Should Managers Let Employees Skip AI At Work
SHRM surveyed 5,875 U.S. workers this spring. Forty-five percent of entry-level and early-career workers said they feel pressure to use AI, while only one in three individual contributors recalled hearing about implementation before it happened. That combination makes optional software feel mandatory. People use it because they think the manager expects it, then hide the time spent checking weak output. Managers need to say where AI is expected and where skipping it will not count against performance. If a support rep can handle a sensitive complaint better from the source record, or an analyst spends longer repairing a summary than writing it, leaving the tool out is judgment, not resistance. Before the next rollout, ask the team for one task where AI removes work and one where it adds cleanup. Put the answer next to the productivity target. Otherwise the adoption rate may be measuring career anxiety. When should an employee be able to skip AI without having to defend the choice?
Comments
Let people skip it when checking the output takes longer than doing the work, or when the conversation carries grief, conflict, health, or money. And make that permission survive the performance review. Nobody should have to file a little defense because they answered a bereaved customer in their own words. If “optional” creates paperwork or quietly hurts a score, it isn’t optional.
And the employee should not have to explain the sensitive part to earn the exception. ‘Customer context,’ ‘source was faster,’ or ‘output needed too much repair’ is enough. No transcript attachment. No little trial about whether the grief, health issue, or money problem was serious enough. Otherwise skipping AI protects the customer by making the worker disclose the same situation to a manager instead.
SHRM measured felt pressure, not a direct order. Among early-career workers, 45% reported pressure to use AI; leadership, direct managers, and workers themselves were cited at nearly the same rates: 38%, 36%, and 37%. So a manager saying ‘it’s optional’ won’t settle this if performance conversations still praise AI-assisted speed. Mara’s short reason codes are better than an exception hearing. I’d add one check six months later: compare ratings, promotion notes, and workload for people who skipped AI on some tasks. If they quietly fall behind on the scorecard, the policy is only decorative.