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The world of work has felt like one big social, economic and digital experiment for the past few years. Employers and employees have had to change their approaches, from their work environments to the tools they use to get the job done.
The pandemic revealed that hybrid workplace models have an impact on more than just location and workflow — they impact social and cultural components of work, including diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).
At Mastercard, DEI has been a pillar of the workplace for years, says Sasha Krstic, president of Mastercard Canada, and the company continually seeks opportunities to further innovate its technology, team productivity, and inclusive culture — all in tandem.
“It’s about listening to employees when it comes to how they work and where they feel comfortable,” she says. “It starts with fully embracing the hybrid model, as our latest research reveals more than half of Canadian workers want this option.”
“If we dig underneath that, survey respondents self-identifying as visible minorities were even more likely to prefer hybrid work models (73 per cent) compared to the average, and were more likely to say remote work has opened up better career opportunities for them, too.”
Hybrid work can be a valuable tool for organizations aiming to promote DEI and create spaces that are valuable to all employees, says Sinead Bovell, a futurist and entrepreneur.
“It levels the playing field when you are in your own home environment, and we’re all just squares on a screen. It also means that we can expand who we hire because we’re no longer falsely confined to a small geographical radius. That could largely mean a much more inclusive and diverse workforce because you’re not just confined to the labour in your town.”
The shift to hybrid work has been substantial and it appears to have been positive for many diverse Canadians.
“But we are poised for further disruption thanks to advanced technologies like AI,” Ms. Krstic says. “So the question now becomes: what will successful future workplaces look like, how will AI shape them, and will it increase — or decrease — workplace DEI?”
Workplace disruption 2.0
AI is an incredibly valuable business tool. Over the past three years, Mastercard’s AI-backed solutions helped prevent $20-billion in cyber attacks and a further $20-billion in fraud in 2020 alone. Even beyond products and solutions, Mastercard has found success implementing AI internally, across its Canadian and global operations.
“From a workplace perspective,” says Ms. Krstic, “AI can add a ton of value to giving employees not only flexibility in how and when they work, but by giving them more time to invest in the things that are important to them and their work initiatives, which will help them find meaning in their work and create loyalty and longevity.”
One example of this is Unlocked, Mastercard’s proprietary AI-powered employee development platform that allows employees to post and respond to projects or opportunities within the company. It was launched last January after employees reported they wanted more opportunities for mentorship and job growth.
It’s been a growing success. Ms. Krstic says it has allowed employees to connect and grow on a level that might not have been possible without the technology.
“The more employees engage with it, the more the platform learns and the better the solutions and recommendations it makes for our team members,” she says. “I think that’s a pretty exciting and very clear way of showing how AI can actually help team members and make Mastercard a desirable place to work for talent of all backgrounds.”
Creating desirable and inclusive work environments using new tools like AI can help make companies a top choice for talent at a time when labour shortages are a significant challenge to almost every industry, Ms. Bovell explains.
AI may disrupt traditional workplace culture, but employees can and should still feel needed and valued in our AI-augmented workplaces of the future. “It’s not necessarily just enough to be a place of work for someone or to offer AI as a productivity tool,” Ms. Bovell says. “People want to matter.”
AI at work through a DEI lens
AI is now being used in virtually every industry to increase data security and take over repetitive daily tasks in order to free up an organization’s human capital — talent is increasingly working with and alongside AI. But Mastercard’s recent survey revealed a majority of Canadians (77 per cent) do not realize that AI can reflect the bias and prejudice of society around it.
AI learns from the data it’s fed. It is influenced by the bias and blind spots of the engineers and developers who create it, Ms. Bovell explains. For this reason, she says, conversations about diversity and technology should never be separated.
“AI is a result of the historical data it’s been trained on. The algorithms through which it follows are largely the opinions of the coders,” she says. “It doesn’t have to be a bad thing, but that’s just what it is.”
One of the solutions is to have more diversity in those coding rooms.
“If people in these tech rooms don’t reflect Canadians more broadly, it’s going to be very challenging for the technologies that come out of those rooms to work effectively for everyone,” Ms. Bovell adds.
As AI becomes more commonplace at work, businesses should continually consider the technology through a DEI lens, Ms. Krstic says. They can do this by building DEI targets into their business objectives, so that DEI improvements drive commercial success and vice versa. AI should be thought of as a tool to deliver those results simultaneously, she notes.
“AI allows workers of the future to spend less time doing repetitive tasks and more time on the brainstorming, the ideating, the innovating. But it needs to be implemented thoughtfully and responsibly, so that we continue to build solutions that are appropriate for today’s society and the society of the future.”
According to new research from Mastercard Canada on the future of work and AI:
- 66%: Canadians who agree increasing use of AI in the workplace is good for society.
- 63%: Canadians who think the tech industry in Canada should be more diverse.
- 83%: Canadians who think new technologies should be built to work well for different types of people (including genders, ethnicities, physical/intellectual ability).
Advertising feature produced by Globe Content Studio with Mastercard. The Globe’s editorial department was not involved.