The human resources department of any business plays a crucial role in prioritising employee safety, employing new staff and handling disputes – among many other functions. As a result of these processes, some elements of the HR role can be rather time-consuming, meaning valuable time is often wasted doing menial tasks.
Fortunately, with the recent rapid advancements in technology, we now have more tools at our disposal than ever before to help relieve some of this stress. AI (artificial intelligence) can be used to facilitate HR professionals’ everyday jobs in a variety of ways. From automating tasks to tracking performance, it can be an invaluable tool in the industry.
In this article, we explore four of the ways that AI can best assist HR professionals in optimising their workflows.
Easily screen job applications
Hiring a new employee can often be one of the most labour-intensive and time-consuming aspects of any HR professional’s job. Sifting through each candidate, reading cover letters, resumes and more just to find out that they don’t have the experience – does that sound familiar? Fortunately, there are now ways to shortlist the best candidates with AI.
Often called application tracking systems, or ATS, these systems are equipped with the latest technology to quickly analyse each resume as it comes in, alongside all of the additional application material. By taking advantage of this software, HR departments can make the decision-making process much smoother, allowing them to focus their efforts on the most promising candidates from day one.
Automate repetitive tasks
Part of any human resource role will no doubt involve numerous repetitive and time-consuming tasks. From scheduling multiple interviews to approving leave requests, many of these tasks could easily be handled by an AI-driven system instead.
This way, HR professionals can streamline many of these repetitive tasks, consequently minimising human errors while also freeing up time for more complex tasks. This also can improve the efficiency of the HR department, meaning employees who are waiting for a response to a query are likely to get it much quicker.
Another way to use AI in streamlining processes is to employ a chatbot to answer common HR questions. This typically works best for large organisations that have numerous employees asking similar questions repeatedly, as it saves HR professionals from having to type out the same answers each time. Instead, the chatbot can identify keywords in the employees’ questions and quickly provide the relevant information, benefiting both HR and the other workers.
Track performance
All successful businesses will have one way or another of tracking employee performance, ensuring that no one is falling behind on what is expected of them. While this is incredibly useful for business analytics, the burden of tracking this information usually falls on HR, adding to an already busy workload.
Fortunately, AI-powered tools can collect this data on your behalf according to whichever metrics you choose to assign. Once they have the necessary information, it can then be summarised into an easy-to-digest report, saving HR professionals the time typically spent on digging through each piece of data.
These systems can also flag employees that are falling behind in real time, meaning the issues can be promptly addressed rather than being put off until the next performance review. Immediate intervention can sometimes be the key to getting employees back on track, as you’ll then be able to offer them any support and get to the bottom of the issue before it escalates.
Automatic employee surveys
Continuous improvement is a key principle for business success, and any business that is working towards this culture should recognise the importance of gathering feedback from employees. Employees are the foundation of a business, and what they have to say can be incredibly valuable in decision-making processes, so it’s common for HR departments to send around employee eng3agement surveys.
Unfortunately, these surveys can take a lot of time to put together, and even more time is often spent chasing up responses and analysing the data. With AI, the survey platform can quickly curate surveys based on the topics you want to gather information about, send them out and even follow up automatically with those who haven’t responded. This can save huge amounts of time which could then be spent following up on any disappointing responses, rather than carrying out menial admin tasks.
A valuable tool
While AI is far from being able to take over a role in human resources, it can be used as a valuable tool to automate and streamline some of the more repetitive tasks. By embracing AI and using it in a positive way, HR professionals can start to redefine their roles and focus on work that is truly important to them.
This blog post was written by quantexa.com
