While HR can immensely benefit from implementing AI in various aspects of the HR function, it also needs to plan meticulously for the success of AI initiatives.
This is an exclusive interview conducted by the Editor Team of CIO News with Saiprasad Muzumdar, Chief Technology Officer for India for one of the large UK banks.
One of the corporate functions that has enthusiastically embraced AI is HR. In a recent survey by Gartner, it’s reported that 81% of the HR leaders surveyed have explored or implemented AI solutions in their own departments. A major thrust has been on implementing generative AI solutions. AI has been increasingly used in making decisions about hiring, retention, and employee development. AI has also been used to automate transactional services like payroll and benefit administration.
Let’s look at different ways in which AI can be effectively used in HR functions in your organization.
Hiring
AI can be very effectively used to find the right talent by analysing the CVs and matching them with the job descriptions. A tool like Workable is a good example of this. It can create a list of ‘ideal’ candidates by scraping data from sites like LinkedIn or other online websites. It can even send an email on your behalf to those candidates by making a pitch for your open positions. We can use AI to drive the evaluation process, from interview insights to personality assessments. Using AI not only saves manual efforts and speeds up the process but also ensures that no suitable candidate is overlooked due to human error or subjective bias.
Managing New Joiners and Leavers
Employee onboarding is a proverbial low hanging fruit. A new employee joining any organization often feels overwhelmed by the procedures and paperwork associated with the new joiner process. Many organizations are short-staffed for this activity, or at times the HR or business representatives are so busy with their own work that they are not able to spend time with the new hires to answer their queries or make the onboarding process seamless. Thus, many times the new hires start in the new organization with stress and a sense of alienation. An AI platform can easily drive the onboarding process by guiding each new joiner through the maze of processes and approvals at their own pace, helping them understand the company policies, processes, and nuances of the benefits, and setting up the initial training required for the role. A new joiner feels more welcome and creates a sense of belonging to the organization.
Similarly, when an employee leaves a company, the AI can manage exit surveys objectively, handle the return of company assets, and seamlessly manage other exit formalities. This ensures a smooth transition and builds company goodwill.
Employee engagement initiatives
HR teams often find it difficult to gauge employee sentiments accurately. The AI platform can automate the process by creating surveys that solicit honest and anonymous feedback, analysing the results, and identifying trends and areas of strength or concern that can give the HR team valuable insight to improve employee engagement and satisfaction.
Performance Reviews
AI tools can be used to track and analyse performance data throughout the year. The system can consider factors like completed tasks, milestone completion, process compliance, deliverable quality, budget variance, peer feedback, team feedback, and customer feedback on a continuing basis and provide a comprehensive report highlighting strengths, opportunities for improvement, and progress over time for each individual in the team. The tool can assist an employee in articulating his or her achievements in an objective way. This eliminates the manager’s subjectivity and bias and makes the whole review process more objective, transparent, and fair.
Talent Development
AI tools can personalize learning and development for employees by looking at their current skills, their current roles and goals, their ambitions, and the requirements of the organization. The tool can deliver the training, conduct assessments, and link it with the employee performance review to monitor the employee’s progress on the job. This personalized approach can motivate employees to actively engage in their own career development and provide an opportunity for the organization to measure the return on investment of the training.
Workforce Planning
HR departments working with business units can effectively plan the future hiring plan by looking at performance reviews and analysing the current workforce skills, training results, and organizational growth plan. Based on industry trends and the organization’s growth plans, the AI tool can predict which roles might need to be filled next year and if talent is available within the organization or needs to be hired externally.
HR Virtual Assistants
This is an area where most of the organizations have invested significantly over the past few years. Many organizations have built their own virtual assistants using 3rd-party AI platforms, such as IBM’s WatsonX. A virtual assistant is available 24×7 to the employees to ask queries about company policies, benefits, and transactional issues and get instant resolution without having to wait for days. This also allows the HR team to focus on more strategic tasks than transactional elements, reducing the operational costs of the HR department. This is a win-win situation for employees, the HR department, and the organization as a whole.
Conclusion
AI, and generative AI in particular, is going to significantly change the way HR functions. While HR can immensely benefit from implementing AI in various aspects of the HR function, it also needs to plan meticulously for the success of AI initiatives. The HR department needs to address concerns around data privacy, cyber security, and bias, as well as take into account the risks of AI implementation. With many countries working on framing regulations related to AI, compliance with these regulations will become paramount for HR organizations during the design and implementation of AI solutions. The organization needs to understand and acknowledge that investments in AI will lead to the obsolescence of many tasks and redundant roles while creating the need for new skills and roles. HR needs to clearly build a case for the potential of AI and its benefits for the organization. HR also needs to assess and score different AI solutions, whether bought or built in-house, against well-defined key success criteria.
About the author
Saiprasad Muzumdar is an independent technology consultant helping customers adopt new technologies. He is the former CTO for India for one of the large UK banks, and prior to that, he held senior technology positions in various global 500 companies. He is passionate about providing technological solutions for the betterment of human life.
The names and copyrights of the tools mentioned belong to the respective owners of those tools.
Do Follow: CIO News LinkedIn Account | CIO News Facebook | CIO News Youtube | CIO News Twitter
About us:
CIO News, a proprietary of Mercadeo, produces award-winning content and resources for IT leaders across any industry through print articles and recorded video interviews on topics in the technology sector such as Digital Transformation, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Cloud, Robotics, Cyber-security, Data, Analytics, SOC, SASE, among other technology topics.
