If you’ve been sharing big plans to adopt artificial intelligence and related tools at your business with your employees, you could be making them less productive. 

A recent study from Washington State University researchers found workers who fear artificial intelligence will threaten their occupation often become less effective and engage in bad behavior in the workplace. 

The study, published in the journal Occupational Health Science, evaluated the effects of looming AI adoption on worker attitudes and behaviors across 18 industries. 

Researchers used an existing, objective database of AI exposure, the AI Industry Exposure index, to identify which industries were facing the most potential disruption from AI, and surveyed workers across a variety of industries about their attitudes and behaviors. Workers in finance and insurance had some of the highest levels of exposure, while those in agriculture and forestry had the least. 

Overall, workers who were worried about the future of their occupation were more likely to morally disengage at work, meaning they were more likely to justify behaviors they would normally consider inappropriate, such as swiping a coworker’s lunch in the breakroom fridge. In turn, those employees self-reported more counterproductive behaviors such as surfing the web or coming in late for a shift. 

The study’s authors argue that when employees feel their occupation is at risk, they may come to view workplace norms and expectations differently, rationalizing behaviors such as cutting corners or undermining others as necessary to protect themselves or to compensate for perceived injustice. 

“Counterproductive workplace behaviors are harmful to the interpersonal relationships within an organization,” said Tahira M. Probst, a professor of psychology at WSU Vancouver and lead author of the study, in a statement. “If you’re not showing up, that puts more work on your coworkers. If you’re doing things that impact your ability or your coworkers’ ability to get their work done properly, or if you’re wasting organizational resources, there’s a lot of potential harm to an organization, not just to the bottom line, but to the effective functioning of the organization.”