There is a new employee, and their name is AI. Whether you are open to new technology or are more timid in your approach, there’s no denying that artificial intelligence is gaining traction in nearly every facet of life. A Google search for almost anything summarizes key takeaways, minimizing the need to scroll through and find relevant websites for information. ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini are acting as personal assistants for daily and professional life — even providing detailed itineraries for travel plans, suggestions for morning routines, and recipes for making the most of what’s in your pantry.
AI is seeping into the workplace as well. With its ability to complete tasks once only done by humans, AI is making employees more efficient, minimizing errors, and analyzing vast amounts of data. Software and technology platforms you and your team are currently using are likely being improved with AI. Project management tools such as Asana and Monday.com have enhanced their offerings with AI. Project planning and note-taking tools like Notion and Evernote are generating and summarizing content, streamlining tasks, and assisting in transcription and translation services.
These few examples illustrate how powerful AI can be in the office. Naturally, these capabilities are only available if your team knows how to use them. While the field of AI is constantly evolving, it begins with education. Here’s how to train your employees to use AI effectively to boost their job performance.
1. Evaluate Current Skills
Before designing an AI learning curriculum, you’ll need to know where your team currently stands in terms of AI usage. Surveying your team will give you a better sense of just what you need to include in your training. Someone with a tech or analytical background may not need as much assistance as someone coming from a content creation or editorial role, for instance. Creating an even playing field with a helpful curriculum ensures everyone feels comfortable and ready to take on the learning curve that AI can sometimes present.
Evaluating current skills can look like sending out a company-wide survey. A few questions can be a great starting point for developing training that will be most useful. Additionally, conducting focus groups with members from various teams can also assist in understanding how AI can best be used in their roles. Employees may not realize, for example, that a repetitive, mundane task that they do daily can perhaps be streamlined through the power of AI. This is where the right AI handbook and manuals can come into play.
2. Design Tailored Curriculum
Once you have a sense of where your employees currently are in their AI education, you can work on designing a tailored curriculum. Everyone has sat through a company-wide training and left feeling like it was either a complete waste of their time or not specific enough for what they had questions about. Avoiding these types of situations and instead providing more engaging, personalized lessons can ensure that employees are ready and excited about incorporating the technology into their tasks.
Of course, every industry will also have unique needs, and therefore, companies should understand how AI can best be utilized for their specific circumstances. AI for car dealerships will be different from AI for grocery stores. While both may be involved with inventory management and personalized customer experiences, car dealerships will likely want to set up AI for automatic appointment bookings and reminders. Grocery stores, on the other hand, will want to add smart carts to track items and calculate totals without the need to visit a cash register.
Personalized training can do a better job of keeping an employee’s attention while also giving them the pertinent information they need to know. Those in non-tech roles will need to know fundamental concepts and terminology as well as how AI can assist in their day-to-day tasks. Someone on the hiring team will want to understand how AI can scan resumes and find the best candidates for specific job openings. And someone in a leadership role will want to educate themselves on how AI can help them make more informed decisions.
When developing the curriculum, it can be helpful to create different modules of lessons. Employees can be assigned different lessons based on their specific role, and also encouraged to explore other lessons based on their interests. This type of flexible curriculum can also assist with accommodating different learning styles. Some employees may want to finish all the lessons in one sitting, while someone else may want to break them into chunks to better digest the information.
3. Support Growth
What AI can do today is only the starting point. As companies, business executives, and consumers better understand how to use the technology, AI will only continue to develop over time. Only 37% of employees at small- and medium-sized businesses feel confident in their AI usage skills. Providing training for your team in AI processes can go a long way toward their confidence.
Supporting growth can also look like holding optional conversations with employees to discuss their AI learnings and how they are using the technology to their advantage at the workplace. Employees may come out of these meetings with different pointers and takeaways that they can adapt to their own roles.
Lastly, encouraging feedback on the training program can help refine the curriculum and address any pertinent or timely information. When employees feel like they are part of the conversation, they’ll be more likely to engage and adapt to new AI-driven processes and workflows.
Further Reading
