UK workers and digital bosses: new survey says 36.7% expect a productivity boost

Careerminds UK has released a new survey that puts some numbers on a question a lot of workplaces are already circling around. Of 600 full-time UK employees, 36.7% said a digital boss would make them more productive, while 25.5% think it would make them less productive. The report says software-led management could help with task allocation, scheduling, and performance tracking. Even so, 74.2% would still rather get performance feedback from a human, which says a lot about what workers still want in promotion and development talks: empathy, context, and judgment.

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Higher up the ladder, the mood is a lot more upbeat. Among directors and above, 64% expect gains, and 28% expect significant ones. That drops to 42.6% among senior staff. Managers are more doubtful still, with 38.5% saying digital management wouldn’t deliver gains at all, which gets at the unease around flatter structures and fewer management roles.

The report also says younger staff are more open to the idea, and it pulls in wider research to show how common these tools already are. 89% of workers have used generative tools. 75% of knowledge workers use them at work. Daily use among managers has gone from 18% to 34% in a year. The U.S. data cited in the report shows a similar split: 65% are positive overall, 40% of non-managers see no time savings, 76% of C-suite leaders save more than four hours a week, and 52% are worried about bias, privacy, transparency, de-skilling, and the loss of human connection.

If you follow workplace tech, this one’s worth your time. You can read the survey on the Careerminds UK site.