Microsoft survey says we should be using AI for employee retention. I say, give them interesting things to do

Here’s the big news: according to a new survey, four in ten IT leaders think their company should spend more on AI tools and better hardware to run them. What’s more, a quarter of workers don’t think their work PC is powerful enough to operate AI.

AI tools like Microsoft Copilot? Better hardware like Microsoft’s Copilot+ PCs? Did someone from Microsoft write this? Yes, actually: the Microsoft Surface division, in particular.

But while this survey of more than 1,600 IT decision makers and their staff was conducted by Microsoft there’s unquestionably some truth to the responses.

After all, it says three in ten employees believe their PC slows down their day-to-day work, while a quarter say their PC crashes or freezes, regardless of whether they’re using AI or not. That certainly sounds believable.

The AI skills gap

The challenge for Microsoft is that professional generative AI services cost money. Monthly, per-seat fees for AI software, plus the news that using AI properly requires further investment in AI-ready hardware, will make it a tough sell in already straightened times.

Not to mention exacerbating the already massive environmental impact of generative AI. Perhaps we should just write our own emails?

However, I did find the survey intriguing. Not so much about what the respondents said, more about how companies are marketing AI.

While this survey suggests workers are keen on the technology, it shows that the industry is still seeking ways to make a business case for AI in the office. And it’s landed on an all-time classic for managers hoping to make a business case to the C-suite: employee retention.

According to the survey, two thirds of staff would like to use AI or already are. And more than half of Gen Z workers say they are positive about AI.

The survey found that three quarters of Gen Xers were worried about their “AI skills gap”, in contrast to Gen Z staff. More than half of them felt they had the right training to stay ahead of the AI curve, 20 points above the overall average.

Give us AI training!

Surveyed workers said they want to stay ahead of that curve, hence the suggestion that AI tools could boost retention.

That desire trends strongly across all age groups, with six in ten staffers who are considering changing roles saying they would stay longer if their current bosses offered digital skills training. That’s worth considering, the report notes, when it comes to retaining younger staff, as they’re twice as likely as the average to be planning to jump ship to a new employer.

Does that mean staff see generative AI tools as so useful that an impeding roll-out is worth sticking around for? Or perhaps they see AI investment as an indicator of a forward-thinking company? The jury is out.

Surely, though, the core business case for AI isn’t staff retention, but the promise of enhanced productivity and new capabilities?

Related: Future of work – what does it hold?

Using AI at work

The survey found the vast majority — a whopping 89% — of IT professionals who are using AI would like to use it even more. But perhaps not all of us are quite sure what to do with generative AI.

How are people using AI at work? According to the survey, 40% of those asked use AI tools for analytics, 34% for customer service and 33% for content creation.  

It’s still unclear how transformative the impact of AI will be (or won’t be), though a separate Microsoft report found power users were intensely positive about the work-changing possibilities of generative AI. Which sounds great, until you realise that the category of “power user” was defined in a rathesir circular way as those who use generative AI tools to save more than 30 minutes of time a day.

At least such results suggest time savings are possible.

With the time saved using generative AI tools, 27% of younger generations of employees want to focus on work that excites them personally.

Work that people enjoy? Now that’s a retention tool — and it doesn’t necessarily require new hardware, either.