Workplace AI: Is Resistance Futile?

It can be seen in the number of employees not attending training. Or the number who aren’t using new tools provided by the company. Slowly but surely, a groundswell of workers is resisting a technology that firms have staked their future on.

In the latest, and most extreme, example of a trend leaders can no longer ignore, a new study found that three out of 10 employees are purposely undermining their firm’s AI rollout in a misguided bid to ensure job security. That figure jumps to 44% among Gen-Z workers, which is particularly worrisome for leaders, given that these are the employees being counted on most to embrace AI, says Michael Welch, a senior client partner in the AI Strategy and Transformation practice at Korn Ferry. “Firms are looking to younger workers to bring in the skills and mindsets to transform with AI,” he says.

The problem is that Gen-Z employees are worried AI will transform them right out of a job. Data shows that between one-third and one-half of them fear they could be replaced by AI. And while that fear is driving a small group of workers to actively sabotage corporate AI initiatives through such nefarious actions as uploading proprietary company information into public LLMs, it is also leading them to undermine these initiatives through subtler acts of omission. Only 33% of employees make use of formal AI training, for instance, even though nearly 70% of firms offer it. Relatedly, 46% of employees in a new Gallup poll say they don’t use AI tools because “they prefer to keep doing their work the way they do it now.” Jerry Collier, solution leader of the Assessment and Succession practice in EMEA for Korn Ferry, says this sort of “silent resistance” is just as dangerous as active sabotage—maybe more so, because it’s harder to root out.  

Stephen Lams, a senior vice president of data and analytics at Korn Ferry, says a certain amount of resistance to technological change is inevitable. “People get anxious about what new technologies in the workplace mean for them,” he says. Experts say that leaders generally haven’t provided employees with a clear and compelling vision of the opportunities AI can provide. Quite the opposite, in fact: They’ve carried out layoffs, frozen hiring, imposed larger workloads, and established stricter performance measures. “Right now, employees feel like AI is done to them rather than for them,” says Lams.

Experts say firms need to better communicate the ways in which the technology can help workers. Ironically, resisting AI, rather than providing more job security, will likely make people more vulnerable, says Welch. “Resistance to technological advancement is often misguided and ineffective,” he says. David Ellis, senior vice president of talent transformation at Korn Ferry, agrees. The people who are getting attention at firms, he says, are those who are using AI tools to innovate and create new workflows. “Leaders are looking for positive examples of employees using AI to showcase to the broader organization that it isn’t all about cost cutting and layoffs,” says Ellis.  

Learn more about Korn Ferry’s AI in the Workplace capabilities.

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