---
id: "claim-competence-halves-workslop"
type: "claim"
source_timestamps: ["§ Relieving the Pressure: How Leaders Can Reduce Workslop"]
tags: ["statistics", "training", "agency"]
related: ["action-invest-ai-literacy", "lit-ai-literacy"]
speakers: ["Kate Niederhoffer", "Alexi Robichaux", "Jeffrey T. Hancock"]
confidence: "high"
testable: true
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"
---
# Competence and control over AI tools halves the likelihood of creating workslop

The research indicates that employees who possess a sense of **competence and control** over their AI tools are **50% less likely** to generate [[concept-workslop-d38]]. This highlights the necessity of moving beyond mere *access* to AI tools and investing heavily in AI literacy, modeling otherwise-hidden ('shadow') AI practices, and deploying engineers to help integrate AI effectively into specific workflows. It is the evidentiary basis for [[action-invest-ai-literacy]].

- **Confidence:** high · **Testable:** yes

**Enrichment.** The *direction* (competence reduces workslop) is strongly supported by external emphasis on AI literacy and treating AI outputs like those of an 'untrained intern' ([[lit-ai-literacy]]); the exact 50% figure is grounded in the authors' dataset and not reproduced in earlier secondary sources.