Imperative Role of AI in Employee Engagement : The Lens of Job Charactersitics Model

This paper is an attempt to steer the attention of AI seekers towards effective employee engagement. Perhaps this is the first attempt to redirect adoption of AI in the direction of improving job characteristics. The job characteristics model proposed by Oldhams in 1980 has proved to be effective for motivation of employees providing positive psychological states leading to positive outcomes like high motivation, high performance, low absenteeism, low turnover along with high job and work satisfaction. The previous research has established that good job characteristics are enablers of employee engagement. Further, the adoption of AI has also proved to be an enabler for employee engagement, yet with some resistance and limitations. Referring to limited amount of literature on given topic it has been established that AI should not be seen merely as a tool for replacement of the job, rather it should be included in job design to improve job characteristics to enhance employee engagement. Although most of the application of AI has been focused on monitoring real time data to monitor the employee engagement rather than including the technology to improve job characteristics. Therefore, the AI should be included in making jobs interesting to facilitate employee engagement.