Corporate India is going through a defining time, with emerging technologies taking over many areas of business. Human resource is one such critical area, which is core to any business and has been going through rounds of revolution and transformation, both in terms of processes and technology.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) happens to be the newest kid in the block, which is taking the recruitment processes by storm, as it is getting re-engineered every day, with more and more intelligent and repetitive work being replaced by AI. Let’s look at some of the key areas where AI is being used to empower workforce:
1) Removing bias
Unconscious bias is a huge challenge that all corporate are trying to fight. Corporate India is no exception. When it’s a conscious bias, it’s easier to tackle but unconscious bias creeps in the most unexpected way. It can not only influence the choice of a candidate at the time of interview, but also the job description itself, making it a far more pervasive problem. AI can easily be used to remove this unconscious bias.
2) Evaluate profiles and first level interviews
Today recruiters are spending a considerable amount of time in scanning, evaluating and shortlisting profiles and doing the first level interviews. The outcome of this is often very subjective, based on the emotional state of the recruiters. AI can easily take over these repetitive jobs, bring more objectivity to it and complete it much faster. There are quite a few AI-based platforms in the market today. A Forrester report states, by 2020, candidates applying to jobs at 20% of large global enterprises will interact with chatbots before recruiters.
3) Improved employee onboarding experience
Employee onboarding is the employee’s first experience with an organization and it’s the organization’s best opportunity to create an excellent first impression. Today, due to a resource crunch and subjectivity associated with people, onboarding experience tends to be random and unstandardized. Using AI effectively can help new employees navigate their way into an organization more seamlessly. It gives them an excellent onboarding experience.
4) Identifying the customized training requirement for employees
Mostly, people become redundant within an organisation because they lack relevant skills. But if we can train the employees in a timely fashion, then organizations can utilize its existing staff, without having to retrench and hire new employees. AI can be used very effectively to match existing talent with the required ones. It also helps in identifying the gaps in skill-set and forecasts who is the best trained on which of the required skills.
5) Resource Management function
People intensive businesses have a huge challenge of finding the right skilled people internally at the right time. Unfortunately, they often end up hiring people at a higher cost, when an equally skilled person is available within the company. AI can help with this function and in a very time effective manner, thus reducing the cost of hiring, training and keeping a skilled resource on the bench.
6) Identifying people who are looking out
The biggest loss to any organization is losing its trained and experienced employees to competition. AI can easily track the employees keystroke patterns, idle time & internet checking patterns and predict whether the person is looking out for newer opportunities.
7) Smarter and better people analytics
AI-enabled employee analytics provide the necessary insight to ensure better employee experience. It ensures meaningful employee engagement, creating happier employees and increased employee retention.
And these are only a few of the core functions that AI can do immediately. However, there still exists a degree of apprehension amongst the human resource fraternity to totally embrace AI, for reasons unfounded. AI today is not just efficient, it is also inexpensive. Just one word of caution. Recruitment processes must review and re-engineered to remove age old practices.
Research from PwC shows that 63 percent of companies are rethinking their HR department in light of the impact AI will have on the business. Thanks to AI and RPA, HR experts will be now able to focus on the core areas, which cannot be done by any technology. AI can help build a high-performance human resource team and as a result a high-performance workforce.
(By Mohua Sengupta, EVP and Global Head of IT Services, 3i Infotech)
