---
id: "action-invest-ai-literacy"
type: "action-item"
source_timestamps: ["§ Relieving the Pressure: How Leaders Can Reduce Workslop"]
tags: ["training", "enablement"]
related: ["claim-competence-halves-workslop", "lit-ai-literacy", "framework-system-level-response"]
speakers: ["Kate Niederhoffer", "Alexi Robichaux", "Jeffrey T. Hancock"]
action: "Fund AI literacy programs and encourage the open sharing of successful AI workflows."
outcome: "Halves the likelihood of employees creating workslop by building competence and control."
sources: ["adoption"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-adoption"
originDay: 9
articleStem: "hbr-edu-38-ai-workslop"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2026/01/why-people-create-ai-workslop-and-how-to-stop-it"
sourceTitle: "Why People Create AI “Workslop”—and How to Stop It"
---
# Invest in AI Literacy and Agency

**Action:** Fund AI-literacy programs and encourage the open sharing of successful ('shadow') AI workflows.

Organizations should actively build employees' sense of competence and control over AI tools — through formal AI-literacy investment, encouraging the sharing of otherwise-hidden AI practices, and deploying engineers to assist teams. Grounded in [[claim-competence-halves-workslop]] and the broader [[lit-ai-literacy]] literature.

**Expected outcome:** Halves the likelihood of employees creating [[concept-workslop-d38]] by building competence and control.


## Related across articles
- [[action-assess-internal-literacy]]
- [[lit-ai-literacy]]