WBS conference opens National Productivity Week with Future of Work report

Unless people are put at the heart of the Government’s new AI Action plan, we will not see the better jobs and productivity gains promised by Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

That will be a key message today at the opening conference of National Productivity Week when the final report of the three-year Pissarides Review into the Future of Work and Wellbeing will be published.  

Held at WBS London at The Shard, the conference will hear the results of an Institute for the Future of Work (IFOW) survey in which UK employees talk of “a pervasive sense of anxiety, fear and uncertainty” about artificial intelligence (AI) and what it could do to their work.

However, the survey of 1,000 UK firms also shows that when people are put first – for example, with firms adopting HR strategies with high employee participation – these impacts can be reduced, and new technologies can lead to better jobs.

James Hayton, Professor of Innovation at Warwick Business School and one of the authors of the final report of the Pissarides Review, said: “Companies that adopt Human Resource Management practices where employees’ skills are developed and valued, tend to see more positive impacts, as technology is used to support employees’ work and enhance job quality rather than simply drive efficiency gains through automation.

“Here, the impact on jobs, skills, and job quality is not solely driven by the technology itself. Instead, it is how firms and managers choose to implement it that is so crucial in bringing benefit to their workforce and overall productivity.”

The report brought out by Professor Hayton and his research colleagues in the Pissarides Review marks the culmination of a £1.8 million collaboration between the IFOW and a leading interdisciplinary team from Imperial College London and Warwick Business School and funded by the Nuffield Foundation, which has looked at how AI can be leveraged to deliver a fairer future of better work.

Led by Nobel Laureate labour market economist Professor Sir Christopher Pissarides, it has found:

• Huge variations in adoption of AI and automation across the country, and across sectors, risking further entrenching regional inequalities
• Workplace technology is having a cumulative impact on the health and wellbeing of workers
• Firm-level policies and regional support are key to whether AI has a negative impact on this wellbeing or leads to a new paradigm of ‘good work’

Professor Hayton will be speaking at the ‘Making the Future Work’ conference at The Shard alongside Bomi Okuyiga of the AI Safety Institute, Dr Magdalena Soffia of the IFOW, and others.

Lord Patrick Vallance, Minister of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, will be giving the keynote address in the morning.

Warwick Business School will be hosting a second event during National Productivity Week at its Warwick campus. Led by Nigel Driffield, Professor in the Strategy & International Business Group, it will explore the increased emphasis on growth and productivity both nationally and locally, the barriers to productivity growth in the Midlands region and the growing case for devolution.

James Hayton is Professor of Innovation at Warwick Business School and Vice Provost and Chair of Social Sciences at the University of Warwick. He teaches Innovation and Strategic Entrepreneurship on the Executive MBA and Accelerator MBA. 

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