AI has begun to have a real impact on every stage of the HR process. Talla CEO Rob May, an AI automation platform, shares how Hilton Hotels used AI to shorten their recruiting process by about 75%.
Artificial intelligence (AI) can have a profound effect on making businesses more productive, and HR teams are uniquely poised to benefit from it. But actually adopting and implementing AI can be a daunting task, and many teams aren’t quite sure where to begin. It’s easy to get overwhelmed (and confused) by the volume of literature out there. But the fact of the matter is that the workplace is shifting at an extremely rapid rate and business leaders need to be asking themselves how, not if, they are going to implement AI.
On our podcast episode of AI at Work, we sat down with Jeanne Meister, Founder of Future Workplace, to discuss why HR teams can’t afford to wait to adopt AI, the value of adopting AI for HR, and how non-technical leaders can implement AI. Here’s what HR leaders need to know about implementing AI and how to separate fact from fiction:
#1 AI is not going to take the “human” out of human resources.
A concern that we hear over and over again is that people are worried that AI and bots are going to take steal their job. Quite the contrary is the case. AI is going to free HR up from monotonous tasks and allow teams to focus on more exciting and challenging parts of their job, allowing them to provide an even better experience for their employees.
AI is going to allow HR teams to improve every step of the HR process: recruiting, interviewing, onboarding, learning and development, and performance management. For example, Hilton Hotels found that by implementing AI in their recruiting process, they were able to shorten it by about 75%. And even more importantly, they were able to identify top candidates even sooner in the process. This freed up their recruiting manager’s time to be able to provide a more personalized experience to the top candidates, answer questions more efficiently, and recruit them even faster.
#2 Take the time to learn about AI, even if you don’t consider yourself a technical person.
Even if you don’t have a technical background, make it a point to learn about AI. It can be intimidating at first, but continue to consume information and focus on the ways in which it can improve your existing processes. To get started, learn definitions and nomenclature: for example, learn about what is (and isn’t) AI, machine learning, natural language processing, and chatbots. As you begin reading and familiarizing yourself, you’ll start to uncover ways in which they can be used to enhance and transform the employee and candidate experience.
#3 Get your team involved with implementing AI and create a shared vision.
In order to best determine where to get started, start by identifying which part of your HR processes have the most urgency. For example, is it in hiring, learning and development, or onboarding new employees? Once you uncover this, you can start building out the business use case and get other stakeholders involved in transforming it.
Teams can often times fall into the trap of thinking they need to solve everything by themselves. AI is a cross-functional opportunity, and by including members and leaders from different parts of the organization, you’ll see far better results. So don’t hesitate to include people from all parts of the organization so that you can come together on a shared vision and identify the best early use case.
#4 Don’t hesitate. The time is now for implementing AI.
There is no time to waste when it comes to embracing AI. HR is moving from being a process-driven area to really focusing on enhancing the employee experience. Your employees expect to have a great experience. People no longer work at one company for their entire career. The average employee changes jobs every few years, and if you don’t deliver a great experience, then retaining top talent is that much more difficult. HR, unfortunately, can sometimes be an overlooked area within organizations. Too often we see that HR departments are run like a post office when they need to be run more like Zappos. It’s all about personalizing the candidate and employee experience. AI gives HR leaders the ability to be more productive, streamline processes, and ultimately, deliver a more human experience. But there’s no time to delay in implementing AI because your competitors are already doing so and the gains you see from AI increase exponentially over time. The longer you delay, the more time they have to leapfrog you and get even further ahead.
There are so many ways in which AI can improve the work that HR leaders do, whether that’s in recruiting, hiring, onboarding, learning and development, and performance management. By getting started today with AI, they can start to see immediate benefits that will only increase over time. And by making HR activities more efficient, they’ll be able to deliver an even better employee experience and have even more time to put the “human” back in human resources.
