How Businesses can use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to Improve their HR Operations

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of those buzzwords that has taken the world by storm over the past few years as a range of technological and algorithmic advancements have brought the potential that was identified back in the 1960s to the fore in a very serious way.  It’s clear to anyone who is paying attention that AI is going to revolutionize every industry that it touches.

Human Resources (HR) is no exception.  HR tech in general has already forced a serious paradigm shift in how we think about dealing with employees, but artificial intelligence in HR is going to take that to another level altogether.  You can either stick your head in the sand and keep doing things as you’ve always done them, or you can empower yourself and learn to apply it to transform your operational capabilities.

Let’s look at three different practical applications of how AI is transforming HR operations:

HR Analytics

HR is, by its nature, a very people-focused pursuit.  But often when a company reaches a certain scale, it begins to rely on data and analytics to supplement and support the human efforts on the ground.  AI is going to take these analytical capabilities to the next level by applying advanced machine learning to search for patterns and trends that can assist HR personnel to make better decisions.

This data-driven approach applies across learning and development, company culture, diversity, employee morale, and a thousand other use cases – anywhere that data can be collected and processed.  AI is going to superpower our ability to analyze it and give HR managers a sophisticated set of tools to work with if they are able to integrate these insights into their workflows.

Process Improvements

Unfortunately, a large part of HR work today still revolves around tedious paperwork.  There’s a tragic irony to the fact that the sort of people who went into HR because they wanted to work with people, often spend most of their days doing administrative work to keep the larger processes and structures running as they should.  AI changes all of that.

Artificial intelligence in HR will be able to take that load and automate a wide range of routine, process-driven tasks so that the human HR managers can focus on the higher-value tasks that they were trained to do.  Debora Bubb said it well when she mused: “Ask yourself: what things would be better if they were done 24/7? What would be better if it were done at scale? What would benefit from greater consistency? What would be possible if we leveraged broader expertise to see beyond our current limits? These are good candidates for AI.”

This will be a gamechanger for any companies that are able to push through the growing pains and implement AI systems that can be leveraged to reprioritize our finite time and resources.

Recruitment and Hiring

Recruitment processes worldwide are mired in complexity, and even though hiring is a vitally important part of any business, it still remains very difficult to get it right because of the sheer volume of considerations.  AI is set to turn this on its head by bringing its powerful capabilities in data processing, prediction models, and task automation to the table.

We’ve already seen advancements in automatically screening CVs, finding difficult-to-spot patterns in hiring data, automated practical interviews, and advanced scoring for various characteristics – that make the lives of a hiring panel that much easier.  It doesn’t absolve them of the responsibility to find a really great candidate – but it does give them a wonderfully diverse suite of information to make a good decision, while also screening out a range of obviously unsuitable candidates without wasting the time of HR employees.

Those are just three examples of how artificial intelligence in HR is going to change everything.  Forward thinking companies are going to take that to heart and take serious steps to integrating it into their company processes.  Those who don’t will find themselves on the wrong side of history.  

Which camp are you in?

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