AI is a rapidly developing technology that is transforming every sector and HR leaders are already investing in AI to help solve some of their biggest challenges, improve employee experiences and drive organisational success, says Steve Elcock.

In fact, research by Accenture highlights that 73 percent of companies are prioritising artificial intelligence over other digital investments. It is also clear that AI is fast becoming the norm in driving workplace transformation, as according to Gartner, 52 percent of HR leaders participating in a June 2023 Gartner benchmarking session stated they were exploring potential use cases and opportunities when it came to generative AI.

After all the hype about AI, what most senior HR leaders want to know is what AI can actually do today in HR. With greater insight into practical applications, they can look within their organisations to assess the potential use cases and benefits.

Enhancing HR efficiency with AI integration

AI has the potential to revolutionise HR tasks by automating time-consuming and complex processes, allowing HR professionals to spend time on what really matters to them. The potential for improving employee productivity is clear – with AI taking over mundane tasks, employees can fully develop their skills and unleash their true potential.

Organisations can achieve their maximum productivity through using a HR and workforce management system that has AI embedded. It is crucial to balance this automation with human expertise to ensure the AI is working effectively and giving the best responses. AI-based tools such as ChatGPT can enable ‘bots’ to be programmed to manage high-volume, repetitive and rules-based tasks more quickly and accurately than their human counterparts. This can allow employees to access quicker responses in just a few clicks to find out their next shift, check their holiday allowance, their benefits, or see the maternity policy. Equally, there are some huge benefits to the efficiency of the HR function.

Although the applications are endless, here are nine ways AI is automating HR tasks and improving efficiency:

1.     Automated CV screening and candidate matching

CV screening has traditionally been an arduous and time-consuming task, with hundreds or sometimes thousands to review. However, AI-powered CV screening tools enable talent teams to identify the CVs of suitable candidates based on specific job requirements, keywords, and qualifications. This leads to a more efficient, time-saving and objective selection process. It can also rank them for candidate matching based on a company’s previous successful hires, helping HR to find the best fit for their organisation.

2.     Enhanced interview scheduling

With seamless integration into calendars, AI tools also offer automated interview scheduling, to more efficiently coordinate the availability of candidate and interviewer. Beyond this, they can also send automated reminders to ensure timely communication between all parties involved. This benefits HR by saving them valuable time and enhances the candidate experience by keeping them actively informed and engaged throughout the recruitment process.

3.     Seamless employee onboarding and orientation

The onboarding experience of a new employee can set the tone for their entire career journey within an organisation. An AI-powered onboarding platform can guide new employees through documents, training, and orientation in an engaging and personalised way. By offering new joiners a virtual assistant for any questions about their benefits, shift, holiday allowance and more, this ensures that the onboarding process goes smoothly, takes pressure off the HR team, while enabling employee engagement from the get-go.

4.     Insightful employee engagement surveys

AI tools also enable HR teams to analyse thousands of employee engagement surveys within minutes, whilst deriving data-driven insights that can improve company culture and boost employee retention. AI can collect and analyse survey data to identify trends, patterns, and areas for improvement, and some can track employee sentiment and engagement over time. This helps HR to develop strategies to improve overall employee satisfaction and retention rates.

5.      Data-driven performance reviews

Conducting performance reviews can often be subjective, based on limited individual perceptions and opinions. But with AI to harness objective data, HR and people leaders can ensure performance reviews are more objective, efficient and unbiased. With access to employee performance data, such as goals, KPIs, and other metrics, AI algorithms can analyse and aggregate this information to provide valuable insights into employee performance in a quick and efficient manner. It also also identify top performers, making it easier to reward and retain high-performing employees.

6.     Precise payroll processing

Payroll processing is another critical task that can be time-consuming and tedious for HR teams, requiring speed and accuracy to ensure employee satisfaction. In today’s economic climate, any delays and mistakes in pay can negatively impact employee morale. This is another key area for AI to automate, calculating paychecks, tax deductions, and direct deposits. It can even provide employees with direct access to their payroll information, minimising the burden on HR in terms of queries and concerns.

7.     Accurate time and attendance tracking

AI-driven time tracking and attendance management systems can help manage employee attendance and hours, especially with staff working on different schedules, shifts and with disparate teams. AI can also identify patterns in employee attendance and highlight any potential issues, such as excessive absences or tardiness. This data-driven insight allows HR managers to address these issues proactively, check employees are working as they should and make meaningful workforce planning decisions.

8.      Efficient benefits administration

AI can automate the entire benefits administration process, from enrollment to communication and management. With its data processing capabilities, AI can analyse individual employee data and provide personalised recommendations for benefit options that best suit their needs. It can also assist in managing the entire open enrollment process by sending reminders and notifications to employees, thus reducing HR’s administrative burden.

9.     Automated exit interviews and offboarding

While employee departures are inevitable in any organisation, exit interviews play a critical role in understanding why an employee chooses to leave. AI tools can ask open-ended questions and collect feedback from departing employees. It can also analyse this data and generate reports for HR to better understand the reasons behind employee departures. HR can now identify any recurring issues or patterns so they can address these to improve employee retention levels. This also obtains more accurate employee feedback, removing any bias or human error that may have occurred during manual exit interviews.

Getting started with AI

The best place for HR leaders to get started with AI is by identifying those tasks which can be automated and which ones require human intervention. Once there is a clear business case for AI, involving employees in the planning and implementation process of AI systems will make them more invested, through soliciting their feedback and ideas to make improvements where necessary.

Most importantly, HR leaders must regularly assess the balance between automation and human experience to make adjustments that will drive the best HR outcomes.

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Steve Elcock, Founder & CEO of elementsuite.