AI Solutions Won’t Solve Workplace Well-Being Woes

• Most AI-based solutions continue to target the individual, rather than tackle the larger systematic issues at play. 
• Instead of investing in AI-solutions to solve workplace well-being issues, companies would be better off taking a hard look at the workplace culture itself.  
• Not only would this be more cost-effective, but the results are also far better and will lead to a happier, healthier and more productive workplace. 

This article was originally written by Laura Putnam for Work Design Magazine.  

With all the hype around artificial intelligence it’s easy to get swept up and believe AI is the panacea that will solve the spike in mental health issues in the workplace, such as burnout, depression and anxiety. While the technology sounds promising, evidence suggests that it won’t do much to help because most AI-based solutions continue to target the individual, rather than tackle the larger systematic issues at play. 

Solving the Wrong Problem 

According to a recent McKinsey Health Institute 2022 Survey of nearly 15,000 workers across 15 countries, a quarter of employees are reporting burnout symptoms — despite an increase in mental health resources offered to employees.  

The reason? These programs are solving the wrong problem. The vast majority of resources offered to employees are often individual interventions. According to leading burnout researchers Michael P. Leiter and Christina Maslach, the six causes of burnout have nothing to do with the individual and everything to do with the workplace itself. 

Having worked with many organizations, CEOs, and managers to implement workplace well-being strategies, I fear that AI-based solutions will give companies a false sense that they can improve workplace well-being with check-the-box, individual resources instead of doing the hard work to fix the workplace culture itself. As the McKinsey Health Institute survey spells out, since most employers are failing to employ a systemic approach, most are achieving little in the way of addressing the issue, despite their increased investments in mental health solutions. As their research shows, along with longstanding Gallup research, the key influencers of culture are leaders, especially managers. 

Top leader endorsement can create a broader acceptance for well-being on an organizational level, but where the rubber hits the road is on the team level. In fact, according to a 19-country study conducted by ADP Research Institute, the “culture” that employees experience at work (whether in person or remote) is largely the one that they experience within the context of their team.  

As such, every team member is looking to their direct supervisor to “give them permission” to actually engage in wellness, tuning into the signals that the boss sends. What this means is that every manager has an opportunity to serve as either a gatekeeper or multiplier of well-being for team members. Take, for example, time spent on after-hours emailing. The more time a manager spends on sending after-hours email time, the more time their team members will do the same. A Microsoft analytics survey found that for every hour that a manager engages in after-hours email time roughly translates into an added twenty minutes of after-hours email time for team members. 

On the positive side, research shows that in organizations where managers have learned to become multipliers of well-being, both participating managers and their team members reported increased engagement with work, enhanced well-being, and improved productivity. 

Creating Happier, Healthier Workplaces 

While AI-based solutions are scalable and can provide employees with greater privacy and anonymity to discuss sensitive topics, it will do little to help improve systemic, workplace issues such as lack of autonomy, unsustainable workloads, misaligned values or unsupportive managers and leaders, which are most often at the heart of a burnout culture. 

On top of this, a Rand study found that most workplace wellness programs fall short of their intended objectives with 80% of eligible employees opting out because these programs fail to address the root causes of the problem, which are often systemic in nature and grounded in the workplace itself. 

Instead of investing in AI-solutions to solve workplace well-being issues, companies would be better off taking a hard look at the workplace culture itself. Not only would this be more cost-effective, the results are far better and will lead to a happier, healthier and more productive workplace.