How can Conversational AI improve productivity for remote workers?

The lockdown imposed as a safety measure for COVID — 19 has given rise to a ‘new normal’ of working remotely. A survey conducted by CIO India titled ‘Business Continuity amid Coronavirus’ showed that 96% of organizations have rolled out working from home in India (Jayadevan, 2020). For employees, working remotely benefits include less time spent on commuting, more autonomy in scheduling work, etc. For employers, on the other hand, the advantage of working remotely is saving on office space costs. HR heads from a dozen leading corporations including Axis Bank, RPG Group, Titan, Deloitte, Whirlpool, Paytm, among others, said that virtual workplaces are the future of work (Bhattacharyya and Verma, 2020).

However, this transition has not been easy. The majority of the employees in India are working remotely for the first time. Many are uncomfortable being virtual. It has been reported by a lot of Indian employees that they miss their colleagues and the conversations with them during coffee and chai breaks. The absence of these conversations and discussions could impact their productivity and lead to increased loneliness. Along with this, the uncertainty and ambiguity in the environment has led to stress and anxiety which also affects the work performance and health of employees (Bhattacharyya and Basu, 2018). It is very important to understand the end-user of the product. Primary research was conducted to understand the current situation of the employees. A Google survey was floated to the working professionals who are currently working remotely. Out of 140 people who filled the form, it can be noticed that approximately 2/3 of them do feel worried because of the current situation. Therefore being empathetic and compassionate towards each other in the organization has become the foremost necessity.

This situation has posed challenges for HR and similar bodies. For large organizations, it has become very difficult to connect with each employee daily. Along with this, a study conducted by Gartner confirmed that in today’s time the annual employee surveys are not enough to capture employee’s voices (Wiles, 2019). This makes it difficult for organizations to understand employees’ problems and experiences.

The practice of working remotely is becoming the new normal, as an entrepreneur, it is important to improve the experience and performance of remote employees. To reap the benefits of remote working, it is crucial to solve these challenges for the long term and make the experience of remote working as good as an in-office experience. Therefore I propose the introduction of an AI-based conversational assistant in organizations that can help better manage and understand people. The agent can assist HR in their activities and help them in being more effective. Here are some of the features of the AI assistant:

• Checking-in with employees on a regular basis:

Working remotely has made it difficult for the HR department to engage with the employees on a one-on-one level regularly. Most HR’s interaction with its employees is limited to the initial one month of joining. However, an interesting research shows that most of the employees tend to start leaving the organization post the initial 3o days. 68% of the employees who quit leave within the first three months of joining and another 31% of them exit within the first 6 months (Fica, 2018). Therefore, the virtual assistant will help engage with the employee on a regular basis and identify potential problems before they become a major hindrance.

• Understanding employee emotions and experiences:

It is more important to understand the experiences and emotions of the employees than just interacting with them. A survey conducted by Human Resources Professional Associations in 2017 revealed that even when HR officials aim to be inclusive, “unconscious bias” tends to play a role subconsciously by leaning or favoring candidates who are most similar to them (Nicastro, 2017). It becomes increasingly difficult for the employee to seek help and explain their problems to a distant team of officials.

Considering the fallacies of human behavior, AI tools can be a great alternative. However, when AI takes this role, it is of utmost importance to add personalization and some levels of emotional understanding. It is true that employees may be inhibited while interacting with a virtual assistant, therefore it is essential to instill sentimental analysis which can help interpret sentiments of the employees and respond empathetically. When the assistant is analyzing a negative sentiment, it is important to condition the bot in a manner that builds trust and gives assurance to employees. These conversations can help reduce attrition rates, which the majority of the time is due to miscommunication between people. The information collected can help strategize trends across departments and organizations through predictive people analysis. Below is the prototype of the virtual assistant ‘Keto’ in conversation with one of the employees named ‘Arpit’.

• The psychological safety of employees:

There has been a substantial increase in mental health illness since the outbreak of coronavirus due to the unexceptional circumstances and settings. In a report by WHO, it is stated that the impact of mental health problems in the workplace has serious consequences not only for the individual but also for the productivity of the enterprise (Harnois, 2000). Therefore, it is really necessary to take care of employees’ health. The virtual assistant can be used as an initial tool to keep check of an employee’s mental health. A carefully drafted psychological mental health questionnaire can help indicate the problem. It shall include questions related to sleep patterns, eating habits, pleasure in activities, etc. This indication can help the organization understand the situation of the employees. If needed, the organization can then provide employees with further support and assistance.

• Tackling Isolation:

Working remotely can make employees feel isolated and exacerbate the feeling of loneliness. This can be detrimental to the productivity and morale of the employees. Therefore it is important to make employees stay purposeful while working remotely by experimenting and building newer ways of interaction. Virtual assistants can help set up standard routines that involve teams start their day together and aid HR with organizing team sessions that help build cohesiveness. This can include games and activities like:-

1. Virtual games like online bingo, quizzes, etc.
2. Skill training workshops
3. Virtual happy hours/tea breaks
4. Live session with pets and children
5. Movie Nights

• Improvising lifestyle: Working remotely can also develop unhealthy working patterns amongst employees like increased screen time, longer sitting hours while working, less physical activities, etc. Marianna Virtanen, PhD from the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health in Helsinki in the research stated that “Continuous working is likely to be related to less time to relax and less sleep which can directly impact mental health” (Joshi, 2018). It is therefore essential to nudge employees to take frequent breaks and move around during the day. This can help achieve a healthy lifestyle.

