's where we can help. If you would like guidance as to how to successfully integrate AI into your workplace, we would love to talk with you. Just give us call!