The six-hour unlock: What managers do with the time AI saves them determines your AI ROI

This is the third post in a four-part series on the organizational conditions that determine whether AI adoption produces real performance. Earlier posts introduced the two manager archetypes that determine AI adoption and examined how leadership communication shapes AI behavior across an organization.

In the craziness of today’s world, many of us dream of getting a few extra hours back. So when BetterUp Labs found that AI saves managers approximately six hours a week, the natural followup was to wonder what managers do with those six hours. We found that 42% of the time AI saves goes back into improving existing work quality and 33% goes to administrative tasks. Both patterns helped with productivity but didn’t impact team AI performance. Managers who reinvested AI-saved time into developing their people, their own growth, and strategic planning, however, saw their team's AI performance increase by 65%.

Where the cost of Automator behavior shows up

The Calibrator behavior of protecting relationships is where the gap between Calibrators and Automators becomes most visible. When managers substitute AI for human conversations, such as mentor check-ins, career guidance and direct feedback delivered in person, they erode the trust the rest of the organization depends on.

Imagine, for example, a student who needs help with a difficult concept. They can go to AI instead of office hours and will probably get the answer they need. But the professor won't know who that student is. “If they were to come to me at the end of the year and say, hey, would you write me a letter of reference? I'd be like, I don't know who you are,” said Jeff Hancock, a Stanford research professor. “Versus, I'd be really excited to help launch you into the next thing.”

The same substitution plays out in organizations. If the mentor check-in is routed to a chatbot, the performance conversation is replaced by an AI-generated summary. When managers substitute AI for those human conversations, team coordination drops by 12%, burnout rises by 26%, and intent to leave rises by 29%.

A better way to use AI

Kate Niederhoffer, Chief Scientist at BetterUp Labs, identified three ways managers can use AI to generate better relationships rather than eroding them:

• Drafting sensitive messages before sending them
• Preparing mentally for a difficult conversation before having it
• Role-playing a challenging interaction in advance

These findings draw on research conducted using BetterUp's AI coaching product, Grow™. In a randomized controlled trial, managers using purpose-built coaching AI were 17% more prepared at work compared to those using a general-purpose tool, who were only 5% more prepared.

When managers use AI as preparation for the human conversation rather than a substitute for it, measures of connectedness and cross-functional collaboration increase. AI handles the preparation and the manager shows up prepared, based on the practice. As Rachel Barak, Head of People Development at Google, described it, “Coaching has this unique value proposition to be both one size fits all and one size fits each.” At a company of nearly 200,000 people, 90% of participants who used AI coaching reported greater confidence and capability as managers.

Building the infrastructure for reinvestment

Reinvesting time in people is an investment that compounds in direct financial terms. A BetterUp Labs analysis of 198 publicly traded companies found that organizations ranked in the top 50% by coaching culture score outperformed the bottom 50% by 231% on return on invested capital, 145% on operating return on assets, and 111% on free cash flow yield.

The Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) in Ontario, for example, found that after it provided coaching for all employees, the organization produced the only financial surplus in its 110-year history and returned more than $21.5 billion to the Ontario economy through reduced premiums over six years.

“Investing in your people is a smart business move,” said Jeff Lang, president and CEO of the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board in Ontario. “You're only as good as the people that work for you.”

Up next: The fastest-declining metric in your workforce — and what it has to do with AI

See how organizations are building coaching cultures that make AI investment compound.
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