Artificial intelligence is changing HR. Learn how you can use it to transform your business

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Artificial intelligence is still a fairly intimidating or mysterious topic for many, however over the coming decade, we are going to see more and more examples of how “machine-learning” will transform industries and help drive myriad changes, both positive and negative.

In this article, Perchpeek dug into some of the most exciting steps that AI is taking to improve our people management in 2020, and where it is likely to go in the coming decade.

What is artificial intelligence? (Clue - not robots!)

The core element of artificial intelligence is the ability of computers to learn, perceive and reason in situations as a human would. It’s not just about robots anymore. In fact it never was. As technology advances, computers are able to assess more information and take actions for themselves, like a person would. Given a computer can now learn more than a human brain (a computer can now remember all research ever completed on cancer, and was better at chess than our world champion over 20 years ago), AI promises to improve almost every sector and almost all business operations by allowing us to make more analysis-backed decisions, automate more workload, and boost efficiency by exceptional levels..

But HR has the human factor - so how will AI be able to help us?

In our opinion, the human factor always has been and always will be essential in HR. However, by cutting repetitive and time-consuming tasks and providing data-backed insights, HR departments will be able to focus solely on the most valuable asset of their business: the people.

AI already has the potential to help employees perform better and enables HR departments to streamline everything from recruitment to retirement, improving employee engagement, satisfaction, and productivity. Furthermore, it helps in reducing employee turnover, offers better systems for employee training and development, and increases retention.

Below are a few examples of how AI is changing, or will change, HR, and become a valuable lever in the engine room of any HR department.

AI will streamline the hiring processes.

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One of the most important KPIs of any HR department is recruitment performance. The cost of a new hire can be hefty given the amount of time and money goes on advertising the job opening, reviewing CVs, interviewing, and background checks. By some statistics, hiring a full-time employee can easily cost up over $3,500.

Artificial intelligence can help streamline those processes, save money, and increase efficiency while giving HR managers powerful insights that allow them to make smarter decisions.

By looking at previous successful candidates, machines are becoming able to craft models of what a strong candidate looks like. AI-driven software can assess the relative importance of candidates' skills and qualities, and prioritize applicants. Pymetrics, for instance, allows companies to use AI to design tests that distinguish the top performers within a company, and then use these to evaluate applicants. During the recruitment process, candidates take the same set of tests to determine if they are the right match to excel in that role.  

AI is also able to develop an understanding of where in the market the highest frequency of suitable talent is available for a particular role. For instance, Appcast is an AI-powered tool that helps companies streamline their hiring process by providing an easier path to finding the best candidates for a job. The software artificially optimises the budget allocation for finding candidates across a combination of job ads, resume databases, and employer branding ads. It helps companies find talent that suits their needs via advanced algorithmic targeting. Furthermore, it reduces sourcing time and costs by providing companies with real-time market data and job ad split-testing.

Al can help find candidates who aren’t actively applying for roles

With the help of AI, companies can monitor massive databases of passive candidates and determine which of these candidates might be ready for a new opportunity, increasing the available talent pool for a specific position.

AI can also improve recruiters' response times as it allows automating confirmation emails and texts, enabling recruiters to focus on more personal interactions necessary for nurturing good relationships with candidates

AI will improve employee learning and training.

With technology constantly changing, modern-day teams need to be learning every day to stay relevant and competitive vs the market. And they are aware of it!

Millennials form the largest portion of the workforce today, and grew up in a world of information. They read more than previous generations, and know they will have to do it until the end of their working career. Pew Research Center found that almost 90 per cent of employees think it's essential to continually develop new skills to keep up with the ever-changing workplace.

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By promoting continuous learning among their employees, companies can improve their employees' skill set and even boost their motivation and engagement.

One of the ways companies can ensure scalability and competitiveness on the market is by employing an AI-powered software to plan, organize, and coordinate training for all employees.

KEA is a good example of this in practice. It's a software that uses artificial intelligence to help organizations enhance employee learning, training, and development initiatives.

This tool analyzes employee activity and behaviour to offer engaging learning experiences and address each employee's specific corporate training needs. KEA made learning and development easier through comprehending employees' learning patterns and the automated offering of resources relevant to each employee.

AI helps in overcoming unconscious bias in recruitment

On average, companies get around 250 resumes for every job they post. To decrease the workload, HR managers manually reduce their applicant pool by up to 80%, favouring the candidates that look promising. This sounds like standard practice, however it is commonly subject to unconscious bias, and naturally results in a less diverse applicant pool. This has a negative impact on company performance - teams made of a variety of ages, genders and geographical backgrounds make better decisions 87% of the time.

AI used in the hiring process aims to close this gap and avoid unconscious bias, allowing companies to hire a more diverse workforce. AI-powered software can be programmed to ignore demographic information such as gender, race, age or location that have been shown to bias human decision making. Ideal is an example of recruiting software that uses AI to not only streamline the screening process, but produces a shortlist of top candidates whilst crucially avoiding unconscious bias in the process.

Al will enhance employee onboarding experience.

Recent Glassdoor research suggests that a great onboarding experience can improve employee retention for more than 82 per cent. AI can help companies personalize and improve employee onboarding processes by providing new hires with training suggestions, the ability to discover key contacts by providing the essential information that will improve their transition to the new environment.

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Talmundo is an excellent platform that uses AI to keep new employees engaged after the recruitment process. It allows them to see a 360-degree overview of the organization and introduce themselves via chatbots. Furthermore, this tool helps companies identify obstacles and pain points in their onboarding process and build practical solutions.

Al helps companies in employee movement.

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Employee relocation can be a time-consuming and costly task for companies. However, sometimes employee relocation is the smartest solution for companies aiming to launch in a new market or get access to the most diverse range of talent.

AI-powered technology can help companies relocate employees cheaper, faster, and more easily. PerchPeek is an app described as “Tinder for renting”, that helps companies improve satisfaction of relocating employees by utilising AI algorithms to "propose properties that are best likely to suit a person based upon their personality and preferences”.

Upon opening the app, a person is taken through a series of questions, like "What is your favourite type of takeaway?" and "What music do you like best?", and employs machine learning on this data to adapt its suggestions. Given this can happen before the relocator even arrives in the new city, this helps reduce both time and investment required to relocate the employees. 

AI is here to stay - start exploring the possibilities!

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It is already known that artificial intelligence will have a massive impact on the modern workforce. It will help companies streamline their systematic work while improving the quality of their output at the same time.

To HR departments, AI-powered software can streamline and improve talent acquisition, help in avoiding unconscious bias, boost personalisation in team learning and development, and in increasing employee retention.

But there is more to come.

Jayson Saba, senior director of product marketing at Kronos, says that soon AI will be helping us with learnings in employee potential, employee fatigue and employee flight risk, to name a few things.

Almost 90 per cent of companies already use AI in some form in HR. However, many are barely scratching the surface when it comes to the possible breadth and variety of its application. A correctly implemented program could transform your company’s HR processes, and reap many benefits. So start considering the next step your company could make, and embrace the machines!

Thanks for reading!

Perchpeek Team

If an AI-enhanced relocation is something you or a colleague might be interested in, and you’d like to know how we use AI to make house moving so much easier with our relocation app at Perchpeek, feel free to put in time for a call with us here.