Updated: Jan 09, 2025 By: Marios
Outside of AI proponents (you’re in good company here!) it’s fair to say that most consumers currently view AI development with a heavy dose of suspicion. While AI offers so much, great change comes with a huge amount of anxiety.
Outside of the usual Skynet concerns (Arnold is getting older and might not come to our aid, unfortunately), most people don’t want the joy, creativity, and challenges of life to be automated. It would be nice if the dishwasher loaded itself or a robot helped us to clean the house of course, but right now we’re in a strange middle point where businesses and the government are trying new things, and not always for the better.
For this reason, integrating any AI tool into your business, or just a streamlining implementation at all, will require getting your staff on the side. They don’t want to feel as though their jobs will be lost, that they’ll be rendered useless, or that they’ll be expected to be doubly as productive despite not necessarily having the tools to leverage that output.
All of this is pretty fair, even for those who think AI secures a glorious future. As such, when selling your staff on a new AI or workflow tool, it’s important to do so sensitively and to keep their needs in mind. Note that this isn’t totally strictly about AI, but these are often the most adventurous implementations being put in place right now.
Let’s consider how to get started:
State Your Intentions
Of course, it’s important to make it clear what you intend to do so staff know what to expect. A quick briefing at the start of this year (you still have time) that says “we’re intending to try out optimization tools and AI integrations, but these won’t necessarily be rolled out as final products yet. We want you to give your full feedback on this, and we’ll only progress if the team is happy and feel it helps with their work.”
This way, staff know what to expect instead of waking up one day to an email about how you’re automating half the department. Sure that’s an exaggeration, but that’s how it can feel. You can also put together a volunteer feedback team for those who would like to test certain tools as part of their role, but of course, don’t make them volunteer for this, or pay any overtime that this may require. If a job is worth doing, it’s worth being compensated for appropriately.
Outline The Scope Of The Tool
No tool does everything, and as there are a lot of claims about AI and utilities and what they can do right now, some people view those with suspicion and a sense of skepticism. In some cases, it makes people nervous. Your staff need to know exactly what these new systems can and can't do.
Maybe your new AI writing assistant helps with first drafts of emails but doesn't handle complex customer complaints that deserve a helpful human touch, or perhaps your new project management system tracks deadlines but won't decide who does what work without clear assignments. Being clear about limitations helps people see these tools as helpers rather than replacements and know exactly how they integrate into their current workflow.
Make Testing Periods Clear
Nobody likes feeling like a guinea pig forever, or that they’ll have to do their work and also tiptoe around a new tool while you test it in order to be productive. So, it’s good to set clear dates for when you'll try things out and when you'll make decisions about keeping them.
Three months is usually good – as it’s long enough to really understand if something works, but not so long that people feel stuck with a bad system if the response has been underwhelming. You can of course adjust this depending on how your own testing goes and what it looks like on a macro level. Just make it clear that you're watching how things go and actually care about whether the tools help or not, and if you can run two concurrently, that can help you save time later on as well.
Show Your Projections
People want to know where this is all heading, as with every decision you make in leadership. It’s okay if you don’t have all the answers right now, but there’s no use hiding the appropriate information about it here either. There’s nothing to hide.
Share your thoughts about how much time these tools might save, what kind of work they'll help with, and what that means for everyone's day-to-day job. But keep it honest as much as you can, with no promises about magical productivity boosts or revolutionary changes. Just honest numbers about what you think might improve and why.
For example, perhaps you believe the OCR SDK offers incredible document digitization abilities and you think this could help save at least five hours worth of data entry a month, or help your accounting team keep better track of receipts and invoices. That in itself sells the benefits straight away. For more on that topic consider our next tips:
Sell The Benefits For Staff
The best tools make work better, not just faster or cheaper or expecting your staff to leverage more work on a daily basis because of it. Maybe this new system means fewer late nights catching up on paperwork because the records can be digitized, or perhaps it handles the boring stuff so people can focus on more interesting projects, allowing them to submit reports without necessarily having to pen every element themselves, only review them to ensure the info is accurate.
Whatever it is, make sure your team knows how it helps them personally, not just the company's bottom line, and offer specific use cases as to why that is. This will help you with your projections as we discussed above, but it will also make the integration seem more relatable and easy to understand, as opposed to threatening a vague change.
Sell The Benefits For Customers
Happy customers usually mean an easier life for staff, a sense of pride in where they work, and also the understanding that their jobs are likely to continue, which motivates anyone with a full-time position they rely on.
As such, if these new tools mean customers get faster responses or better service, that's worth talking about. Less angry customers calling back means less stress for everyone and so, as you can expect, many customer service agents are quite happy with these new options. Just make sure these benefits feel real, not like marketing speak about “enhanced customer experiences,” because they can see through this even more directly than anything else.
Don't Pretend It's All About Your Staff
Now, to get the respect of anyone in life, it’s important not to nakedly lie to them. Everyone knows businesses need to make money and stay competitive, and there’s no shame in that if they go about it the right way with a sense of respect.
It might sound counter-intuitive, but we’d recommend you avoid pretending you're only thinking about making everyone's job easier. Yes, that's part of it, but you're also trying to keep the business running well and trying to compete in a new AI-led world where digital tools and their implementations are being explored. Being honest about this actually builds trust – people appreciate straight talk about business realities and don’t want to feel that you’re doing all of this solely for their benefit.
Let Them Have Some Administrative Control
Nothing's worse than being stuck with a system you can't adjust, define, manage or at least influence in some way to your benefit. If the tool is appropriate for it, give your team some control over how they use each one.
Maybe they can customize their dashboards or choose which tasks to automate first as part of an ongoing discussion with their manager, and that itself can be worthwhile. This isn't just about making them feel better – they probably know their daily tasks better than anyone else.
Shape Via Feedback
The truth is that while you’ve likely reviewed the tool as much as you can, the people using these utilities every day will spot problems you never thought of. Make it easy for them to tell you what's working and what isn't.
More importantly, actually listen and make changes based on what they say. Nothing kills motivation faster than feeling your feedback go into a black hole, especially when a new to itol that helps define the shape and outline of your role is starting to be put in place.
When people see their suggestions leading to real improvements, they're much more likely to give the new systems a fair shot and feel that it’s not here to render them useless or inconsequential.
With this advice, we hope you can more easily sell your staff on a new AI or workflow tool, even if it takes a little time to get there and make those appropriate adjustments.
