How Back-office Employees Can Thrive with AI
Unlock back-office potential with AI! Elevate roles, boost job satisfaction, and drive innovation.
AI is a powerful tool for back-office employees, but many might need to learn how to use it to elevate their roles and contributions to the business. The AI future will focus on how human behaviors and identities interact with data and algorithms to provide insights into customer needs, says Manu Sood, SVP of platform delivery & operations at AvidXchange.
Goldman Sachs Research predicts that artificial intelligence (AI) will impact two-thirds of U.S. jobs, with many of them in the back office. The prediction has some employees fearing that the powerful technology is after their jobs. Still, they may be surprised to realize it instead can offer them relief and a shot at more enjoyable work by augmenting their productivity and intelligence.
Today’s leaders have an opportunity—and a responsibility—to ease worries and educate back-office employees about how AI can help them prioritize meaningful work, elevate their jobs, and enhance their contributions to their businesses. With digital skills, humans can work in tandem with technology, creating newfound efficiency in speed and quality, cost savings, and powerful insights to help steer essential decisions. Moreover, they’ll have more time to focus on strategic initiatives that bring greater job satisfaction and value to their organizations.
As technology advances, it’s time to ensure employees harness an understanding of how new tools can best support their day-to-day activities, elevate their roles, and reimagine what they do and how they do it. Leaders must play a direct role in this by ensuring that their back-office staff members are prepared to advance alongside innovations because the success of more significant business initiatives and employee retention efforts depend on it.
AI-driven Tech Tools That Prioritize Meaningful Work
Software and solutions driven by AI are potent tools for back-office workers, reducing the repetitive aspects of accounting, bookkeeping, data entry, reporting, invoicing, and many other mission-critical yet monotonous and time-consuming functions.
If freed from tedious work, people can work on meatier initiatives and focus on problem-solving, relationship-building, and improving financial performance. Thanks to AI’s ability to analyze vast amounts of data and distill essential insights, they have more time to give to these projects and have newfound business intelligence to leverage. People can leverage the data provided by AI to manage risk, spot and rectify problems before they happen, closely monitor the health of their organization, and guide its future. With better access to their data and more efficient, streamlined processes, they can readily communicate and collaborate across the organization, leading to more fulfilling work and delivering more impactful results.
Automation can also help back-office workers feel more connected and valued to their employer rather than just cogs in the wheel of the business. A recent Institute of Finance & Management and AvidXchange survey found that back-office employees leveraging an automated accounts payable (AP) solution are almost twice as likely to be satisfied with their roles than those who still need to incorporate automation into their work. Two out of three employees in an automated department also report feeling valued, cared for, and more connected to the mission or purpose of their organization, as opposed to only one in five AP pros with no automation.
See More: Harnessing AI For Productivity And Company Culture
Education and Job Training to Keep Pace with Technology Advancements
While technology offers valuable benefits to businesses and employees alike, employee skill gaps often hinder technology investments. For example, a recent Gartner report shows that despite the widespread use of automation and AI in finance departments, just 18% of finance staff demonstrate digital competency. The report predicts that digital incompetence will continue to accelerate unless addressed, posing challenges for leaders in effectively overseeing teams responsible for digital initiatives. It may result in undesirable staff turnover by 2026.
An impactful way to better prepare back-office employees for new tools and ways of working is to incorporate upskilling programs to address knowledge gaps alongside technology deployments. Training and development opportunities can take many forms, including online courses, in-person training, and on-the-job learning. These initiatives can help employees expand their job-related skills and knowledge so they’re more adept and confident in their abilities to leverage new tools and processes.
Upskilling opportunities are also good for business, often leading to increased productivity and efficiency while driving innovation. Most employees welcome these efforts, as a recent Gallup poll found that 69% of business and financial staff are very interested in upskilling opportunities, and 85% of American workers would switch to a new job if offered skills training to refine their craft.
Yet, to do this effectively, business leaders must assess where their back-office staff currently stand about new tools and identify where growth needs to occur to use AI and combine human strengths with machine advantages for overall success. Gartner recommends identifying immediate and long-term skill gaps, looking at competency in automation and other digital technologies, business process management, data literacy, advanced analytics, and collaboration, to align with upcoming technology integration plans and ensure employees’ ongoing readiness. This will help people grow in their current roles and prepare them for new jobs as they and their tools advance.
These efforts may also help combat negative workplace trends, such as “quiet quitting” and “bare minimum Mondays,” impacting employee experiences across sectors. Both trends refer to when workers are unengaged at work and, as a result, prefer to do the lowest required amount of their job responsibilities. However, providing employees with opportunities to refine their skills in tandem with new technologies like AI could spark more motivation in the workplace and encourage employees to prioritize their work and overall professional growth.
See More: Quiet Quitting: a Symptom, Not Diagnosis of Toxic Culture
Preparing for the Future by Aligning Technology with People
Goldman Sachs’ report predicts that AI investment will continue to climb and may ultimately impact global GDP more than innovations in electricity and personal computers. However, it warns that the impact depends on businesses making “significant upfront investment in physical, digital, and human capital to acquire and implement new technologies and reshape business processes.”
Organizations must sync their technology and people investments to ensure their back-office employees have what it takes to maximize tech’s potential and keep pace with advancements. In doing so, leaders must also protect and feed job satisfaction, as creating a culture of continuous learning, including upskilling, will help them prepare for and thrive in the rapidly changing environment. These initiatives should apply to employees in all types of working environments, including those who operate in-person and in hybrid or remote capacities, to help ensure that staff feel more connected to the organization at large and foster a culture to embrace AI as a force for good and not be threatened by the disruption.
Have you embraced AI-driven tools and upskilling programs for meaningful work? Let us know on Facebook, X, and LinkedIn. We’d love to hear from you!
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