Building the perfect team with AI: Growth Strategies for Business Owners

Traditional team-building methods, while still valuable, are often time-consuming and may not fully leverage the potential of modern technology. Enter AI-driven team building—an approach that uses machine learning to facilitate networking and connections, ensuring that teams are not only well-constructed but also highly dynamic and adaptive to changing environments.

Automate your Tasks with AI

AI is here to stay. It's not just here as a generative tool for our text, images, and PowerPoint presentations, we can use AI for so much more. For Kinglsey, a Tech Policy and Research Fellow at the Emerging Technology for Emerging Markets, and founder of Pan-African Centre for AI Ethics, AI is all about growing his business. “If you look at AI from a business perspective, you need to consider automating some routine tasks. Especially when these tasks do not need human innovation. For instance, a mathematical equation like 2 + 2 equals 4 without adding any other external equation to it. In business, tasks like this should be automated. That way, you are saving time and humans are using the spare time for more productive tasks. There is more efficiency, consistency, and accuracy in the overall delivery of tasks in the company.”

Building the perfect team with AI

For a business to thrive, the right team needs to be in place. Here are 5 steps you can apply in getting the right team for your business.

1. Knowing the roles required to execute your project is key. Are you building a team to handle your project? Do you need a team of software engineers? A simple prompt on your preferred AI tool will tell you the roles you need in your team to execute your project.

2. What is the skillset required of each member: You need to know the skills required of each role in order to put out the perfect job description. Any AI tool can give you a list of skills, it is left for you to tailor these skills down to what you particularly need in your team.

3. Put out the job advertisement: Because of the state of the employment sector in Africa and the world at large, expect a ton of applications. For instance, in Nigeria, the staff of Heritage Bank have been putting out open-to-work posts on LinkedIn. These people have been laid off and are back in the already congested job market.

4. Find the perfect AI tool to filter these applications and run further tests: Find the AI tool to sieve through these applications. Get a tool that will not only filter out Keywords, but also test the candidates on different levels.

5. Interview your candidates. At this point, you have a list of suitable candidates for your team. Your recruitment company will interview these candidates.

An affordable, yet efficient recruitment company can make this stage seamless for you.

Improving Team Productivity using AI

Team productivity is key at any stage in your business. With AI this can be easily achieved. In the words of Mario Omokaro, Co-Founder of the African Al Foundation and Head of Operations at Stellar Al Lab, following the right process begins with having an AI strategy.

The right strategy will help you know what AI productivity tool to use for your team management. For instance, Sync! Can be used for your daily to-do lists and project management of your team. It also facilitates payments for different members of the team depending on which tasks they’re able to complete.

Disadvantages of AI in Business

While the advantages of AI-driven team building are great, it is important that we address the challenges and ethical considerations.

1. Privacy and data security: As the effectiveness of AI relies on access to large amounts of personal and professional information.

   
   
   

   Organisations must ensure that data is handled responsibly and transparently, with clear policies in place to protect individuals' privacy.

2. There is the risk of AI systems reinforcing existing biases. To Dr. Edward Ombui, Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the United States International University-Africa (USIU-A), inclusivity is paramount in every place of work as it improve productivity. To him, Inclusivity and productivity is a case where people feel a sense of belonging where, despite the differences, whether it's religion or ethnicity or socioeconomic status, including protected characteristics eg. People with disabilities. It’s knowing that there's a space for you and there's respect and acceptance and value.

   
   
   

   So if the data used to train AI algorithms contains biases, these can be perpetuated in the recommendations and decisions made by the system. It is important to continually monitor and refine AI models to ensure they promote diversity and inclusion rather than hinder it.

Always remember that while AI is of great importance, it requires people to use it as a tool that helps them supercharge their thoughts and not one that takes their voices away from them.