Employee using AI & not checking work

[Anonymous]

I run a small team of project managers at a large corporation. We have access to AI, which is super helpful and I am fully in support of my team using it responsibly. Our company has some AI guidelines in place which are evolving.

I have one senior manager who is submitting work for me to review that is blatantly generated by AI. In two cases, the employee was asked to synthesize multiple inputs and categorize them for senior leaders to use in strategic planning exercises. Admittedly, this is a great use case for AI. But in both cases, they clearly did not review their work. At first glance, the output looked good - business-y words, well formatted. But the writing made absolutely no sense once I took a closer look. In both cases, I ended up spending a few hours redoing the work.

The second assignment I reviewed was submitted a month or so ago but I didn’t review it until after I reviewed the second thing they submitted, which I gave immediate feedback on. I have not said anything about the first assignment yet.

This is an employee that I really like. They’ve done solid work and are a great team player. This person has 20 years of work experience, has taken multiple courses on AI and teaches others how to use AI. But this feels like really poor judgement to me - not once, but now twice. Maybe more times.

What would you do? Should I go to HR? Give the employee a final warning? We are about to start writing year end reviews at my company and I am not sure if I should include this or give the employee the benefit of the doubt. I am just really shocked.

[Anonymous]

Talk to them about responsible use of AI. It's well known they hallucinate. Law firms have been caught submitting briefs citing nonexistent cases.
Show them the issues and stress the importance of checking the AI work. DOCUMENT the interaction including the shoddy work.
Then if they submit shoddy work again, go to HR.

[Anonymous]

There's no such thing as too much corporate jargon or nonsensical statements when it comes to strategic planning in the corp world. OP I think you fail to understand AI, work isn't your undergrad philosophy course from way back in the day. I'm guessing you make a big deal about it only to find out the employee goes golfing or attends church with the senior leaders.

[Anonymous]

AI makes people stupid and it’s riddled with errors and nonsense.

People are lazy. Good luck getting this employee to do anything by themself ever again.

[Anonymous]

No, you don't go directly to HR. You talk to the employee so they have a chance to correct it. If it continues to be a problem after you've discussed it with the employee, then you go to HR.

[Anonymous]

Give detailed feedback on what was incorrect and how to fix it. This is on you for not reviewing the first assignment in a timely way. Tell the employee they missed the mark both times and you suspect it's because of poor use of AI. Document that conversation. Next assignment review immediately and give timely feedback.

There is nothing to report to HR other than you arent handling your direct reports appropriately

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Give detailed feedback on what was incorrect and how to fix it. This is on you for not reviewing the first assignment in a timely way. Tell the employee they missed the mark both times and you suspect it's because of poor use of AI. Document that conversation. Next assignment review immediately and give timely feedback.

There is nothing to report to HR other than you arent handling your direct reports appropriately

+1

You need to provide feedback to the employee that the quality of the work is not good.

[Anonymous]

Why did you fix the work? You should have gone back to them and asked them to fix it.

Also, as hard as it, you really need to look at work when it’s submitted versus putting it off. Even if they didn’t use AI, they may have still needed to make changes

[Anonymous]

Why are you spending hours doing someone else's job?
Give a few sample comments and send it back to apply the feedback across the whole document.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why did you fix the work? You should have gone back to them and asked them to fix it.

Also, as hard as it, you really need to look at work when it’s submitted versus putting it off. Even if they didn’t use AI, they may have still needed to make changes

+1. Send it back within 24 hours with a general "please read this again, it doesn't make sense" and make them fix it.

When it comes back, if it still isn't good then hold an in-person meeting to walk through it. At nearly every line, stop and ask "What does this actually mean?" and "Is that statement true? Is it relevant?" Yes that's painful: it's supposed to be. They should want to avoid having this meeting again.

Third time is when you start the PIP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There's no such thing as too much corporate jargon or nonsensical statements when it comes to strategic planning in the corp world. OP I think you fail to understand AI, work isn't your undergrad philosophy course from way back in the day. I'm guessing you make a big deal about it only to find out the employee goes golfing or attends church with the senior leaders.

Was this written by AI? I have no idea what you are saying.

[Anonymous]

I didn't know that Deleotte gets international contract advice on DCmoms