)
)
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Step into one of my favorite thought experiments.
Imagine some form of super AI is running your organization. It wants to get the most value out of the humans on the team. The humans are key to assessing risk when there’s not enough data, or doing a smell test to see if that taco is still ok to eat.
If super AI wants to get as much value as possible over the long term, what would it do? How would an extremely intelligent entity maximize human contributions to work?
Ignoring the past
It wouldn’t have a lot to learn from history. Humans have a pretty horrible track record at maximizing other human’s output. It’s tightly connected with slavery, indentured servitude, and the Industrial Revolution. While modern employment may look different today, a lot of the same basic techniques are still used (longer hours, threats, fear, more/less money).
Super AI will recognize that these efforts might have a positive short-term effect, they don’t get long-term results from humans.
Employee wellbeing is the key
It won’t take long for super AI to realize that humans work best when they are healthy. Today, we call that employee wellbeing. The greater the employee wellbeing, the better work they do that day, and for years to come.
But optimizing someone’s health isn’t easy. Many factors influence employee wellbeing: physical health, mental health, emotional health, social health, financial health. It’s also impacted by nature, weather, other humans, and what’s going on in the news.
To make it more complex, each human responds differently to different situations. One event shakes someone’s mental world to the ground, while it barely phases another. One human thrives off a single good friendship, while another prefers a large group. One person can eat a whole pack of Oreos and recover quickly, another feels sluggish after a Tootsie roll.
Another way to look at employee wellbeing is through the lens of stress. There is an optimum amount of stress that helps humans work at their best. Too much stress (i.e., too many hours, too much fear, too little pay), and they don’t do their best. Too little stress (no physical effort, no goals), and they may lose all motivation.
Experiments and maintenance plans
Super AI’s task is to figure out how each individual human stays in a healthy zone of employee wellness.
To do that, super AI needs a lot of data, so it will run experiments. What happens if it tries to control everyone’s diet? Does their stress level improve, or do they feel like they are being trapped? Is there an optimal time to suggest someone take a vacation? Do humans do better when they have more friends at the office, or away from it? Do humans work better when they are at home, or at the office? What’s the right blend? Should we test stress levels daily, or is that too stressful for people?
Super AI will make systemic and individual adjustments until every human has a unique stress maintenance plan that helps them work at their best.
Don’t wait for the future
If you are running a company of 3,000 humans, it’s intimidating to think about coming up with individualized employee wellness plans for everyone.
But there’s no reason you can’t start with a small team of five.
Start questioning all the assumptions you have and run a bunch of tests. Do people work better on more or less sleep than they currently get? Do they feel better when they work four 10-hour days, or six 6-hour days? How long does that feeling last before you need to change? What happens when you introduce more unwork social events? What’s the effect when you change the compensation structure?
Henry Ford was one of the first to test the theory that by giving his auto workers two days off instead of just one, they made less mistakes, and were more productive. It was completely counterintuitive at the time, but it ended up impacting the entire industry.
The key characteristic of a Level 5 digital workplace is that it is experimenting. You can try giving everyone Fridays off for the summer, because you know the potential reward outweighs the risk.
You are every bit as capable as super AI to figure out how to maximize the employee wellness of the people on your team. You just have to start doing it.
Step into one of my favorite thought experiments.
Imagine some form of super AI is running your organization. It wants to get the most value out of the humans on the team. The humans are key to assessing risk when there’s not enough data, or doing a smell test to see if that taco is still ok to eat.
If super AI wants to get as much value as possible over the long term, what would it do? How would an extremely intelligent entity maximize human contributions to work?
Ignoring the past
It wouldn’t have a lot to learn from history. Humans have a pretty horrible track record at maximizing other human’s output. It’s tightly connected with slavery, indentured servitude, and the Industrial Revolution. While modern employment may look different today, a lot of the same basic techniques are still used (longer hours, threats, fear, more/less money).
Super AI will recognize that these efforts might have a positive short-term effect, they don’t get long-term results from humans.
Employee wellbeing is the key
It won’t take long for super AI to realize that humans work best when they are healthy. Today, we call that employee wellbeing. The greater the employee wellbeing, the better work they do that day, and for years to come.
But optimizing someone’s health isn’t easy. Many factors influence employee wellbeing: physical health, mental health, emotional health, social health, financial health. It’s also impacted by nature, weather, other humans, and what’s going on in the news.
To make it more complex, each human responds differently to different situations. One event shakes someone’s mental world to the ground, while it barely phases another. One human thrives off a single good friendship, while another prefers a large group. One person can eat a whole pack of Oreos and recover quickly, another feels sluggish after a Tootsie roll.
Another way to look at employee wellbeing is through the lens of stress. There is an optimum amount of stress that helps humans work at their best. Too much stress (i.e., too many hours, too much fear, too little pay), and they don’t do their best. Too little stress (no physical effort, no goals), and they may lose all motivation.
Experiments and maintenance plans
Super AI’s task is to figure out how each individual human stays in a healthy zone of employee wellness.
To do that, super AI needs a lot of data, so it will run experiments. What happens if it tries to control everyone’s diet? Does their stress level improve, or do they feel like they are being trapped? Is there an optimal time to suggest someone take a vacation? Do humans do better when they have more friends at the office, or away from it? Do humans work better when they are at home, or at the office? What’s the right blend? Should we test stress levels daily, or is that too stressful for people?
Super AI will make systemic and individual adjustments until every human has a unique stress maintenance plan that helps them work at their best.
Don’t wait for the future
If you are running a company of 3,000 humans, it’s intimidating to think about coming up with individualized employee wellness plans for everyone.
But there’s no reason you can’t start with a small team of five.
Start questioning all the assumptions you have and run a bunch of tests. Do people work better on more or less sleep than they currently get? Do they feel better when they work four 10-hour days, or six 6-hour days? How long does that feeling last before you need to change? What happens when you introduce more unwork social events? What’s the effect when you change the compensation structure?
Henry Ford was one of the first to test the theory that by giving his auto workers two days off instead of just one, they made less mistakes, and were more productive. It was completely counterintuitive at the time, but it ended up impacting the entire industry.
The key characteristic of a Level 5 digital workplace is that it is experimenting. You can try giving everyone Fridays off for the summer, because you know the potential reward outweighs the risk.
You are every bit as capable as super AI to figure out how to maximize the employee wellness of the people on your team. You just have to start doing it.
