June 4, 2024

AI in HR: Transforming Human Resources

What is AI in HR
Key advantages of AI for HR solutions
Use cases of AI in HR
Generative AI in HR video conferences
Concerns related to AI in HR
A-Team Global for your AI HR ecosystem
The bottom line

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AI in HR is promised to change the recruitment operational activities dramatically. Despite the changes expected to be grasped by businesses globally in the future, some companies have already reaped the rewards from the technology. AI tools for HR are already available on the market, and businesses utilize them.

While some people advocate that the technology will lead to the replacement of HR teams, others rest assured it will only redesign the approach to work of the specialists. Who’s right? We will provide the perspective of how the technology is used today. In this article, you will find a set of use cases, advantages and disadvantages of AI in HR.

We will enlighten key concerns related to the technology and how they can be mitigated. Also, we will reveal how A-Team Global can propel your AI for HR projects.

First, let's begin with an understanding of what is AI in HR.

What is AI in HR

Artificial Intelligence (AI) encompasses machines capable of analyzing data and making decisions independently, without human intervention. It achieves this through either machine learning or natural language processing techniques, enabling machines to emulate human intelligence.

In the realm of human resources, AI streamlines manual and repetitive tasks, allowing HR departments to allocate their time more efficiently. With predefined parameters and access to company benchmark data, AI expedites high-volume functions that would otherwise demand weeks of HR personnel's attention.

However, while AI offers remarkable processing capabilities, it should not supplant HR staff entirely. Rather, it should be regarded as a valuable team player. Just like a skilled teammate, AI assists in reaching objectives, but it's ultimately up to the HR team to take decisive action. In essence, with AI handling the technical workload, HR professionals are liberated to concentrate on fostering company growth and driving innovation.

Key advantages of AI for HR solutions

AI in HR gives businesses numerous advantages that significantly improve overall operational efficiency. Both in terms of performance and quality.

Significant improvements in self-service

Employees have had mixed reactions to HR self-service in the past, but GenAI is revolutionizing the approach with more conversational workflows and personalized assistance. This user-friendly method is expected to boost adoption rates, as employees value the simplicity and effectiveness of GenAI in addressing their needs.

Enhanced productivity and experience

Similar to how leaders utilize deep consumer insights to deliver personalized, tech-driven customer experiences, these strategies are now being extended to employees. With GenAI's enhanced automation and data analytics, significant improvements are observed: content creation and visualization are completed three times faster, over 50% of onboarding tasks are automated, and recruiting engagement rates double with personalized GenAI messages.

Human touch in critical situations

Despite technology's capabilities, personal interactions remain highly valued by employees. GenAI enables HR professionals to focus on meaningful engagement, thereby enhancing satisfaction during crucial moments.

Always-available HR support

GenAI-powered HR "copilots" are designed to assist employees and managers in real time, providing insights into work patterns, learning requirements, vacation schedules, and reminders for annual objectives or strategic initiatives. Managers can customize onboarding plans, motivate top performers, and receive alerts to re-engage with disengaged team members.

Data-driven talent ecosystem

Companies have invested in understanding employee skills and fostering talent growth. The current challenge lies in utilizing this skills data for impactful talent decisions across the organization. GenAI's capability to integrate various data sources will facilitate interconnected applications like talent assessment, career development, talent acquisition, and learning programs. This fosters a skills-based talent ecosystem aligned with the company's workforce strategy.

Just like any sophisticated system, AI has potential risks for its users. Let’s have a look at the key concerns to consider when implementing the technology into organization processes.

Displace employees

AI could destabilize workforces doing more of their work faster and cheaper. In a paper published in 2023, OpenAI and University of Pennsylvania researchers predicted large language models (LLMs), the basis of generative AI like ChatGPT, will affect 80% of the U.S. workforce. As a result, employees may have to upskill or learn to use AI to their advantage to compensate and remain innovative in their roles.

Expose private data

Because of the large amounts of data AI accesses, including sensitive information like Social Security numbers and birth dates, there is a risk AI could expose this data to the wrong person unintentionally. This violates laws such as the GDPR and CCPA and can result in severe consequences for employees, including identity theft.

Produce inaccurate results

AI is not always right, even when it thinks it is. AI can confidently lie or produce inaccurate business predictions. Especially in HR, such actions can place companies in legal hot water or stall company growth strategies.

Violate employee rights

For the most part, the law has yet to catch up with AI, with only New York City, Maryland, and Illinois regulating the use of AI in recruitment. Nevertheless, AI could discriminate against employees of protected classes under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the ADA, or ADEA. The responsibility lies with the employer, not the AI, for any violations, so employers must thoroughly understand how their AI makes decisions to uphold their employees’ fundamental rights.

