If you think all the hype around AI is overblown, you might want to think again; AI for HR can be a game-changer.
When used correctly, AI can automate tedious tasks. It can give hiring managers more time to focus on building relationships and providing a better candidate experience.
In fact, 85% of employers using automations or AI say it saves time or improves efficiency. Unsurprisingly, 82% of HR teams want to incorporate more AI tools into their talent management processes between now and 2025.
So anyone who isn’t using AI for HR risks being left behind.
But when AI for HR is used incorrectly, or without human support, candidates and employees can both end up feeling let down. And it can negatively impact your employer brand and employee productivity.
Read on to find out about 7 great ways to use AI for HR. Plus, 4 cases where you should never use AI for HR.
Ways you should use AI for HR
Let’s start with the positives. How should (or could) you use AI for HR?
Checking job descriptions for biases
If you already have a job description, AI can scan it for ways to make the language more inclusive.
If you don’t have a job description yet, it can write one for you based on the criteria you provide.
Make sure to pass it through a human editor before publication, though. (For reasons we’ll discuss below in the don’t section.)
Sourcing candidates
It’s not always easy to attract the right candidates. One way to leverage AI for HR is to search the internet far faster than any human, and ensure your job gets in front of the right people.
Using AI for HR can enable you to scrape job boards for candidates and their resumes. It can also submit job descriptions to more sites in a shorter span of time, potentially helping you find the right person for the job much faster.
Filtering resumes
Filtering resumes is one of the most time-consuming parts of the hiring process.
AI can search resumes for keywords that suggest someone would be a good fit for a role. It can then submit the results to a human recruiter for review or automatically invite that candidate to interview.
Making video calls more accessible
While video calls are a ubiquitous part of modern life, they’re not great for everyone.
They often obscure social cues and introduce far too many distractions, particularly for neurodivergent employees or candidates.
The evolution of AI for HR means more and more innovations are available to improve accessibility.
For example, auto-captions can now appear in real time on apps like Zoom. These captions aren’t perfect, but they enable attendees who are hard of hearing to participate without having to wait for the minutes to be published.
Some tools now also allow attendees who arrive late to get an AI-generated summary of what they missed. AI can even assemble and deliver an overview of the key points discussed at the end of a meeting.
And software can remove distracting background noises such as someone munching on their lunch or a dog barking. These tools are getting more and more effective, improving the quality of audio for calls and recordings.
Managing employee records
Maintaining records can be tedious. It’s easy to forget to do something. This is where AI for HR can come in handy.
AI can update information in multiple places without the need for manual input. This not only eliminates the risk of manual errors, but saves huge amounts of time.
AI can also notify you if information needs updating or double-checking, and it can delete information when someone leaves.
And it can help you keep things like training manuals and contracts up to date with regular notifications or document scanning.
Organizing payroll and benefits
No one wants to get paid late. And, with a cost-of-living crisis affecting many people, some employees genuinely can’t afford for their paycheck to be even a couple of hours late. It could mean they get hit with late fees that further impact their finances.
Using AI for HR can solve this, paying employees and contractors automatically at the end of each period.
If a contractor bills for different amounts each month, AI can scan the invoices to work out how much to pay them and process that payment without a human needing to touch it.
Generating ideas
Think of AI for HR as your handy assistant to help you with idea generation.
What it comes out with won’t be perfect, but you can use it as a jumping-off point. It can even help you think up new ways to do something, like an off-site for the sales team to try.
Plus, it can be useful for repetitive tasks like drafting or editing candidate emails.
Ways you shouldn’t use AI for HR
So, what about the times when you shouldn’t use AI for HR?
Firing employees
Letting an employee go isn’t fun, but firing them without the human touch? It’s cold and will leave the former employee with a bad taste in their mouth. This might then lead them to publish a negative review about you online.
Building relationships
One of the potential benefits of AI is that it can give you back time to focus on the more human elements of your job, like relationship building.
Stronger relationships build brand loyalty and more engaged employees.
But this isn’t something you can give to ChatGPT to do for you. It comes from genuinely listening to what other people have to say and responding accordingly.
Editing for individuality
With training, AI can emulate your voice. Ultimately though, it will never be able to fully recreate something that sounds like you.
So be sure to edit anything it writes to make it sound original and not something written in Generic Internet Voice.
Checking facts
AI is prone to fabrications, meaning it likes to make things up.
And not in a fun, creative, storytelling way. (It’s kind of bad at that.)
When AI gives you any stats or studies, probe it until it gives you the original source. Or see what you can find when you do some (non-AI) digging yourself.
This ensures any information you share with employees or the outside world links to the original source. It will improve how trustworthy people feel your company brand is.
Conclusion
Regardless of how we feel about AI, it isn’t going anywhere. It can’t replace the nuance that comes from the human experience, but that’s where HR teams can shine.
Showing empathy and humanity will improve the candidate experience, and thereby your employer brand.
It’ll also improve the employee experience, making your people feel listened to and appreciated, rather than like just another cog in the machine.
If you’re ready to make the most of both AI for HR and the human side of things, the right tools can help. Workrowd automates tedious aspects of employee experience management, to ensure you and your team can drive greater impact in less time.
Want to see how it works? Visit us online to learn more, or email us directly at hello@workrowd.com.