Adding on to that, working remotely offers flexibility however the flexibility of work can hinder work-family interactions. Working remotely has made it difficult to differentiate between working hours and non-working hours, and also weekdays and weekends. Therefore it is important to plan creative strategies that can help employees improve their work-life balance. One example of this could be: If an employee is trying to schedule a meeting post-working hour, it will show a pop-up message like ‘did you know this is non-core working hours?’ Along with that, while working remotely some people might be in different geographical locations (be it customers, employees, advisors, etc.), it is therefore important to remind them of time before scheduling meetings. An example of this can be: “It is 4:45 am in Paris right now, do you still want to schedule a meeting?”. This will help nudge employees and motivate them to schedule meetings during core-working hours only.

These are some of the features of the virtual assistant which can help navigate through the new normal efficiently. To enlist, here are some of the potential reasons why organizations should look forward to this opportunity:

1. Reduces attrition rates
2. Increases perceived job satisfaction
3. Increases work productivity and performance
4. Cultivates community sense and engagement
5. Improves the lifestyle of employees (mental, physical and emotional)
6. Displays the trend and emotional curve of the organization
7. Employee problem identification

While talking about the potential benefits, it is equally important to devise metrics to analyze the results and success of the virtual assistant. There are several ways to gauge this. First could be by calculating the attrition rate of the organization. Another way could be by understanding the job satisfaction and performance of the employees by a set of questionnaires that will be answered through a Likert scale. This will include questions like ‘I feel satisfied with the work I am producing while working remotely’, ‘Most days I am enthusiastic with my work while working remotely’ etc. However, this system may change based on the nature of the organization.

Every opportunity comes with its own limitations. Some of the limitations and challenges I foresee are:

a) Absence of human touch: Difficulty in the replication of personal touch can inhibit employees to talk freely and build trust and personal relationship. To improve this, one option can be to infuse the virtual assistant with an NLP algorithm, which can help understand and analyze human emotions.

b)Distraction while working: Employees might get irritated or distracted because of multiple messages and reminders on the chatbot. It is therefore essential to provide customization of features to the end-user. The customer can customize reminders based on their needs and requirements.

c)Privacy: Misuse of personal data and information can be one of the biggest challenges when handling such sensitive information. Hence, it is very important to make the platform GDPR compliant and ensure that the data is not misused by anyone who has access.

Talking about the future scope, our new normal lives have created a massive opportunity for AI. Keeping in mind the current and future scenario, it can be predicted that working and learning will continue remotely. This pandemic has shown us the plausibility of working remotely in the future. Keeping this trend in mind, I believe similar virtual assistance can be provided to college students where the future seems to be of virtual learning. Italy’s Instituto Europeo di Design (IED), Austria’s University of Innsbruck and dozens of US institutions including Harvard University are among the many to suspend in-person lessons and switch to digital learning. As the percentage of students studying online has increased, so has the need for online student services, including mental health services. As it is known that the youth population is most susceptible to get serious mental illness (National Institute of Mental Health, 2019), it is of utmost importance to provide online assistance and regular interaction.

Another opportunity can be similar to employee experience, the virtual assistant can help understand customer experience along with providing customer support. This could be an excellent way to analyze the changing trends and demands of the customers due to the changing lifestyle.

To conclude, it can be seen that virtual assistants promise to provide a personalized experience for the workers/students while automating a lot of tedious work of the organization. Employee experience has indeed become a crucial part of every organization’s success story. Now is the time to leverage remote tools to build connected workforce communities and continuously check on the pulse of your organization.

References

Bhattacharyya, R. and Basu, S., 2018. India Inc Looks To Deal With Rising Stress In Employees. [online] The Economic Times. Available at: <https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/jobs/india-inc-looks-to-deal-with-rising-stress-in-employees/articleshow/64741313.cms?from=mdr>

Bhattacharyya, R. and Verma, P., 2020. Work-From-Home Going To Stay, Even After Covid-19 Scare Is Over. [online] The Economic Times. Available at: <https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/jobs/work-from-home-going-to-stay-even-after-covid-scare-is-over/articleshow/74956231.cms?from=mdr>

Fica, T., 2018. What Statistics Say People Really Want From Onboarding [Infographic]. [online] Bamboohr.com. Available at: <https://www.bamboohr.com/blog/onboarding-infographic/>

Harnois, G., 2000. Mental Health And Work: Impact, Issues And Good Practices. [online] Who.int. Available at: <https://www.who.int/mental_health/media/en/712.pdf>

Jayadevan, P., 2020. Coronavirus Lockdown Leads To Enterprise-Wide Working From Home (WFH) In India. [online] CIO. Available at: <http://cio.com/article/3533248/coronavirus-lockdown-leads-to-an-enterprise-wide-work-from-home-wfh-in-india.html>

Joshi, V., 2018. Why Working Overtime Is Never A Good Idea. [online] Entrepreneur. Available at: <https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/322595>

National Institute of Mental Health, 2019. NIMH » Mental Illness. [online] Nimh.nih.gov. Available at: <https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/mental-illness.shtml>

Nicastro, D., 2018. 7 Ways Artificial Intelligence Is Reinventing Human Resources. [online] CMSWire.com. Available at: <https://www.cmswire.com/digital-workplace/7-ways-artificial-intelligence-is-reinventing-human-resources/>

Wiles, J., 2020. Is It Time To Toss Out Your Old Employee Engagement Survey?. [online] Gartner.com. Available at: <https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/is-it-time-to-toss-out-your-old-employee-engagement-survey/>

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