Use cases of AI in HR

AI can impact HR workflow in various ways. This section will showcase several AI in HR examples. The cases cover practical benefits for HR teams starting from recruiting tasks and ending up assisting in complying with law regulations.

AI for HR recruitment tasks

AI in Recruitment: AI in recruitment aims to enhance the experiences of both recruiters and candidates. For recruiters, AI minimizes repetitive tasks throughout the recruitment pipeline, boosting efficiency. For candidates, it streamlines the job-hunting process.

Optimizing recruitment processes: Companies have long utilized AI in recruitment due to its capacity to handle high-volume tasks like résumé screening, which can consume significant time for small HR teams. Recruitment agencies also leverage AI tools to reach out to potential applicants, build candidate databases, and manage data for multiple clients, ensuring they identify the best candidates before competitors do.

Impact of generative AI and chatbots: The rise of generative AI and chatbots has further increased the productivity and efficiency of recruitment departments and job seekers. Recruiters can now delegate tasks to AI tools, such as drafting compliant and unbiased job ads. This delegation frees up HR departments to focus on higher-value activities, enhances consistency, and reduces communication errors.

Integration with modern recruitment software: Most contemporary recruitment software and applicant tracking systems (ATS) incorporate AI features. For instance, Zoho Recruit’s AI function suggests top candidates by matching keywords in job descriptions with candidates’ applications, facilitating the targeting of qualified candidates. Integrating these tools with the broader HR tech stack can also provide valuable insights into key HR metrics like attrition and turnover.

Content creation: With the help of AI, HR teams can generate engaging texts and images, which propel recruitment endeavors. Companies from different domains utilize generative AI tools to produce luring job posts based on skill profiles, keywords, or previous postings. Recruiters establish personalized communication with candidates by using AI to adapt postings based on the context. For instance, an automotive company has implemented a generative AI-based avatar for recruitment, providing personalized feedback to each applicant on their application process.

AI recruitment examples

Engage with and invite passive candidates to apply for open positions.
Respond to candidate inquiries about active job advertisements.
Help candidates find and apply to company jobs that match their interests and experiences.
Write job descriptions, interview questions, and offer letters for companies.
Research pay rates and benefits for roles based on location for comparison.
Analyze company data to identify ideal candidates, pinpoint diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) gaps, and predict recruiting metrics like time-to-fill.

AI for HR hassle-free administration

AI in administration: Similar to its role in recruitment, AI in administration alleviates HR departments from the essential but often tedious tasks related to business and employee operations. AI handles traditional, paper-intensive HR activities, such as gathering paperwork and reporting necessary data to government agencies.

Automated workflows: AI allows HR reps to administrate the creation of automated workflows. Thus, they can significantly reduce back-and-forth tasks. For instance, with AI HR teams can automatically respond to employees' email inquiries, streamlining communication and saving valuable time.

Administrative AI examples

Automate the distribution of new hire paperwork during onboarding and follow-up to ensure completion.
Provide documentation or answer common HR questions for employees before they need to contact an HR professional.
Assist employees with payroll or benefits enrollment, offering suggestions for completing paperwork.
Draft company memos or announcements and automatically post them to communication channels.
Generate or retrieve necessary reports or spreadsheets based on specific needs.
Create surveys to collect employee feedback on various topics.

AI for performance management

AI in performance management: AI enhances performance management by facilitating more effective and meaningful employee one-on-ones and goal-setting. In addition to automating performance review schedules, and enabling employees to promptly act on constructive feedback, AI supports fairer promotion and compensation practices that align with diversity equity inclusion goals.

Fair compensation practices: Leading performance management solutions like Lattice utilize AI to supply managers with historical and market benchmarking compensation data. This ensures that companies can implement fair pay practices based on comprehensive data and employees' performance histories.

AI performance management examples

Write constructive feedback for performance reviews.
Transcribe manager one-on-ones and other meetings, highlighting key takeaways.
Predict top performers and identify employees who may need additional support.
Recommend employees for promotions.
Determine project team pairings based on skill set assessments and reviews.
Inform succession planning strategies by identifying potential successors.

AI for streamlining learning and development activity

Leveraging AI in learning and development (L&D) allows companies to offer personalized training courses. This results in better employee engagement and retention. TalentLMS's "The State of L&D in 2022" study found that 76% of employees are more likely to remain with a company that provides continuous training.

