Practical Benefits of AI in HR for Modern Professionals

Gone are the days of poring over resumés until your eyes go blurry, spending countless hours playing phone tag with applicants to schedule interviews, or getting bombarded from new hires as they try to sign up for benefits. The benefits of using artificial intelligence (AI) in HR empower you to minimize the mindless tasks in your day-to-day work—empowering you to focus on high-level strategic initiatives that will make a genuine impact to your business.

A modern HR department requires cutting-edge technology to streamline and facilitate workflows, making it easier for HR professionals to automate manual labor and use algorithms to support data-driven decisions. By employing artificial intelligence solutions designed for HR, you’ll see many benefits and be able to optimize your team’s efficiency and gain access to data insights that will help you enhance operations across HR functions—including recruiting new employees, engaging and retaining current staff, and planning and budgeting for future headcount.

That said, optimizing your HR function with AI-based technology isn’t without its pitfalls, and it’s important to carefully review your strategy prior to implementing new technology. In this article, we’ll explore the pros and cons of adopting AI in HR, and showcase tactics for implementing AI technology in ways that will support your team’s operational success while helping you build and engage a diverse and inclusive workforce.

What is AI looks like in HR

Understanding AI’s Role in HR Functions

It’s no secret that AI is revolutionizing the way that we work today. Both enterprises and smaller businesses are adopting technology to modernize every function of their operations—including sales, finance, supply chain management, operations management, and yes, human resources.

In fact, the use of AI in HR is growing rapidly. Globally, 88% of companies use some form of AI in their HR operations, including 83% of U.S.-based employers. AI technology’s diverse capabilities are a natural fit for streamlining many functions of HR. Some common use cases include:

• Machine learning algorithms
  Machine learning (ML) algorithms can ingest historical HR data to identify patterns and spotlight data insights. In recruitment, HR professionals can use ML technology to automatically narrow down a pool of applicants for a job, based on automated screening for relevant skills and work experience. In performance management, you can visualize trends in employee performance, empowering you to set up action plans for team members who are lagging.

• Natural language processing (NLP)
  NLP technology is commonly used to create customized chatbots that can respond to your employees’ questions. Implementing chatbot technology enables employees to self-service their support requests, getting automated guidance for many common questions related to onboarding, benefits, training, and other queries. With NLP technology, you can reduce your team’s time spent on employee support requests while helping employees get the answers faster.

• Predictive analytics
  Employee turnover is expensive—but by employing predictive analytics, you’ll be able to identify which team members are at greatest risk of attrition, based on historical data markers. You can use these data insights to set up targeted employee engagement efforts that can help you motivate your team members and reduce employee churn.

• Automation
  One of the key benefits of AI in HR is time-savings from automation, which can help your team maximize its efficiency. Automating HR workflows can also help you ensure compliance and reduce the likelihood of errors. In HR, automation can be used to expedite many common workflows, including onboarding, payroll processing, and benefits administration, just to name a few.

Why Businesses are Turning to AI for HR

Any new technology is bound to face skepticism, whether from higher-ups who question the cost-benefit analysis, or from team members who may worry about being replaced by robots. But it’s becoming increasingly clear that for most businesses, the advantages of AI in HR outweigh the pitfalls.

On a broad scale, using AI in HR can support sustainable business growth. By automating manual tasks, you’ll be able to set and enforce clear policies for recruiting, hiring, onboarding, and supporting your employees. Ninety-three percent of HR professionals say that automating parts of their talent recruitment and management process have increased efficiency; 67% say they’ve also saved time and resources.

Using AI in HR can also support data-driven decision-making—which can help businesses build a hiring process that screens candidates based on skills and relevant experience, rather than factors such as gender or race. HireVue found that 85% of candidates say that bias is a major problem in the hiring process. By utilizing algorithm-based models for analyzing candidate profiles, most recruiters (68%) believe that they can reduce bias in evaluation, leading to a more equitable hiring process.

