What is AI in HR?
What is AI in HR?
Artificial Intelligence is said by some to be a true 'disrupter' to many fields and will wipe out millions of professional workers from the job market. If there is some truth to that, how will AI impact the human resource field? How can AI support businesses in their people strategy and what are AI's limitations? For specific AI product reviews, check out our review here.
Our research thus far reveals that AI innovation is focused on improving talent acquisition with two parts:
1) to improve the effectiveness of candidate search and qualification
2) to improve candidate experience
Talent acquisition is a struggle for most businesses, regardless of industry or size. Hiring managers and business leaders experience recruiting as a long, often disorganized, inconsistent, ineffective and costly process which generally gives everyone involved a bad experience. It's not something they look forward to leaning into. This causes rippling effects in a business. If talent acquisition is seen so negatively, what are the chances a people manager will want to deal with an under performer and create a potential situation where he/she will have to hire... in addition to juggling their other job responsibilities? Small.
People managers have the hard role to simultaneously hold their employees accountable to results and to support them in performance and development. It's HR's duty to enable and support people managers. Often, HR is unable to have those deep conversations and build strategic people plans because they're buried in transactional tasks. HR can get caught in process rather than purpose. For example, an HR Generalist is approached by a hiring manager with a job requisition, the HRG can get caught in the recruitment cycle in the blink of an eye. Job descriptions, approvals, postings, reviewing 200+ resumes, qualifying, screening 5, 10, 20 candidates, scheduling interviews etc. take over. The HRG doesn't have the space to reflect on the purpose of the role, the success profile of the role, the impact the role will have on the team and business, the change in work flows for the team, training, successful on-boarding plan (not a 2 week plan) etc. It's not the fault of one party or another, it's just how things run in many HR departments to meet the demands of compliance, legal, and client stakeholders.
AI can take over some of the more redundant and repetitive items HR gets bogged down with. An AI tool can reach out to candidates, assist them in filling out applications, it can ask qualifying questions, respond to candidates that don't meet minimum qualifications, schedule interviews and respond to inquires. AI isn't going to take over our jobs, it's going to allow us to support businesses the way they need us the most: people & leadership development, talent selection, recruitment strategy, management coaching, organizational design, training, and culture creation.
While some fear AI and it's impact to our human resource field, we feel it's a great enabler to our purpose and we can't wait for innovations to hit the market for small and mid sized companies and to hit other categories. Currently, most of the products are geared to the talent acquisition category of human resources and designed for larger enterprises. If you have hands on experience with AI in HR please contact us!