Recognizing that everyone learns differently, AI can tailor training to individual learning styles, which is not always possible with traditional company programs. While AI cannot replace experiential learning, it can overcome common barriers in employee development plans, such as time and cost constraints.

AI examples for learning and development

Identify skill gaps at both the individual and company levels.
Assign courses to upskill employees and support quiet hiring efforts through cross-functional learning.
Provide personalized learning development paths tailored to employees' interests and company needs.

AI assists in meeting compliance policy

AI assists companies in keeping up with new regulations, particularly those with global workforces. It can also analyze existing data to identify labor law violations, enabling HR teams to address issues before they escalate.

For example, it is possible to create a dynamic employee portal that adapts to the employee's location. On top of that, such kind of an AI platform automates payroll tax updates and notifies employers of labor law infractions. Consequently, HR departments can focus less on constant risk monitoring and more on ensuring compliance.

AI compliance examples

Draft and review legally compliant job descriptions, employee handbooks, and company policies.
Automatically update employees and notify them of policy changes, along with acknowledgment requests.
Identify potential areas of promotion, role, or pay disparities and alert HR.
Flag violations of labor laws, including instances of minimum wage or COBRA non-compliance.
Provide guidance to employees on hiring procedures or sponsoring immigrants.

Generative AI in HR video conferences

Gone are the days when organizing, running, and managing virtual meetings was a cumbersome task. Thanks to AI, video conferencing platforms are now elevating both internal and external meetings.

Generative AI in HR video communications gives a leg up with real-time translation, creation of meeting notes, post-call summaries, noise cancelation (ensuring clear speech sound), and more. Also, AI allows HR specialists to create a branded background during video meetings ensuring better presentation effect.

Let’s see how exactly AI-driven solutions enhance the meeting experience.

Natural Language Processing (NLP)

NLP is a branch of AI that enables computers to understand text and spoken words like a real person. Essentially, it equips AI with conversational intelligence.

Modern video conferencing tools use NLP for various innovative capabilities:

Voice-to-text transcription: NLP allows AI-enabled platforms to recognize and process complete sentences spoken during meetings. This lets the system automatically capture meeting notes, summarize conversations, and generate searchable transcripts. With machine learning, these platforms can even identify individual speakers.
Real-time translation: For global enterprises, AI can automatically translate live audio into any user’s preferred language, ensuring an equitable experience for all attendees.
Closed captions: NLP can analyze audio and generate closed captions, making meetings more inclusive for everyone.
Noise removal: AI can identify and remove disruptive background noises, like cars, pets, or housemates, ensuring a smooth meeting experience. This is especially beneficial for hybrid teams, as it filters out distractions from various locations.
Sentiment analysis: In customer service scenarios, AI can analyze the sentiment and tone of conversations. This helps managers assess both customer experience and agent performance, identifying pain points and frustrations to drive future improvements.

Conversational AI

Conversational AI, although rooted in NLP, stands apart with its unique capabilities. These platforms can engage in dynamic interactions with users, going beyond basic communication.

For instance, voice-based virtual assistants can significantly streamline meeting management. Users can verbally command their devices to initiate a meeting, turn on cameras, capture key points, and control the entire experience.

Additionally, chatbots can handle tasks like scheduling follow-up meetings, assigning action items, and sending automated reminders.

Computer Vision (CV)

AI technology uses algorithms to interpret, analyze, and reconstruct visual data from images or videos.

Here are some innovative applications of CV in meetings:

Optimized framing: CV ensures participants stay centered in their camera frame during presentations, automatically tracking movements to minimize distractions. Multiple cameras can collaborate to focus on the active speaker, creating a seamless, cinematic video experience.

Adaptive tracking: In multi-speaker meetings, CV ensures equal representation by adaptively tracking speakers as they move. This is particularly useful during webinars, keeping speakers in view as they traverse the stage.

Immersive presentations: Hybrid settings often make virtual presentations challenging. CV enhances this by enabling presenters to deliver more engaging content, automatically sharing screens in front of their presentation materials.

Despite the manifold advantages that AI serves to the HR processes, there are also essential concepts to keep in mind. Let’s review the key risks related to the technology.

Role transformation

According to a global study from the IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV), surveyed executives consider that 40% of their workforce will have to retrain in terms of integration of AI technology within the next three years.

Considerations for data protection

When engaging in the collection and processing of personal data through AI or for AI utilization, it's imperative to take into account data protection regulations and requirements. Various jurisdictions, such as Hong Kong and Mainland China, impose notification or consent obligations concerning data collection.

