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While AI and automation can generate significant cost savings, that’s not the only upside of this transformative technology. Surprisingly, employee engagement is driving up, too. So, if your people and their retention are important to you, it is time to consider AI, says Todd Gorsuch.
Are you wondering if it’s time for your organisation to dive into the wonderful world of AI so you can begin reaping some of the rewards you keep reading and hearing about on the daily?
If you answered in the affirmative, you’re far from alone. Around Australia, scores of business leaders have spent the past year pondering exactly that question, and all signs suggest 2025 could be the year when aspirations and strategies become concrete plans and projects.
Australian businesses’ collective IT spend is expected to hit $146.85 billion in 2025, according to Gartner forecasts. That’s a healthy 8.7 per cent increase on the 2024 figure, and it’s likely to come courtesy of greater investment in cyber, AI and cloud technologies.
“With the large number of Australian organisations expected to deploy GenAI within the next year, most are turning to the cloud to support GenAI workloads,” Gartner distinguished VP analyst John-David Lovelock said in a statement.
Gartner cites improving operating margins, ensuring compliance and minimising risks as key drivers behind local organisations’ high-tech investment programs.
Clocking the benefits of AI
There’s no doubt that, smartly implemented, AI-powered programs and platforms can enable businesses to achieve all of those ends.
Although mass adoption is yet to occur, we’re already seeing abundant evidence of AI’s transformative power – from contact centres that have clocked extraordinary efficiency gains to organisations that have been able to boost productivity and minimise downtime by implementing preventative maintenance programs. A simple example is a financial company reducing its contact centre workload by over 20 per cent by using AI to speed up tasks in collaboration with the staff.
While cost savings like these may make AI projects a logical step for boards and C-suite decision-makers, there are decision impediments like change, security and people risks. These impediments are now being flipped with AI embedded in technology and making the workplace better for employees who, once using AI, demand AI-accelerating adoption.
Upping employee engagement
As counterintuitive as it may seem, a significant investment in AI-powered platforms and processes tends to result in a happier and more engaged workforce.
That’s because, rather than robbing employees of their roles, AI actually makes it simpler for them to discharge their duties, freeing them up to focus on higher-value tasks and on delivering a better customer experience.
For contact centre agents, for example, having an AI-powered platform at their fingertips can mean less time spent searching for answers while customers sit on hold and fewer instances of queries needing to be taken on notice or escalated to supervisors. Being able to resolve issues on the spot is empowering for agents and satisfying for callers, and it can contribute to reduced employee attrition in what’s historically been a high-churn occupation. That’s a win-win-win few businesses would care to bypass.
For supervisors whose role involves monitoring operations for quality assurance and compliance purposes, AI can be an adept conflict minimiser. With a platform in place that prompts and corrects workers who get things wrong, in the moment rather than after the fact, so their role can become that of trainer and coach rather than unwelcome enforcer of standards.
And with AI-powered, rules-based rostering technology in place, large organisations can give their team members greater freedom to choose the shifts they’ll work and the ability to swap out of those that don’t suit them. Requests for time off or leave, which once upon a time may have necessitated complex and protracted shuffling of employees and shifts, can be executed automatically. The result is another win-win-win: less hard work and hassle for the HR staff charged with making it all work; less anxiety and aggro for employees juggling work and caring responsibilities; and lower recruitment and training costs for their employer, courtesy of the fact that workers who are afforded autonomy and flexibility are more likely to stick around long term.
Building a stronger team and future
The world is changing fast, and local businesses that don’t opt to ride the AI wave may soon find themselves struggling to keep up with competitors that have incorporated it into their operations.
Elect to do so, and you stand to enjoy unprecedented productivity and efficiency gains and a happier, more engaged team in the bargain. At a time when attracting and retaining quality workers is a challenge for Australian businesses across the board, that’s a supplementary benefit that’s likely to serve your organisation extremely well.
Todd Gorsuch is the CEO of Customer Science Group.
Kace O'Neill
Kace O'Neill is a Graduate Journalist for HR Leader. Kace studied Media Communications and Maori studies at the University of Otago, he has a passion for sports and storytelling.
