By Dr. Vipul Singh, Senior Vice President and Head of HR, CSR & Communications, ADP India
Companies need new and innovative ways to manage their pivotal asset – their human capital, in a manner that can keep up with the pace of a changing work environment. Remote work, hybrid workforce and trends like quiet-quitting show that in recent years, organisations have undergone a significant shift in how work is viewed and boundaries of efficiency and productivity have been severely altered.
We went through a period of great resignation followed by quiet-quitting and now some massive layoffs. Traditional employee engagement models with a one-size-fits-all approach are now seldom relevant and we need a more personalized model to engage employees. This could come as a challenge, especially in large organizations. These wide-ranging organizational changes are getting quickly ingrained and as they become the new norm, I believe that we need effective channels of engagement that can help companies manage operational challenges and restructuring.
Alleviating challenges in Human Resources Management
Artificial Intelligence can help companies address challenges in talent acquisition including reducing time and generating better assessment models. AI can also help companies improve sourcing and help identify the best talent in the market on an initiative-taking basis. Instead of manually seeping through resumes and cover letter, there are emerging Machine Learning (ML) algorithms that can quickly match job requirements with a candidate’s skill and experience. Though the sheer extent of its effectiveness is still under study, AI models can also help identify performance outcomes and offer acceptance rates of prospective candidates.
Instead of viewing AI as a replacement of workers in recruiting and human resources, the current models should instead be analyzed for assisting hiring managers on routine tasks like scheduling and follow-up. AI can also help recruiters make better hiring decision by putting algorithms in place that compares candidates and anticipate work behaviors. AI hence can greatly alleviate administrative burden on hiring managers and help them streamline the process of hiring and retaining the right talent efficiently.
Using AI for Strategy and HR Planning
Artificial Intelligence means using pre-programmed algorithms to swift through a large volume of data to configure patterns and correlations that can then help employers make real-time decisions in an analytical, coherent fashion. Using AI-enabled workforce engagement solutions could be the best thing for HR Operators in the coming years to assess work and growth parameters for employees. It can also help automate low-value, routine HR tasks like payroll processing, providing HR employees more time to spend on high-value, strategic tasks.
Using HR Shared Services aka combining routine HR tasks and software under one shared team can greatly help increase the assessment, cost, range, and efficiency of companies. It also allows companies to spend fewer human resources and time on routine mundane tasks and more time on planning and strategy.
In a recent McKinsey study, only 7% of employers said they use AI for strategy compared to 25-30% in areas like marketing, supply chain and service operations. We need to change this tide as leveraging AI on ‘asset-inducing’ activities like talent management and human capital development will not only benefit companies when it comes to recruitment but might also help companies manage many of the existing HR-related issues concerning employee retention.
Utilizing HR services under one umbrella and utilizing Robotic Process Automation (RPA) services can greatly speed up automated processes and help HR departments foster healthy systems to rightly assess continual engagement, reward systems, and retention of top-tier talent in a competitive work environment.
Managing and Retaining Employees
According to a recent report by CIPD UK, most employers failed to gather and leverage data to address HR challenges in their organisation. In the report, less than 50% of organizations effectively collected data on recruitment and retention, the number even lesser for small to medium-sized organizations. Addressing challenges employees face and retaining top talents starts with gathering quality data on existing employees.
Traditionally, HR assessments were limited to annual and quarterly feedback sessions. Leveraging AI in this context means taking a data-driven approach to assessing employee performance and satisfaction. It would involve gathering large sets of data and combining said data across multiple systems to derive patterns of employee behavior and engagement.
Most importantly, AI should be leveraged to identify employee conversation rates and the cost of retention. Identifying employee sentiment and enthusiasm towards their work and
management can greatly help companies retain talent and even uncover attributes they look forward to while selecting candidates for future roles. Additionally, gathering data routinely on the market value of employees and their respective roles compared to that of competitors and the geographical location will help organisation stay on top of retaining top talent and will reduce the chances of them falling into a rehiring rut.
Technologies like AI have the potential to positively influence experiences and the ability to learn about human behaviors and customize experiences at a great pace. As we tap into those technological resources, I believe the Human Resources profession will transform and evolve into a smarter, tech-native one that employees would want to get associated with.