These regulations outline how the data will be utilized, to whom it will be transferred, and whether any cross-border transfers will occur. If AI introduces a novel use for the data, businesses might need to revisit their data collection notifications or consent.

Moreover, data may flow through third-party systems that might not maintain equivalent safeguards regarding data collection, usage, management, and disclosure. Therefore, organizations must conduct due diligence on these providers and establish service agreements that encompass adequate controls and protections.

Regulations specific to AI

The deployment of AI in business operations is still in its infancy, and governments are grappling with how to regulate it effectively. Businesses must ensure they remain abreast of AI-specific regulations as they are enacted.

Addressing algorithmic bias and unlawful discrimination

Although AI can mitigate human biases, decisions made through AI may be susceptible to challenges of unlawful discrimination if the AI models are trained on limited or biased datasets. Employers must be able to convincingly demonstrate that protected attributes, such as gender, did not influence these decisions, which can be challenging without a thorough understanding of the AI's mechanics.

Even in the absence of unlawful discrimination, AI tools may perpetuate existing biases. For instance, if AI models are solely trained on historical company data, they may exhibit preferences for candidates resembling current employees.

Mitigating risks of confidential information leakage

If employees utilize AI to extract business data without the employer's awareness, it could jeopardize the company's intellectual property or lead to unauthorized disclosure of confidential information or trade secrets. HR should ensure that employees, including HR teams, are provided with clear directives regarding the permissible uses of AI tools.

Balancing trust and productivity enhancement

A significant challenge lies in striking a balance between deploying AI to boost productivity and avoiding overreach, which could erode trust within the workforce. For example, while productivity trackers have traditionally been utilized in sectors like manufacturing, the emergence of ‘bossware’ has subjected office and remote workers to more intricate monitoring, including the tracking of keystrokes, clicks, and idle time.

Any technology deployment should align with the specific issues the business aims to address and should be accompanied by transparent communication with employees regarding the functionality of the technology and the data it will utilize. Without this transparency, there is a risk of diminished worker engagement, collective action, strikes, or even legal ramifications.

Practical tips

Do:

Clearly communicate with candidates and employees about the use of AI, if any, and its purpose. Transparency is crucial for building trust.
Conduct thorough due diligence on service providers or platforms used and ensure that service agreements comply with laws and offer sufficient protection to the business.
Ensure that AI models are trained on diverse, representative, and unbiased data. Regular monitoring and auditing of AI systems are vital for mitigating bias and unlawful discrimination.
Maintain open channels of communication with candidates and employees to address queries or concerns promptly. This fosters the smooth adoption and effective use of AI tools and reduces the likelihood of individual complaints or collective actions.

Don't:

Neglect the implementation or updating of proper governance guiding the organization on the usage of AI tools.
Disregard data protection obligations, including notices/consents, before deploying AI tools.
Over-rely on AI tools or automation, especially in complex or sensitive matters. Engaging workers carefully and communicating effectively becomes even more crucial with the introduction of new technologies.
Overlook communication and training for the workforce regarding the opportunities presented by AI. This also alleviates concerns about job security that could unsettle employee groups.

A-Team Global for your AI HR ecosystem

A-Team Global has been providing sophisticated software solutions to businesses for more than 10 years. Our tech-savvy software engineers have a solid background in building customized products from scratch. We also reinforce tech teams in companies facilitating the work on their existing products.

If your business implementing an AI HR software environment and requires a high-quality tech workforce to power up its development and maintenance, we can get you covered.

Our tech stack includes:

For your AI HR project, our company offers two options of collaboration:

Staff augmentation: If your in-house team of software developers who work on an AI project needs extra engineers onboard, we can assign them quickly. This approach provides you with access to a pool of talents with the required expertise at scale.

Software development outsourcing: Our team can develop customized solutions for your existing AI HR project remotely. Besides attaining high-quality services, we also take care of all the bureaucracy. We maintain payrolls and tax chores independently, so you save time for that.

We have a proven track record of successful projects for various business domains. If you are looking for a reliable tech vendor for your AI HR project, A-Team Global can tackle that.

The bottom line

AI serves as a crucial tool in reshaping HR professionals from administrative workers to pioneers of employee experience. Through AI, HR departments can effectively and promptly address employee needs while driving proactive company and employee initiatives.

Nevertheless, it's vital to retain the human touch in human resources. AI should function as a facilitator for managing administrative tasks, employee inquiries, and compliance duties. HR teams should reinvest the time saved into enhancing workplace conditions.

If you are looking for a reliable tech vendor to optimize your HR department's software environment, specifically in terms of AI A-Team can help you with customized solutions.