INTHEBLACK September 2026 - Flipbook - Page 55
“It helps people gain confidence and develop
the judgement to know which tasks require
deeper attention and which can be handled
more routinely.”
Rosalie Adriano FCPA, founder and
managing director at consultancy group
RA Inspired, points to a similar pattern in
finance. “People who have spent time in the
details tend to develop stronger judgement,
better questioning skills and more confidence
in decision-making.”
A TRAINING GROUND FOR LEADERS
Many finance professionals begin their careers
far away from strategy discussions and
boardroom decisions.
“Early career roles provide exposure to how
processes connect across finance, operations
and systems,” says Adriano. “That understanding
comes from doing the work — not just
reviewing outputs.
“You learn how numbers move through
a business, how systems connect and where
issues can arise. When something does not
add up, you work through it until it does.
That builds both technical understanding
and persistence.”
also lower the immediate cognitive load, which
may free up mental capacity to consider a wider
range of possibilities.”
The task itself may not be creative. The space
it creates can be.
THE NEED FOR COGNITIVE BALANCE
Routine work can also serve another purpose
that gets less attention: recovery. “If people
are constantly pushed from one demanding
task to the next, they may simply become too
tired to think creatively,” KC says.
His research on multitasking suggests there
is a set-up or warm-up cost when people
switch tasks.
“The more complex and novel the task,
the greater that switching cost is likely to be.
So having some more routine tasks mixed into
the workday may actually help people manage
their task load better.”
There are also implications for satisfaction
and motivation.
“If AI removes the easier tasks and leaves
workers mostly with the hardest exceptions,
employees may face a more concentrated form
of complexity. That can increase dissatisfaction
and attrition,” KC says.
The issue is not routine work itself, she
explains, but how capabilities are developed
if it disappears. “If organisations remove the
traditional learning layer, they need to replace
it by design.”
Small wins often matter more than
organisations realise. Completing a task, even
a minor one, creates momentum and a sense
of progress.
KC sees a risk of deskilling if organisations
move too quickly to take routine tasks from
junior employees. “If people no longer perform
the basic tasks, they may lose the ability to
understand, evaluate or improve the work
being done by AI.”
STAYING CLOSE TO THE DETAILS
SPACE FOR IDEATION
One of the risks of automation, Adriano says, is
that it can create distance from the detail, which
is often where problems first begin to surface.
“From a governance perspective, that distance
becomes an issue when people are expected
to make decisions without fully understanding
how the underlying information is produced.
Research from the University of California
suggests repetitive tasks that allow the mind
to wander can be catalysts for innovation and
creative problem-solving.
“Over time, this creates capability gaps.
People progress into more senior roles without
having built the experience that comes from
working through complexity and uncertainty.”
“Creativity often requires exposure to
a range of ideas, including those that may
seem unrelated at first,” says KC. “It also
requires some incubation time before those
ideas come together in a new way.”
This is particularly important in finance and
accounting where areas such as fraud, risk and
compliance rely not only on systems but also
on human judgement. Adriano says that while
automation can flag unusual activity, it cannot
replace the professional scepticism needed
to assess it properly.
He explains that switching to a more routine
task can help with both. “It gives the person
a small change in mental perspective and it gives
the brain time to keep working on the difficult
problem in the background. Routine tasks can
“AI can generate an answer, but a person
still has to stand behind it. That accountability
does not change.” ■
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UPSKILL
With CPA Australia’s
AI Ethics for Modern
Professionals
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intheblack.cpaaustralia.com.au 55
