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AI in HR

Whether we like it or not, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is here and we all need to take the time to understand it better. AI is the simulation of human intelligence processes by machines, especially computer systems. AI is used across many businesses and all industries and includes things such as Siri, chat bots on website, speech recognition, driverless vehicles and software such as ChatGPT. AI can be really helpful in so many parts of life, including HR but there are some things AI will never be able to do. We know that HR first and foremost is about people and we know the when dealing with people, things can be unpredictable, complex and nuanced so when using AI in HR, we need to make sure we know what we are doing. There are a number of ways AI can be useful and can save you time and money in your business.

In this blog with talk briefly about some of the ways AI can be helpful in the world of HR and about what you need to look out for if you start to use it. AI is very good, but it is far from perfect especially when it comes to the world of HR Legislation and Employment Law. If you would like to talk to someone about using AI more effectively in your business, please reach out to us on info@impacthr.com.au and one of our Senior HR Consultant would be happy to discuss further.

Chatbots

Chatbots are computer programs that simulate human conversation through text or voice interactions. Chatbots use AI and natural language processing to understand questions and automate responses. Chatbots can be found on virtually every website these days, some are great, some not so much. If you have a really simple question, they can be great. If you ask “Where can I find my payslip?” you’ll probably be directed to the right area but as the questions get more complex, the answers are not as directed. Using Chatbots to help answer simple administrative HR questions can be helpful but they won’t be able to answer anything complex or specific.

Wellbeing and Engagement

Some businesses have started to use Chatbots as sounding boards for their teams. Some people have found that talking with AI about issues is easier than a real person through an Employee Assistance Program for example. People have stated that they have found the Chatbots to be less judgemental, quicker to respond and an unbiased sounding board. Chatbots are available anywhere in the world 24/7 and have built in triage system to make referrals for human intervention as needed. These Chatbots are more cost effective than the traditional EAP models.

Support for soloist

Often in the world of small business, you might find yourself working alone on a problem or project. Having AI to bounce ideas off and get some basic information as a starting base can be so helpful. AI can act as a second person, someone to provide feedback and to answer questions if its not possible to find a human to discuss the issue with.

Policies and Procedures

When you know you need to write an HR policy or procedure, the task sometimes feel overwhelming. There are so many your business needs and they seem to all be about 10 pages long. Staring that that blank page can be daunting. Use of ChatGPT can be helpful here, you can use it to create a base for a certain policy you need in your business. For example, if you needed a leave policy, you could ask ChatGPT for a leave policy example. You’ll definitely then need to rewrite the policy, it won’t be specific to your business and you’ll need to check if its legally correct and appropriate but you’ll at least have something to edit rather than write from scratch.

Recruitment

AI has some great uses when it comes to recruitment. AI can help to create excellent baseline advertisements and position descriptions, they will never be perfect but they provide you with a base to start from which is sometimes the hardest part. You’ll definitely need to tailor this to your industry and business. AI is also able to provide some examples of questions you might ask a candidate in an interview based of the job advert, this helps to provide you with some additional options when running your behavioural interviews.

Developing People

ChatGPT is a good tool to help you create some of your learning content. It can be helpful to summaries ideas, create some basic content, provide learning examples and to give some activities examples. This program can create content quickly and provides you with a base for you to then use to define the content for programs. Another useful tool is Canva’s Magic Media, this can be used to generate images and videos from a simple text prompt. This is a useful tool to help create appealing content quickly.

Watch Out!

With all technology, you need to understand what you are using and the consequences of getting things wrong. With changes constantly happening in Employment Law and not knowing how AI is coming up with content, its very important to make sure you are doing what you need to do when dealing with people in your business. AI might look like its created you a perfect performance warning letter, but getting even one small thing wrong can have big consequences. We would strongly suggest you do not attempt to use AI to assist in writing HR letters, with anything technical or Employee Relations based.

If you need to do mathematical calculations, you might want to think twice about using AI. The current thoughts are that there is still some way to go in this area. While we do know that AI can solve complex mathematical problems, these still need human input and supervision to ensure they are correct. Results need to be interpretated and validated by humans.

Did you know, AI can hallucinate? That’s right. There is a current problem in AI where the model can generate content or answers which are factually incorrect or unrelated to the context of the information. This happens due to a variety of reasons such as poor quality or biased training data, insufficient programming or context. This means that any information created or provided must be checked to ensure accuracy and relevance. Sometimes this means, its quicker to find the answer yourself than to reply on AI. In a similar vein, some AI tools have inbuilt unconscious bias or stereotyping due to the opinions of the creators and the current environment If you asked AI to generate you a photo of a CEO, what do you think they would look like?

So welcome to the world of AI! There are so many great options available, many more than we could include in this blog post. Some are great, some are developing, all of them need you to make sure they are correct, legal and not biased in order to ensure smooth HR sailing moving forward.