How Will Junior Employees Gain Practical Experience if AI Handles the Grunt Work?
If AI takes over the grunt work, how will future designers and construction managers develop the necessary skills? Many AEC executives are concerned about how their workforce will gain practical experience if AI does much of the tedious work.
Traditionally, grunt work, often tedious, repetitive, and time-consuming, is assigned to apprentices or junior employees. By doing the grunt work in the first several years of their career, employees develop the intuition and judgment required to complete the work effectively. At that point, they get promoted into managerial roles, where they guide the next generation of new hires through the same process, continuing the cycle.
But if these repetitive tasks are assigned to AI, how will the new employees gain the expertise and skills needed to succeed? Will they become less competent or more in the future?
Learning from History: The Impact of Automation on Skill Development
To answer these questions, let’s review a historical example. Before finite element analysis (FEA) software, structural engineers had to calculate structural performance for projects like bridges and buildings manually using pen and paper, which was slow and exhausting. When FEA software became commercially available, some worried the use of technology would cause engineers to forget how to perform manual calculations and might reduce their critical thinking skills. Maybe that was partially true, and they lost some skills. But with technology, structural engineers could accomplish the task at a whole new level, gaining new skills and experience that was not possible before.
With software, designs that once took years or months could now be done in weeks or just a couple of days. Therefore, by designing and delivering more projects of various types, engineers could gain more experience in a shorter time, leading to accelerated career growth. For example, if calculating a bridge’s structure manually took a year, an engineer might only complete 30 such projects in a 30-year career. With software, that same engineer could design hundreds of bridges over a 30-year career. By automating tedious work, engineers had more time to focus on creative, innovative designs and even evaluate multiple scenarios. FEA technologies have transformed how we design structures.
AI’s Role in Accelerating Learning for Designers
AI has the potential to revolutionize the structural design process even further. By automating modeling, simulation, and analysis, AI can allow us to design 10 to 100 times more projects than with FEA software alone. Instead of designing one or two buildings a month, AI can make it possible to design hundreds of buildings in a single day. Engineers can gain valuable insights from their collaboration with AI solutions, enhancing both learning and productivity.
So, how do employees gain skills if they’re not doing the grunt work? The answer is that employees actually learn more by working alongside AI systems than by performing grunt work themselves.
AI’s Role in Accelerating Learning for Construction Project Managers
And this impact goes beyond design. AI could significantly change how junior project managers learn and work on construction sites. Acting almost like a mentor, AI can teach them things they might not yet know.
Traditionally, junior project managers would take three to five years on-site to be promoted, mainly because they needed to complete a few projects to gain enough experience and skills. But AI has the potential to dramatically shorten that timeline. By supplementing their on-site learning with data from hundreds of other projects across the company, junior employees can accelerate their career growth. AI-driven simulations and “what-if” scenarios give them access to the collective experience of project managers, helping them quickly understand what works, what doesn’t, and how to optimize processes. Much like flight simulators speed up pilot training, AI-powered simulations using real-time data can fast-track the learning curve for project managers.
As the saying goes, it’s not about working harder, it’s about working smarter.
Key Takeaways
- Increased Efficiency to Gain Practical Insights: AI enables designers and project managers to complete projects faster, allowing them to work on a wider variety of tasks and gain more practical insights in less time.
- Learning Through Partnership with AI: AI’s ability to simulate real-world scenarios acts as a mentor for junior employees, providing them with knowledge from multiple projects and helping them make informed decisions more quickly.
- Faster Career Growth: AI technologies allow professionals to accelerate their career development by exposing them to more projects and real-time data, reducing the learning curve.
- Mentorship Role of AI: AI’s ability to simulate real-world scenarios acts as a mentor for junior employees, providing them with knowledge from multiple projects and helping them make informed decisions more quickly.
Exploring the Future of Work in the AEC Industry
As AI continues to advance, it’s clear that the roles within AEC industries are evolving rather than being replaced. While automation handles repetitive tasks, professionals in design and construction will rely on AI to gain deeper insights, refine their decision-making skills, and fast-track their career growth. This shift offers opportunities to rethink how we develop talent and adapt to AI-driven workflows.
To explore more about AI’s role in shaping the future of work and automation in the AEC industry, check out these related blog posts at YegaTech Blog | Insights on AI, AEC, and Data Science.
