Irish tech company Workhuman has built a $1.2 billion business based, says its CEO Eric Mosley, on “the basic human need to feel appreciated and the simultaneous need to express gratitude.”
The recognition platform, where employees post praise for others’ work and can recommend appropriate rewards, got an AI-powered update last month. By clicking a pen icon, users can ask the virtual assistant to “train” them to add more depth to their messages.
The tool, called “Human Intelligence,” is one of many platforms for rewarding and recognizing employees using artificial intelligence. It can correct syntax, spot inappropriate wording, and analyze data from coworkers’ emotional reactions .
Workhuman acknowledges that the personal nature of the message is key. The Financial Times quotes Adam Basilio, director of product strategy, as saying, “We don’t want AI to write these words of appreciation. We really want them to be written by humans.” Recipients should feel emotional when they receive such a message.
Artificial appreciation is becoming more and more fashionable
Other companies are also adopting increasingly sophisticated software. This year, benefits platform Benifex announced that AI can personalize benefits and streamline HR processes. And Bonusly, a company that offers rewards for employee praise, says that “human-centric skills like collaboration and communication” are becoming “the new competitive advantage” in a world where AI takes over routine tasks.
Workhuman users—including BP, Cisco, and LinkedIn employees—can redeem compliments for vouchers, gadgets, or other rewards. A new AI component makes these actions more accurate by suggesting appropriate reward levels within company budgets.
The benefit for managers is the aggregated data provided by AI – from identifying mentors with the right competencies to indicating employees who are worth keeping in the company.
Kerry Dryburgh, vice president of people and culture at energy giant BP, says Workhuman’s software was a “tipping point” in enabling “continuous feedback,” which is why it plans to move to an AI-powered version.
“What really breaks through managers’ skepticism is the data they’re starting to see,” says Workhuman CEO Eric Mosley. With Human Intelligence, they can talk to the “world’s first language model built specifically to recognize and appreciate” how to best leverage feedback insights.
The Financial Times also quotes Bruce Daisley, a workplace culture consultant and former Twitter executive, who sees AI-powered improvements as exacerbating the existing risks of credit-recognition software. “There are definitely benefits to these gratitude tools. It’s worth finding ways to show ourselves more kindness, more respect, more appreciation. But we don’t want to take away the humanity of heartfelt gestures, and that’s where the danger lies .”
Feedback from the machine. AI wants to be as effective as humans
AI can be surprisingly empathetic. In a Harvard Business School study published in March, researchers looked at how teams used AI to collaborate. They found that AI-assisted individuals experienced “positive emotional responses” that were equal to or higher than those in teams without AI, concluding that the technology could “fulfill some of the social and motivational role that human team members typically provide.”
Workhuman uses a proprietary language model trained on millions of employee messages, based on open AI models. This allows the AI to provide “surprisingly accurate” information to managers, Mosley says. And “the more data, the higher the IQ of that AI.”
This may protect us from the standard HR jargon, but unfortunately it hasn’t stopped your virtual assistant from being patronizing . Standard phrases include “you’re doing a great job, I’m really impressed” or “this will really move anyone who sees it, great job!”
But whether a tool will make you smile or cringe ultimately depends on who is using it and how. As Daisley notes, “In some organizations it will be incredibly helpful, and in others, unfortunately, it will become just another piece of bureaucracy for show.”
JS
