Leveraging AI To Empower Your Knowledge Workforce
Known for high levels of creativity and productivity, knowledge workers are key to organizational success, especially in the current business landscape. To enable and empower knowledge workers, future-ready organizations need solutions that enhance employee productivity while supporting remote and hybrid work.
Workers are at the center of productivity and should be able to leverage solutions that meet their capabilities and are designed with them in mind. Ultimately, the success of implementing new technologies hinges on employee adoption, and the right solution is one that eases the burdens of work and allows an organization to use it to its fullest potential. In particular, empowering knowledge workers through AI-driven technology is an attractive option for those looking to optimize their business and can be done through the following technologies.
Business Analytics
As organizations globalize, they compile a lot of data. Business analytics provides organizations with the depth of information needed to maintain the course. Although analytics platforms crunch data and provide predictive analysis on the best steps an organization can take, much of the foundational work is based on an organization’s infrastructure. Operationalizing this level of intelligence helps an enterprise remain competitive and understand any challenges that may arise as they grow.
However, when data infrastructure is fractured, platforms may not be able to fully source the best possible suggestions. Historical data also presents a challenge if not handled properly. Think about the amount of information one employee compiles on a daily basis. When multiplied in the hundreds or thousands, proactive strategies are integral in averting potential silos.
Knowledge Workforce Management
Establishing a single source of truth for project data is one way to empower knowledge workers to boost productivity and overall profitability. Business leaders need full visibility into the scope of current and upcoming projects, people and their skills, employee time data and more to ensure they align the right people with the right skills with the right project at the right time—and at the right cost.
When working on multiple projects, a knowledge worker’s time data gets distributed on different productivity applications and collaboration tools. For instance, a web designer might spend a couple of hours on video meeting apps such as Zoom or Google Meet, a few more hours on design tools such as Adobe Illustrator or Adobe Photoshop and some time on planning and collaboration tools such as Asana. Gathering all this information manually to create an accurate timesheet is cumbersome. The process is no different for unifying data related to projects and skills.
This is where AI-powered solutions can make a difference. An AI-powered time-tracking solution, for instance, can help remove the task of filling out timesheets manually and automatically create timesheets for knowledge workers to review and submit. Because manual intervention is eliminated, it’s free from human errors. Tracking all project, resource and time information in one place helps ensure that business leaders can access the latest data quickly to make informed decisions in real time.
Robotic Process Automation
Today’s knowledge workers want to save time on highly structured, routine and dreary tasks to focus on more creative tasks that require manual intervention. This is where robotic process automation (RPA) comes in. RPA is software that performs routine administrative tasks to eliminate stop-gap human handling. For instance, RPA can be leveraged to transfer data from multiple sources such as emails and spreadsheets to ERP and CRM systems, thus reducing or eliminating labor-intensive transactional tasks. RPA strictly follows the rules, ensuring data accuracy. It augments human capabilities while enabling knowledge workers by taking over some tasks within jobs.
Conclusion
Today’s enterprises need robust solutions to align people and data to build high-performing teams. Easing the digital strain on knowledge workers helps them stay connected to the larger organization while allowing leadership to drive business value and profitability. Technological solutions are many, but the fundamental drivers of their use should be to empower employees and maintain accurate data. The right solutions allow an organization to optimize workflows, make better decisions and keep project timelines and employees on track.