The onus is on HR professionals to be responsible with their use of AI—but used wisely, it can be a force for good that promotes an efficient and inclusive work environment.

The Key Benefits of AI in HR

In this section, we’ll explore how AI can enhance each of the primary HR job functions, and showcase some of the best technology solutions for each use case.

Streamlining Recruitment and Talent Acquisition

By implementing AI-based HR tools, you can automate manual tasks associated with recruitment and talent acquisition. For instance, they can consolidate the talent sourcing process by automatically scanning resumés for key skills and qualifications to instantly shortlist your most qualified candidates. AI HR tools can also enhance efficiency throughout the interview process, as you can use them to automatically schedule interview times, generate relevant interview questions customized to each role, and summarize key points from interviews. You’ll be able to expedite the search process, hone in on top applicants more easily, and surface insights from your interviews to ensure you make smart hiring decisions.

Tools to explore:

• HireVue’s end-to-end hiring solution facilitates on-demand video interviews with AI-built questions

• SeekOut enables you to scale your talent sourcing by searching through more than 800 million public profiles for the right candidates

Unilever introduced game-based candidate assessments and AI-analyzed video interviews into its recruiting process to save time and resources, while also supporting its DE&I goals. After implementing the new process, the business was able to cut recruitment time by 75% and increase diversity by 16%.

And on Reddit, a recruiter weighed in on how they use AI in the recruitment process: “We use ChatGPT to write first drafts of job descriptions/postings: after a client meeting, I'll input the notes and a sample job posting (to show the format we use) and ask ChatGPT to write a job posting based on the notes. (I remove any names or identifying information first).”

“My one piece of advice is that whatever you use AI for--consider it nothing more than a first draft. You will always need to adjust, tweak, edit!”

Enhancing Employee Engagement and Retention

Employee engagement and retention is also an important part of building a strong workforce—and AI tools can help you both measure and drive engagement. With AI, you’ll be able to analyze employee sentiment, identifying performance issues and team members at risk of attrition, so that you can set up action plans to enhance engagement and reward your top performers.

Tools to explore:

• CultureAmp helps you collect continuous feedback on employee sentiment and performance, so you can build personalized engagement plans

• Erudit uses sentiment analysis to track employee performance, burnout risk, and turnover risk

Wave used AI-driven performance review management to expedite the review process and increase performance review completion by 233% YoY.

Improving Onboarding Processes

Implementing AI can help you develop personalized onboarding workflows that set new hires up for success in their roles. By using AI to support onboarding, you’ll be able to free up time for high-touch interactions that help your new candidates feel at home.

Tools to explore:

• TeamSense Policy Assistant, our new product, empowers new hires to find the answers to their policy questions in real-time, reducing confusion and saving your team’s time.

• Greenhouse’s all-in-one HR platform includes structured onboarding workflows that help you get new hires set up and ready to go in record time

By using TeamSense’s Policy Assistant, one company was able to reduce onboarding-related HR inquiries by 50%, saving hours weekly.

Driving Data-Driven HR Decisions

Whether you’re hiring, planning for future growth, or managing employee performance, it’s crucial to rely on data to help you make the right decisions—and with AI tools, you’ll be able to easily analyze performance trends on a micro or macro level. You can use historical data to make accurate predictions for the future and analyze various scenarios, helping you make informed business decisions.

Tools to explore:

• Visier provides analytic insights on your workforce, helping you understand workplace challenges and retain your talent

• Crunchr pulls together all your people data into one centralized dashboard, helping you generate insights from cross-departmental data for better workforce planning

Protective Life was able to use AI analytics tools to measure progress on their DE&I goals and predict voluntary turnover throughout the organization.

On Reddit, a commenter shared their insights on how they used data analytics to identify likely turnover.

