As technology continues to develop at a rapid pace, artificial intelligence (AI) is in the news left and right, inhabiting almost every industry. Perhaps more important, AI is no longer a future concept to work toward -- it’s already a mainstay in our workplaces as more and more organizations leverage AI to improve the overall employee experience and business performance.
Human Resources, in particular, has become a technologically advanced sector, one that is increasingly streamlined and working smarter.
As the founder of a workforce software company, I've seen and worked with a long list of HR departments from a wide range of industries that are at different stages of AI adoption and implementation. I've seen the areas that HR managers are focusing on for considering the use of AI in their departments and also where they might envisage that AI could be a future benefit.
AI is becoming a key driver behind job-candidate matching and automating communications with candidates, including applicant feedback. These are arguably the two biggest areas where AI is at its most effective, eliminating human bias and increasing efficiency in candidate assessment and communication. With AI, candidates aren’t being disregarded, as matching isn’t entirely based on keywords, and there's enough time to cover everybody. When taking a manual approach, there are ways to hack the system by stuffing the resume with the right keywords in order for it to land into human hands.
There are also AI-powered solutions out there that target HR specifically for activities like sourcing, recruiting, talent acquisition, onboarding, training and more. Thanks to AI, organizations are able to better grade and rank qualifications during the screening process, develop candidate profiles, interact with job candidates and quickly reach out to the best ones before other companies take action. Hours of grunt work regarding recruiting and onboarding will be saved, allowing recruiters time to focus on top-quality candidate experiences that directly impact the bottom line. In addition, AI can help solve the problem of candidates having a negative impression of a brand as each of them gets feedback thanks to increasingly present chatbots, whether it’s dismissing candidates or scheduling interviews.
These are just some quick examples of a beneficial relationship between AI and HR. From a more advanced and immersive standpoint, combined with robotics, AI software can also do facial recognition, identify gender and mood and decode interviews to assess education level -- even lying -- and cognitive ability.
There are still lots of areas currently done manually that can evolve beyond the boundaries set by current practices. The deployment of AI in HR is of an analytical nature, driven by data commonly known as people analytics. It's a fairly new domain for the majority of HR departments. After all, people are the most valuable asset within an organization, and analytics drive innovation.
One instance where AI is emerging as a technology driving change in HR departments is skill gap analysis. Working out gaps in competencies is a routine challenge for HR professionals as almost every organization battles with skill gaps, whether they are actually there or a result of unrealistic expectations.
The difference between the skills demanded by the job and the skill set possessed by applicants is handled by AI, whether it’s on a team or a company level. Job description, business goals and company values are all taken into account, along with possible future skills needed, thanks to predictive analysis. These insights are indispensable to a company’s growth. They allow HR to focus on managing and implementing strategic initiatives while AI does its thing to automate the process and refine data to facilitate better decision making.
The same goes for training and succession planning. A huge advantage of AI is the ability to supervise the entire workforce at once. That means automatically analyzing skills and determining areas for improvement, immediately impacting performance evaluation of current employees. Instead of hiring for particular skills, AI can offer training for employees in skills the company would like to have or strengthen, as well as provide additional learning courses when needed.
For example, it could help HR managers create a stimulating environment for their team members to develop and thrive or coach the managers themselves on refining their leadership skills. This is useful for areas like performance and compliance, where relying more on the analytical processing of massive volumes of data beats individual observations and opinions.
As for succession planning, AI can identify the right talent for each role within the department or across the organization. Distinguishing employees’ career options for the betterment of the organization is vital for its success and long-standing health. Thanks to its machine-learning capabilities, AI can pinpoint individual development opportunities without bias and connect the dots between the company’s strategic vision and opportunities and employees’ top strengths and skills in order to identify and assess specific candidates for future leadership roles. The entire process is faster and more efficient as the majority of time-consuming tasks are handled through smart data matching.
In its coming of age, AI is emerging as a game changer across many HR areas. It began with applicant engagement and is moving fully across skills and performance through to succession planning. I predict that HR will soon go through a change in required skill sets as the departmental role will evolve, calling for a renewed strategy and focus on workforce assessment and development. Perhaps the biggest challenge will be to reimagine many of the current work and workforce configurations to allow powerful AI capabilities to produce more focused insights from complex data sets. That’s something we humans can’t compete with. The good thing is we don’t have to, as AI and people are smarter together.
A more productive and efficient workplace begins when HR leaders implement numerous layers of AI to deliver more value to their organizations. Whether they are ready for this transformation, both on an individual and organizational level, remains to be seen. The groundwork is already laid out; it’s just a matter of taking the necessary steps.
