The new 2024 Digital Work Trends report, based on research conducted by market research firm Dynata, on behalf of Slingshot, reveals that only 23% of employees feel completely educated and trained on AI. And while 72% of employers say their employees are at least adequately trained on AI, only 53% of employees believe they are. There’s also a significant difference between genders with AI training: two-thirds (66%) of males feel they are adequately trained on AI, while only 44% of females say the same.

Additional findings of the report include:

• Employers believe AI is driving more productivity than employees are experiencing: While more than half (60%) of employers believe that AI is significantly increasing employees’ productivity, only 44% of employees say they’re seeing a significant increase to their productivity with AI. Ten percent (10%) of employees say that AI is not increasing their productivity at all.
• A majority of employees are getting at least one to two hours back in their workday with AI. Seventy-nine percent (79%) of employees say that AI saves them at least 1-2 hours a day, with 37% of employees saving 3-4 hours using AI tools. With the extra time in their workday, 63% of employees are reducing their overload of work to complete tasks in a timely manner, and 54% are using the time saved to re-prioritize and manage their workload more efficiently.
• Many employers say their company’s data is not ready to support AI. Nearly half (45%) of employers say they haven’t yet implemented AI because their company’s data—or information that tracks performance, process, people and profitability–is not ready. For many companies, this means their data is siloed across departments, platforms and channels, and without centralized data, AI cannot run. Data is top of mind for employees too: 32% of employees say their company would be ready to support AI if it offered more training around data and AI.

“The workplace continues to undergo a rapid transformation as we now see more employers implementing AI tools into their businesses to drive efficiencies and increase productivity. While employers have specific intentions for AI in the workplace, it’s clear that they’re not aligned with employees’ current use of AI. Much of this comes down to employees’ education and training around AI tools,” said Dean Guida, Founder of Slingshot.

“AI has the potential to change the way teams work by allowing them to trade in highly repetitive, mundane tasks for more high-level, strategic projects. But the only way to unlock AI’s full potential in the workplace is to properly prepare employees and companies’ overall operations. Employers and employees are certainly on their way, but there’s still a lot more to be done, starting with centralizing data, increasing education around AI and reskilling and upskilling employees through continued training,” continued Guida.

Slingshot’s research is based on responses from 253 adult respondents across four age groups and all 50 states. Part 1 of the 2024 Digital Work Trends Report can be viewed here.

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Slingshot’s Digital Work Trends Report explores the relationship between employees’ productivity and management. The report shines a light on how employees’ productivity and performance are impacted by many of the things they look to their leaders for, including priorities, deadlines, and the amount of work they’re responsible for. The report also reveals a generational divide in the ways employees navigate work and manage as leaders.

“Employees often feel overloaded, unsure of priorities and deadlines, and afraid to say no to additional work–even when they have too much on their plates already. And leaders are left scrambling when employees haven’t been focusing on the highest-value task or miss deadlines after taking on too much. This is all caused by a lack of visibility and alignment across teams,” said Dean Guida, Founder, Slingshot.

The new, inaugural report is based on research conducted by market research firm Dynata, on behalf of Slingshot.

Among the findings:

• Employees are overloaded and unguided–and they’re losing half of their day because of it. Employees say their productivity is most negatively impacted when they have too many projects/tasks on their plate (37%), don’t know what their priorities are (25%) and have no set deadlines (17%). A majority of employees (64%) say they lose at least 1-2 productive hours a day when they don’t have deadlines–with 22% of employees saying they lose 3-4 hours each day. Having to juggle too many projects follows closely, with 62% of employees losing at least 1-2 productive hours a day and 20% saying they lose 3+ hours to it.
• More meetings don’t mean more productivity. More than half of leaders feel the need to closely supervise employees when they are not delivering quality work (69%) or hitting deadlines (52%). But employees feel micromanaged when their boss checks in on them too often (45%) or they have unnecessary status meetings (43%). In fact, 25% of employees say work meetings are the most frustrating interruption throughout their day.
• Generations and genders differ in their approach to determining priorities in the workplace. Nearly half (49%) of Millennial workers (ages 27-42) guess what’s most important when they are not given priorities, while 33% of Boomer workers (ages 59+) and 35% of Gen X + Y workers (ages 43-58) choose what to do. A majority (55%) of Gen Z workers (ages 18-26) say they communicate with their colleagues to identify priorities. Males and females differ in their approach as well: 43% of females communicate with their colleagues to identify priorities while 45% of males say they choose what they want to do.

“Where employees spend their time is where their priorities lie–but this often doesn’t line up with their leaders and the larger goals of the company. Once teams are aligned on goals and objectives, employees are clear on their priorities and expected outcomes and leaders can have peace of mind that the right things are getting done in a timely manner. This is what will drive business results,” continued Guida.

The two-part 2023 Digital Work Trends Report is based on responses from 305 adult respondents working full-time as employees and leaders, across four age groups and all 50 states. View the full Slingshot 2023 Digital Work Trends Report Findings.

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