Tech Gives You Time Back: 5 Questions to Ask Your Team
Artificial intelligence and automated workflows are changing the way organizations work. They have alleviated some of the burden of day-to-day, manual tasks, freeing teams from work that once consumed valuable hours. It’s made work – and life – easier, while giving teams something technology has always promised: time back.
But, as we recently covered, getting those hours back is only the beginning. What you do with that newly reclaimed time is what actually defines a successful tech integration. Treat those saved hours like a bonus, and reinvest them directly into your team's growth, strategy, and leadership capacity.
The best way to start doing that is by sitting down with your people and using these five straightforward questions to guide the conversation.
#1. If you had complete freedom to choose your next internal role or project, what would it be?
When you have high-performing team members in the daily grind of manual execution, their focus naturally narrows on the immediate need – what report needs to be sent out, what data needs to be organized, etc. Removing some of the technical constraints with AI and automation allows their focus to widen.
This question can:
Bring out talents and interests that don't show up on a standard job description.
Keep great talent around because when employees realize their company supports their future aspirations, retention can skyrocket. In a five-year study, 94% of employees said they would stay at a company longer if it invested in their career.
Help you identify the right learning opportunities to build new skills, expand their capabilities, and prepare them for future roles.
#2. What is one area of our business outside your immediate role that you’ve always wanted to understand better?
Deep specialization is great, but cross-functional curiosity is what builds future executives. Siloed team members usually struggle to see how their work impacts other departments or the business as a whole. By asking this question, we can identify what our people are curious about. Understanding that curiosity gives leaders a starting point for creating exposure, encouraging collaboration, and building broader business knowledge.
In the end, this question can lead to:
Encouraging cross-departmental curiosity and collaborative problem-solving.
Preparing people for higher-level management and broad business leadership. In today’s world, internal mobility matters. Gartner estimates that turnover caused by a lack of future career opportunities costs average-sized companies $49 million per year.
Helping team members make smarter day-to-day decisions because they understand the bigger operational picture.
#3. If we set aside two dedicated hours every week for personal and professional growth, how would you structure that time to get the highest return?
Without a clear plan, protected development time gets swallowed by incoming emails and urgent fire drills. Asking them to design their own learning setup creates personal accountability and high engagement.
The answer to this question can help shape a development plan that includes:
Upskilling or reskilling
Cross-department or leadership shadowing
Mentoring junior team members
#4. Are there certifications, industry events, or specialized training programs you've pushed to the back burner that we should unlock for you?
When teams are focused on repetitive and manual work, professional development can be an easy thing to drop or push off for “later.” Now that time is no longer the barrier, you can give your team the resources to level up.
This question can:
Show that the business and its leaders are willing to put resources behind employees’ growth.
Fill knowledge gaps with external programs and industry events.
Protect your talent pipeline because, according to PwC, nearly half of workers state that access to skill development is a key decider in staying with a company versus jumping ship.
#5. What is one skill you think industry leaders are overlooking today that you want to master by this time next year?
This question shifts their focus outward toward the industry and the skills that will not just help them keep up, but stay ahead of the curve.
This question can:
Prompt employees to look outside the company and identify emerging skills and trends worth paying attention to.
Replace vague development goals with a concrete skill to build and a clear timeline for doing it.
Help your organization stay ahead by developing capabilities before they become industry standards.
Experiencing the Real ROI of AI with Lineup
The ultimate goal of adopting new tech should be about clearing space for human strengths like critical thinking, team development, and leadership depth. By using saved hours to ask the right questions and build real growth plans, you help your team stay ahead in an increasingly automated world.
These questions give you a starting point. Lineup gives you the framework to act on the answers. Lineup Teams not only gives you time back but also helps you know your people well enough to invest that time where it can have the greatest impact. By tracking candidate profiles, mapping team capabilities, and connecting people to the right committees, initiatives, and projects, Lineup turns people data into actionable development opportunities.
That’s the true ROI of technology: not just giving your organization time back, but giving you the insight to use that time to develop and activate your people.
