If 2024 has revealed anything, other than plenty of petty politics, it is the staying power of artificial intelligence.

According to the latest research, AI’s potential economic impact is in the trillions of dollars. The consulting firm McKinsey claims AI will “unleash the next wave of productivity,” while MIT researchers call it the most economically impactful technology in the world.

There is value in economic theory, but what about actual people? How will human beings be impacted by the changing world of work? After all, nearly 40 percent of all jobs will be affected by AI alone in one way or another. And people will feel a mix of unsettled and uprooted.

The proliferation of time-saving tools—now supercharged with AI offerings like ChatGPT—has led to a cosmic shift in what is asked of employees in support professions, such as customer service professionals, human resource officers, program managers, and even executive coaches like myself.

And so, we need to ask: How can employers help to create the changes that they need to see in their workplace? And, more importantly, how can they change the world of work humanely? How can the cosmic shift take place not just with efficiency in mind but also with basic integrity and social responsibility?

The callous, purely market-driven “solution” to the changing nature of work is to lay off those whose skill sets are no longer needed (or perceived as such), and to hire those who can hit the ground running. Indeed, more than 40 percent of global C-suite executives expect to employ fewer people because of AI.

This means larger and larger losses for today’s companies. The business costs associated with downsizing and hiring are massive—about $1 trillion annually for U.S. companies alone. They are especially pronounced when competitors and other counterparts follow suit, limiting the pool of available, competent people with requisite skills in our changing world.

Ideally, the global workforce will grow with the needs of the global business community. To enable that, employers will need to take the lead in reskilling and upskilling workers so that they can meaningfully contribute in a world with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Microsoft Azure. The concepts of reskilling and upskilling are not new, but they take on unprecedented urgency with the increasing application of AI and broader technological disruption.

Workforce development is the humane approach to change in the workplace. Only when people—especially mid and senior-level employees whose skills are now “outdated” and face displacement—have an opportunity to learn new, in-demand skills can they find work and excel at it. Such development is inextricably linked to not only job security and financial freedom, but also dignity.

Today’s managers—from the C-suite on down—need to recognize the heightened importance of reskilling and upskilling, and actively prioritize them as a helping hand. This is not purely altruistic: The investment in reskilling and upskilling of the current workforce has the potential to boost global economic activity by trillions of dollars in the years ahead. This means new companies, new jobs, and countless new opportunities for people to succeed.

Fortunately, many employers are already making strides on workforce development. To invest in priorities like reskilling and upskilling, business executives are being asked and asking themselves what they envision needing—in terms of short- and long-term skills—of those who support their success. Future-oriented leaders are defining new job descriptions for the support positions of the future, reinventing key roles and not just replacing them.

I speak to organizational leaders on a daily basis, and employers are actively recognizing and rewarding staff members who leverage AI and other emerging tools to develop more efficient ways of working. Managers are showing appreciation for workers who figure out how AI can streamline email communications or make group presentations more accurate and informative. They are supporting workplace innovators by gaining buy-in from superiors for the standardization of higher efficacy work.

Education cannot be overstated either. Some companies are doubling down on emerging mission-critical skill sets of the day by creating internal training academies or sending committed employees to intensive training programs externally (often with a service agreement).

The bottom line is that organizations must take a change management approach to adaptability, with a special emphasis on the human side of change. Effective change management provides time for those affected to understand what is changing for them on a day-to-day basis. As roles and responsibilities evolve, workplace leaders and their teams need to identify opportunities to meet with the individuals affected on a human level, exploring how looming changes may align with their professional goals and personal aspirations.

Communication is paramount, and there is no room for fear of judgement or failure. Expertise comes with time; none of us can master a new trade overnight.

As long as employers remember the human side of work and respond to AI responsibly, disruption does not need to be scary. The change that is coming can be managed humanely.