Employees ready for AI, but enterprises lag behind

By Andrea B. Ramos

Filipino employees expect AI to be integrated into the workplace, but enterprises themselves lag behind on the AI evolution. The real challenge of AI in the workforce is bridging the capability of businesses and moving with what systems they have.

This is according to Workday’s General Manager, Jess O’Reilly, at a media conference about the partnership between Asticom Holding Corporation and Workday that brings Workday’s Human Capital Management (HCM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions to organizations in the Philippines.

O’Reilly added that AI engagement is also rapidly interfacing our personal lives: “So I can tell you now, when someone’s sitting in a retail shop and they’re expected to fill a piece of paper out, their expectations are very much not met. Because in their personal life, there is nothing that’s paper-based. There’s nothing that has a lag. So we’re optimistic that the employees want what we’ve got.”

On the other hand, Asticom’s President and CEO Mharicar Castillo-Reyes said that educating employees about AI is just one small aspect toward transformation.

“Educating is one, but it’s very important you let them experience AI themselves. I think that’s the most powerful way to change, manage, or to journey them from where they are today to the use of AI. And that’s exactly what we have,” she expressed.

“We have an AI boot camp in the company where any employee, regardless of where they are, our field technicians, our BPO center, our retail personnel, they can actually learn about AI and they can actually use tools and AI technology so that they themselves can see the value of it.”

Among the many Filipino workers who embrace AI are the Generation Z (Gen Z) in the workforce, according to Reyes: “Gen Zs all want to be connected. They all want flexible tools. Flexibility, connectedness, empowerment is key. So I think we don’t need to even convince the Gen Zs to use this kind of technology.”

Workday’s AI “Sana” and the change it entails to PH Enterprises

One of the AI technologies Workday has is Sana. Based on O’Reilly, its competitive edge to other AI technologies is how it brings enterprise applications together in a simple conversational interface.

Sana is an AI tool that has access to the company’s data, and from there it acts across the company’s systems, and it also builds documents, analyses, and dashboards, and helps automate workflows.

She said that Sana will not just be bringing data together and having conversations from it, but deriving actions from it: “So not just, how many hours did my workforce work in a particular location? But it’s then, please go activate a performance review on how that shift went.”

“The beauty of Workday and this partnership is we’re building on that depth of HR and finance data. So when you have an agent delivered to you that’s a finance audit agent, it’s not delivered on generic or generalized data. It’s based on the depth of that finance data,” she added.

Filipino workers are ready for the evolution toward AI. With Asticom and Workday’s partnership, Philippine enterprises can implement globally recognized HR and finance technologies, changing the way enterprises workflows towards digital transformation.