Companies are increasingly providing employees with AI tools aimed at enhancing productivity. However, these tools are presenting new challenges for managers. A recent Nielsen survey of 1,700 directors and senior managers across seven countries, commissioned by work-management company Monday.com, reveals that more than half of senior leaders find it more difficult to evaluate their employees’ work after adopting AI.
The Challenge of Evaluation
The primary issue stems from the fact that much of the output from employees now arrives polished in the manager’s inbox. This makes it challenging to discern how much of the work is generated by the employee versus the AI. Consequently, nearly half of the managers reported spending more time reviewing and guiding their teams’ output than they did previously.
Despite these challenges, managers are not entirely dissatisfied with AI. In fact, 94% of those surveyed expressed excitement about improving work processes through AI. Many are confident in their ability to identify areas where AI can provide the most value. Michal Miller Levi, head of market research and customer insights at Monday.com, likened the current enthusiasm for AI to the early days of the internet, noting a similar sense of “magic.”
““AI works very well for [managers] individually, but they also have a different role as managers. They need to drive the organization as well,” Levi stated. “Their struggle is [due to] the fact that AI is just moving faster than the organizational processes.”
Changing Evaluation Metrics
Managers are rethinking how they assess their teams. 78% of respondents indicated they have altered their evaluation methods post-AI adoption, placing greater emphasis on employees’ abilities to create prompts, delegate tasks to AI, and experiment with new workflows. However, this raises questions about fairness in evaluations when managers cannot easily determine the extent of AI's contribution to an employee's work.
