It is difficult to get through the day without hearing or reading something about the impact of AI on society.  Much has already been written about its growing impact on employment relationships, particularly at the point where the relationship is about to end, or has ended.

Unsurprisingly, when an employee’s expectations have not been met in one way or another, it’s predictable that they are now seeking advice from their AI friend of choice, rather than incurring the cost of obtaining actual legal advice.  The impact for employers varies, including based on whether the employee is using AI as a means of outsourced thinking, or whether they are using AI as a tool to inform their own thoughts and strategy.

In addition to the predictable effects of engaging AI to articulate an employee’s disappointment (e.g. lengthy demands characterised by a time-consuming mix of repetitive, generalised assertions, interspersed with specific references to employer obligations, legal principles and legislation), AI’s penchant for also elevating small details appears to be fuelling a growing focus on technical, compliance-based allegations that are otherwise irrelevant to the matter that drove the employee to their keyboard in the first place.

For example, allegations that we are increasingly seeing include:

• Requests for a complete copy of the person’s employee records, with pre-emptive allegations and threats of civil penalties around a failure to have kept the specific records, or if the employer fails to respond to the request within the prescribed time frames.
• Breach of the National Employment Standard for terminating the employment before a payment in lieu of notice is made.
• Breach of the National Employment Standard for providing the termination letter after the employment was ended (e.g. with verbal notice having been given).
• A failure to make a copy of an award available.
• A failure by the employer to actually classify the employee under the award (e.g. where an annual salary is paid).
• A failure to notify the employee in writing of their award classification, or a change to it.
• Breach of the applicable industrial instrument due to making other final payments later than the time required.
• Failure to provide all relevant information in writing during a consultation process.

And the list goes on.

While harnessing the opportunities and dealing with the challenges of AI are less than simple, there is a simple, practical reality that:

• An employee is most likely to resort to AI for relationship advice when they are disappointed about something to do with the employment relationship itself.
• When an employee is disappointed, they almost always ask a question to a human first. Commonly, that question is asked of their manager (whether or not the manager has awareness of the issue, or is best equipped to answer the question).
• AI based demands are most likely to be received by the employer when either:
  • An employee is dissatisfied with the attention and/or responses they’re receiving from humans to the questions or concerns that they’ve raised;
  • The employee is under time pressure (for example, they need to file a claim within a prescribed period); or
  • The employee no longer considers it important to preserve the human relationships.

AI is here to stay, and employers will continue to develop and find better and more efficient ways to manage the challenges it creates.  In the meantime, there are three simple messages to start with:

1. Minimise the trigger points that push employees to AI. Invest the time and resources into training your people managers to manage people, and where appropriate to triage more serious issues and refer them on to specialist managers (e.g. human resources and/or senior managers).
2. As time consuming as it might be, use the opportunity of an employee inquiry or escalation to engage efficiently and confidently with the issue, to build the human relationship, and take the time to ensure the outcome is adequately explained to the employee.
3. Technical, compliance-based allegations are going to become increasingly common, and they will make otherwise unmeritorious claims successful. While for many employers these allegations are likely to be symptoms of a different, but solvable issue, they serve as a reminder of the importance of continuing to devote the necessary time and resources to building and improving compliance-based systems.