Is AI Making Jobs Harder? Not for Hourly Workers

Has AI forever changed the way we work? That depends on which “AI” you’re talking about.

Artificial Intelligence describes a wide set of computing technologies that perform various functions. It’s not uncommon to have multiple types of AI in use within the same workplace – or even within the same software program – to optimize task automation and improve productivity.

Most of the recent conversation around AI in the workplace refers to Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), a special type of AI that generates an output, typically an image or text, based on learned potential.

Already, GenAI is reshaping the way employees engage with technology (and one another), making leaders eager to implement AI wherever possible. However, there are conflicting accounts of GenAI’s current impact on productivity. A recent study from freelancing platform Upwork found that 77% of employees say AI tools have only added to their workload, despite enthusiasm from their company leadership. Meanwhile, another study from Section AI reported that 87% of workers who use AI daily save as much as 12 hours per week.

If one group of employees can undoubtedly benefit from AI, it’s those in the hourly workforce. Employees in labor-intensive industries like retail and hospitality need to maximize time with customers and coworkers. But, as new research from Legion shows, these workers are bogged down by administrative tasks, and it’s creating deep dissatisfaction with their jobs – so deep that 50% of hourly employees plan to leave their jobs within the next year.

AI has the ability to greatly reduce the burden of tedious tasks in the hourly workplace. It can also accelerate new hire training, which is exceedingly valuable in labor-intensive sectors where turnover is high. Acting as a virtual coach, GenAI assistants can guide employees with suggested actions and help them access important information.

By boosting productivity and job satisfaction, AI stands to help, not hinder, the hourly workforce. But only if AI tools are implemented strategically.

AI and the Hourly Labor Shortage

The labor market may be cooling overall, but the demand for hourly labor remains high, as these jobs tend to lag behind other employment types, such as salaried or gig work, in terms of employee experience. As noted in the Legion data, only half of hourly workers believe their employers care about creating a good job experience for them.

Flexibility is top of mind for hourly workers in search of their next job. They want to easily swap and pick up shifts, and they want the ability to work across different times and locations. Fortunately, having AI in a workforce management (WFM) system can enable this flexibility in several key ways.

To begin, Workforce Management (WFM) with AI at its core leverages machine learning to accurately predict the labor required for specific shifts. This improves labor efficiency, helping to prevent both overstaffing and understaffing. Accurate labor predictions save companies money and, in the case of understaffing, help reduce employee stress. When employees start their shift knowing they will have the right resources and personnel on-hand to meet the forecasted demand, they can focus on delivering a great experience for customers.

A WFM that uses AI can also give employees more direct input into their schedules. Employees share their schedule preferences, and the AI intelligently automates schedule creation, matching employee requests with business requirements. This way, employees don’t have to give up their flexibility, and the business can continue to operate smoothly.

Finally, GenAI is emerging as a powerful driver of flexibility, but its success depends on the thoughtful application of the right solutions to truly enable it.

GenAI as a workforce management tool must be actionable. This means that it not only generates new, useful outputs, but also drives the execution of tasks, resulting in even greater productivity gains and expanding businesses’ ability to provide a more flexible work experience.

In an hourly workplace setting, generative AI interfaces can automate WFM tasks like scheduling through conversational interactions, saving managers time and allowing them to accommodate employees’ requests more quickly (and frequently).

Large Language Models (LLMs), the type of AI used in natural language interfaces, are ideal for employee communications and driving actions. For example, if a manager at a coffee shop wanted to add another cashier to a Saturday morning shift, they could start by giving a simple command. From there, they could converse with the assistant to specify which cashier they’ll assign to fill the schedule, then send and distribute the revised schedule to their teams. In a single conversation, the manager will have conducted a task that might have taken several minutes or even hours, otherwise.

However, actionability isn’t easy to achieve. Conversational interfaces can be ambiguous and, without supplementary systems like a RAG (retrieval-augmented generation), can bar employees from accessing necessary information. As GenAI becomes more integrated within the hourly workplace, these solutions will continue to evolve.

Enabling Hourly Employee Success with AI

Managers of hourly workers will especially benefit from AI. When Legion asked how managers saw AI impacting their role in the next few months, 66% believed AI could “make scheduling easier” and 59% stated it could “improve the onboarding/training process”. Since managers play such an important role in the company’s overall function, the companies that focus on managers when creating efficiencies with AI will gain a competitive advantage.

Timesaving is one obvious benefit to managers: when they don’t have to worry about tedious tasks, they can focus on making sure other employees are successful. In fact, most managers who responded to the Legion survey said they would most like to use the time they got back from task automation to train their employees.

AI also helps managers reduce mistakes in the workplace. Tasks like demand forecasting and schedule generation are prone to human error – and those errors can have costly consequences, especially if they result in poor labor planning or compliance violations. Intelligently automating these tasks improves decision-making and reduces the risk to the organization. That said, human operators should always be able to take control and make adjustments.

It sounds counterintuitive, but implementing AI in the hourly workplace will ultimately make the workplace more human-centric. Not only does it give managers more time to spend with employees and customers, but can provide actionable insights that lead to better customer service and training experiences.

Of course, the benefits of AI are not exclusive to managers. As discussed before, AI can enable greater flexibility for hourly employees and assist with training. They’ll also see many of the same time-saving and error-reducing benefits that managers will.

Leaders should also prepare to address employees’ fears around AI. While only 12% of managers responding to the Legion survey agreed that they could see AI replacing their roles, the figure was double for hourly workers. That said, with the proper education and training, managers can become “AI ambassadors” in the workplace, helping their teams unlock the powerful advantages of these technologies.

Looking Ahead

Currently, only 11% of companies worldwide are using generative AI at scale. As this number continues to grow, leaders should focus on ensuring their employees are well-equipped to adopt these tools. This way, employees don’t feel that AI is adding to their workload, and companies can reap the full benefits of the technology’s productivity-boosting capabilities.