The workplace is rapidly evolving, thanks to new challenges and opportunities unearthed by the rise of AI, as well as shifting currents in workplace engagement and culture. Addressing these challenges and taking advantage of new opportunities requires honing your management skills and aligning your goals across your team or organization. With the start of a new year, now is a perfect time for refocusing — and taking action — to navigate these new demands in 2025.
That action begins with understanding what is driving these workplace trends and from where challenges are originating. This, along with relevant skill building, can lead you to a more productive, more creative, and more agile year in management.
Below, find our top insights from Columbia Business School faculty whose expertise lies at the cutting edge of shifting workplace trends. These insights are geared toward helping you make actionable changes in your organization in 2025, and beyond.
1. Use a Human-First Approach When Implementing AI
Sparking employee success as a leader in the age of AI starts with the fundamentals: enhancing motivators while also addressing very real fears around AI replacement. At the same time, leaders must contend with the mandate to create value for their respective organizations.
Research from Todd Jick, the Reuben Mark Faculty Director of Organizational Character and Leadership at the Bernstein Center for Leadership and Ethics, and Stephan Meier, the James P. Gorman Professor of Business, shows that balancing these needs are at the heart of creating — and maintaining — an AI-ready workforce.
According to Meier, there are three main ways in which AI and human-machine interaction impact leaders and integration, primarily around implementation. “It’s about assuring employees that managers are not taking your job. They simply want you to make your job better,” Meier says.
Jick advises that in order to lessen AI-related anxiety, leaders can offer employees transparency and greater involvement in the AI implementation process. Leaders must also address employees’ fears of job loss, which is a significant concern.
“Employees’ unwillingness to take in something like AI comes from reasons that have to do with their motivation, incentives, the degree of inclusion, and their actual ability to be able to use the tool,” Jick says.
2. Look Beyond Workplace Culture to Increase Retention
Voluntary turnover can hit your business hard. Not only is there the potential for the loss of valuable institutional knowledge but also the cost of a replacement.
So, retaining employees is important, but equally crucial is understanding why they decide to leave in the first place. Research by Adina Sterling, the Katherine W. Phillips Associate Professor of Business, shows that an employee’s decision to leave can be tied to their race — and their access to resources.
White workers quit jobs slightly more often than Black workers and are more likely to leave a job for resource-enabled reasons, such as to return to school, start their own business, or take a different job. Black workers are more likely to voluntarily leave due to resource constraints, such as lack of reliable transportation or access to healthcare, according to Sterling. One reason for this discrepancy might be that there are differences in social ties across racial groups, with some studies finding that White workers have an easier time finding jobs through their social ties than Black workers.
Her research suggests that to address disparities in voluntary turnover, organizational leaders need to look beyond just internal policies and culture and consider how external societal forces and resource constraints can impact employee retention.
“You could work a lot on the company’s culture; you could have done a lot to make people feel psychologically safe. But if there are broader external forces in society affecting the way that people can be engaged at work, then we’re only addressing part of the problem,” Sterling says.
3. Combat AI-Driven Misinformation
Misinformation is nothing new, but the rise of social media and, more recently, AI, has given way to a faster-spreading misinformation ecosystem, according to Gita Johar, the Meyer Feldberg Professor of Business. Her research shows that new platforms coupled with AI tools have democratized the creation of misinformation.
For business leaders, misinformation can spell disaster for reputation and brand favorability. When a business pays for ad placement on a social media platform, for example, it is often done so through opaque auction systems, according to Johar. This means that well-meaning ads can appear on sites that circulate misinformation, without knowledge of the brand. With the advent of AI, the probability of an ad appearing on a misinformation site is even great, leading to reputational risks.
Even brands that don’t advertise online can feel an impact from AI-based misinformation, as the technology can be utilized by competitors and disgruntled consumers to very quickly create fake news about your brand.
While regulators have a role to play, business leaders can fight misinformation in the meantime by forming trade associations and withholding advertising dollars from any platforms that are not seriously monitoring misinformation, according to Johar.
“If AI is going to start creating all kinds of false information about your brand, you have to be very careful to protect your brand,” Johar says.
If advertisers do work together in such a way, it would be a “win-win” according to Johar, as businesses benefit both themselves and society by holding platforms to account.
Key Takeaways for Business Leaders:
- Reduce reputational risk by preparing for potential misuse of AI by competitors or disgruntled customers to spread false information about your brand. Also, consider advocating for balanced regulations that mitigate misinformation risks, and forming trade associations to collectively pressure platforms to limit misinformation.
- Look beyond intra organizational pain points, e.g. if health disparities cause employees to turn over, consider expanding healthcare options.
- Support investment in social services, public safety initiatives, and public transportation to create a fully productive workforce.
- Communicate AI-related goals and include employees early and often in AI adoption to reduce anxiety around change. Provide training to develop AI-related skills and incentivize employees with benefits tied to AI-related changes.
- Implement AI in a way that creates value — not just as a cost-cutting tool, but to improve organizational effectiveness.
