Generative AI Boosts Employee Wellbeing
It is no secret that AI (artificial intelligence) and robotics have brought considerable disruption and change to the nature of work and workplaces today. For many, these disruptions and changes are seen as having a negative impact on the wellbeing of employees.
For more than 20 years now, I have been teaching and helping both large and small employers to implement a five component model of worksite wellness programs. Today of course, we use the term workplace wellbeing instead of wellness, even though wellness and wellbeing are really the same thing.
The five components are:
- Awareness Building
- Employee Knowledge and Skill Enhancement
- Lifestyle Management
- Organization Level Change and Development
- Monitoring, Measuring and Evaluation
The development of AI has reached the point where it is now not just a disruptor to employee wellbeing, but also an employee wellbeing booster. Generative AI can be a huge benefit to employers and workplace wellbeing practitioners in the areas of Awareness Building and Employee Knowledge/Skill Enhancement. AI can now generate Awareness Building and Employee Knowledge/Skill Enhancement content and illustrations in response to common language commands or what are known as “prompts” in AI related language.
In terms of content development, a prompt can be as simple as “define employee wellbeing” and seconds later you will have a definition on your screen. Obviously, the more detailed and sophisticated the prompt used, the more sophisticated and detailed will be the response you receive. Since both Awareness Building and Employee Knowledge/Skill Enhancement are content focused program components, having access to AI tools to generate this content is a huge win for employers and workplace wellbeing practitioners.
Since employee wellbeing is a broad multi-dimensional concept, employers and workplace wellbeing practitioners are faced with the challenge of needing to have Awareness Building and Knowledge/Skill Enhancement content across each and every domain within the employee wellbeing model adopted by the organization. For the past 50 years or so,worksite wellness has focused almost exclusively on the physical or physiological health of employees, rather than the overall broader concept of wellness. As a result, most worksite wellness/wellbeing practitioners today have a subject matter expertise in a health related field.
Obviously, health is but one domain of wellness or wellbeing. Having the ability to easily tap into AI generated content gives health related subject matter experts the ability to generate content for their employee wellbeing efforts across all the domains of wellbeing, not just health. This is a huge win for the workplace wellbeing practitioner, their employer and the employees they serve.
To gain access to these AI based tools, employers and practitioners only need to do a Google search for free AI writing and illustration tools. The search results will yield both totally free to use and free trial AI tool offers which employers and practitioners can then explore further.
I am certainly a neophyte when it comes to the use of AI writing and illustration tools, but I certainly see the great potential these tools offer. Based on what I know so far, given the huge and ever growing market for employee wellbeing programming and services today, I would not be surprised to see in the not to distant future, AI based tools specifically trained to deliver content related to all the domains of wellbeing. My thinking along this line is based on the fact that AI based tools specific to marketing and sales are now beginning to enter the marketplace. This suggested to me that the release of employee wellbeing focused AI tools is not that far off.
Despite the great value generative AI brings to employers and practitioners, it is important to note that AI based tools cannot replace human creativity, nor the knowledge gained by humans from lived experiences. AI tools are simply that — a tool. What they do best is to inform and provide assistance to employers and practitioners.
The wise employer and practitioner today will acknowledge the current realities of AI, rather than ignoring AI and what it can do and the benefits it can deliver. Creating content across all the different domains of employee wellbeing is well suited to AI. Thanks to the presence of AI, creating content across the spectrum of employee wellbeing will no longer be a challenge or issue for both employers and practitioners.
Having the opportunity to take advantage of AI generated content will mean employers and practitioners will no longer be totally dependent upon having to use someone’s content in their Awareness Building and Employee Knowledge and Skill Enhancement initiatives. With the presence of generative AI, the question becomes how will employers and practitioners can best use the AI generated content to enhance the wellbeing of their employees. I believe it will be exciting to watch and see just how the use of AI generated content impacts the field of employer sponsored employee wellbeing, especially for the small and micro employer.
And in case you are wondering, this article was not generated through the use of an AI tool, though maybe it should have been. :-)).
