AI helps managers prepare for salary and layoff conversations — CNBC Top News
Artificial intelligence-based tools can help managers prepare for difficult conversations with employees — about underperformance, denying an expected pay raise, or eliminating a position. Such services make it possible to rehearse dialogue scenarios, assess the manager’s tone and wording, and model different employee reactions, CNBC Top News reports.
Managers lack confidence
A July survey by The Predictive Index showed a gap between the assessments of company leaders and managers themselves. While 74% of CEOs and business leaders believe their managers conduct difficult conversations with staff very confidently, 42% of managers said they know what they want to say but struggle with exactly how to phrase it.
Only 20% of surveyed managers prefer to prepare for a difficult conversation on their own — without structure, coaching guidance, or the involvement of HR specialists. Among the main challenges, they cited expressing criticism constructively, predicting an employee’s reaction, and remaining objective.
Emily DeJeu, a professor of business communication at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business, stressed that spontaneity should not be the goal in a high-stakes conversation. According to her, a manager should prepare thoroughly for an important meeting.
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Rehearsing different scenarios
A manager can ask AI to play the role of an employee who responds to remarks with anger or emotionally. The system can also assess a message against specified criteria, point out legally risky topics, and analyze tone, excessive wordiness, repetition, and filler words.
Xactly Chief People Officer Megan Barbier said the tools can provide individualized scenarios and recommendations in real time. At the same time, specialists warn that chatbots may be too inclined to agree with the user, so managers should directly ask for critical and candid feedback.
Confidentiality and the human role
HR specialists advise against entering employees’ names, performance data, or other confidential information into public AI services. To model a situation, it is better to describe behavior or specific cases without identifying information. Companies should also understand the rules for data storage, access to chats, and the use of information for training models.
Even when using AI, it is important to involve a human coach, supervisor, or HR representative, especially in complex cases. Specialists advise discussing the upcoming conversation with a colleague after rehearsing with a chatbot, as the emotional burden, particularly when delivering layoff news, is almost impossible to fully recreate in front of a screen.
