The Great Resignation has opened people’s eyes as to what is possible when workers push back—when they say enough is enough. Since its start, more than 50 million Americans have voluntarily left their jobs. Many cited dehumanizing conditions and lack of respect from their employer as reasons. Want your new hires to feel like more than cogs in the machine? Want to stop contributing to the debasing machinery that exploits people as means to ends?
There’s an easy solution.
It begins by recognizing that AI and Big Data are tools in service of mankind. Not the other way around. Even in the automation age, the balance of power in hiring decisions must tilt in favor of the candidate. Otherwise, we’re well on our way to a dystopian nightmare not unlike Fritz Lang’s 1927 film Metropolis, in which workers ceaselessly toil in grotesque conditions to keep the city going.
The new book I cowrote with HR experts Eric Sydell and Mike Hudy, Decoding Talent: How AI and Big Data Can Solve Your Company’s People Puzzle, (Fast Company Press) explores how tech can streamline the hiring process. But it’s not another how-to guide to maximize people for productivity. It demands tomorrow’s leaders commit to ethical tech concerning personnel decisions.