“Something I used to look at for burnout that can be traced analytically:

• upcoming birthdays/work anniversary: people tend to quit within 2 months because they get introspective

• more than 12 months from a raise: we quickly forget praise and 12 months generally is too long for people to feel stagnant

• less than 3 meetings per month with managers: less meetings = less feedback. Less face time with managers also related to higher paranoia

• a greater than 5% delta from the median pay of other close peers at the company: 5% is seen as significant to most people, even if justifiable, and is easy for competitor close the gap on

All the above we tracked because we found a correlation to attrition. Could differ for your company but you should look into these — I automated some of these into my products analytics dashboards though because I believe they are significant, especially with the great resignation!”

Automating Administrative Tasks

Finally, consider one of the key benefits of AI in HR: curbing the tedium of manual labor with automated, efficient processes. You can use automated technology to help you streamline all of your HR functions, including payroll, compliance, and benefits management.

Tools to explore:

• Gusto provides a one-stop shop for onboarding, payroll processing, attendance tracking, and benefits management

• Pyn is designed for building effortless employee journey maps, with customized communications for every touchpoint

Switching to an automated payroll processor helped ApproveMe.com save over 84 hours of manual labor each year.

One HR ops employee shares some guidance on effectively using automation in HR: “There are a lot of great tools out there to automate processes… Make sure all those tools ‘talk to each other.’ If you are using ADP as your data source, look at what they recommend. Other tools may work more ‘efficiently,’ but you will spend hours manually uploading/downloading reports between two systems, thus defeating the efficiency.”

Combatting the Challenges of AI in HR

Of course, any new technology is bound to come with some growing pains. It’s also important to explore the disadvantages of AI in HR, and understand the best ways to overcome hurdles in adoption.

Data Privacy and Security Risks

When you’re handling personal data from your job applicants and employees, you need to make sure that you’ve set up strict controls to protect their privacy from unauthorized users—which can be more difficult when you’re sharing data with third-party vendors.

To reduce the risk of security breaches, ensure that your business has robust security protocols in place for both internal practices and your third party providers. Set up a compliance checklist for any third-party solution, ensuring that they have strong encryption in place and compliance certifications that instill confidence in their ability to safely manage sensitive data.

Resistance to Adoption and Fear of Job Replacement

Nearly a third of knowledge workers are anxious about the prospect of losing their jobs to AI, and HR pros are no exception. Workers fear that as AI technologies drive new efficiencies, their own output will become obsolete.

That said, 61% of HR pros are optimistic about AI’s role in their workplace, believing that the benefits of AI in HR outweigh the risks. Optimizing business performance relies on using AI to enhance collaboration and decision-making, so that professionals can rely on the right data to make intelligent business decisions. By training in the use of AI technology, HR pros have the opportunity to uplevel their skill sets and drive a greater impact on the business.

Risk of Bias in AI Algorithms

We’ve already discussed the prospect of using AI algorithms to reduce bias in hiring—but AI is only as good as the material it’s been trained on. That creates the risk that poorly designed algorithms may actually serve to increase bias in recruitment and decision-making.

When using AI tools to qualify candidates, confirm that the solutions you’re using have been built using representative data sets, and are regularly testing their output for signs of bias and discrimination. You should also ensure that your solution’s hiring recommendations are in keeping with your organization’s DE&I goals, adding another level of accountability to your hiring strategy.

Cost and Integration Challenges

As with any new technology solution, integrating an AI HR platform involves a careful look at the costs and resources required to pull off a successful implementation. When considering a new solution, look at how easily it will integrate with your existing HR technology framework, and evaluate its potential return on investment over time to identify the right vendor for your needs.

Once you’ve chosen an ideal solution, build a detailed change management plan to map out how to implement the solution, with a phased approach for onboarding and training your team on the new technology.

Final thoughts

While adopting new technologies can be challenging, the ample benefits of incorporating AI into your HR practices will outweigh any downsides. AI HR solutions like TeamSense can transform your HR practice, helping your team boost efficiency and reduce costs with seamless automations, while delivering data-driven insights that you can use to inform your hiring and employee engagement strategies.

Ready to learn how TeamSense’s Policy Assistant can transform your HR practice?