How will AI play a part in HR in 2024 and beyond?

Written by Amy O'Hanlon, lecturer at UCD Professional Academy

AI or IA?

Before we consider how Artificial Intelligence (AI) will impact HR in 2024 and beyond, we need to understand what AI is in the context of HR and people practices.

Artificial Intelligence can be described as ‘’the development of computer systems able to perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages.”

According to a report by Sage, when we refer to AI in the context of people within our organisations, what we are talking about is Intelligence Augmentation (IA) which is the use of technology, and intelligent or ‘learning’ systems, to assist and partner with humans as opposed to replacing them.

So, with a partnership approach in mind, what are the optimal opportunities for AI or IA in HR?

Freeing HR partners to focus on value-added support

One of the key benefits of AI to HR professionals is that it can efficiently handle a high volume of automated tasks without experiencing fatigue while maintaining a high level of accuracy. This frees up time for HR professionals to focus on providing value added support to the business – always best delivered by a human - in terms of employer branding, candidate attraction, new joiner and employee experience, continuous employee development and, most critically, continuous manager upskilling and coaching. In other words, all the activities which drive employee engagement and retention.

Reducing time to hire and enhancing the candidate experience

In this market, those organisations with a talent acquisition (TA) process that is both robust, time efficient and candidate-centric will invariably win the way for talent. Enhancing the candidate experience during talent acquisition by increased exposure to and communication with candidates by a TA specialist can only be achieved if we can reduce the low value-add repetitive administrative activities.

DBS Bank, a major player in Singapore and Southeast Asia were early adopters of ‘Generative AI’ or chatbots in TA for high-volume recruiting. This allowed them to achieve huge wins including shortening screening time from 32 mins per candidate to 8 mins per candidate, improving the completion rate of job applications from 85% to 97% and therefore not losing out on great talent, and being able to respond to 96% of all candidate queries.

Recruiters were freed up to perform higher-value work – sourcing and reaching out to candidates who weren’t actively looking through professional networks like LinkedIn, recruitment marketing and actively engaging with candidates. It also inspired the creation of a new job, ‘Chatbot Coach’, where a member of the TA team was responsible for training the chatbot with the latest information to answer candidates’ queries and further enhance the candidate experience.

Optimising ChatGPT in talent acquisition

ChatGPT is an on-trend much talked about OpenAI chatbot introduced in November 2022 which within two months of its launch had reached 100 billion users. According to People Management, in a poll conducted in March 2023, a third of HR professionals (33%) have not yet used ChatGPT but are exploring how they can incorporate AI solutions into their daily work processes.

ChatGPT excels at generating written content, such as job descriptions, company-wide communications, interview questions and policy documents. In talent acquisition it can help to significantly reduce time to hire by, for example, streamlining administrative tasks, composing e-mails to candidates and drafting offer letters.

ChatGPT however, is not proficient in candidate searching, filtering or selecting best-fit candidates. One of the reasons it is limited in this capacity is because, similarly to other Generative AI technologies, it has been found to reinforce social stereotypes and bias.

Minimising the impact of bias in decision-making

If we are human, then we are unfortunately prone to bias in our thinking. ‘Unconscious bias’ happens outside of our control and is influenced by our own personal and work experiences, culture, upbringing and background. We cannot control this ‘unconscious bias’ occurring but we can educate ourselves to be aware of it and to become ‘consciously conscious’.

AI, not being human, has in theory the ability to make decisions without bias. In other words, the system should focus on skillset match against pre-set keywords linked to the job description and disregards biodata such as gender, race, age etc in candidate screening. However, there has been incidences of AI, as a ‘learning machine’, displaying bias because of the human biases of the system’s programmers who developed the algorithms. In 2019, Google’s job advertising algorithm was found to be targeting more men than women with ads for high paying roles.

This concern brings us back to the concept of Intelligence Augmentation and AI only be utilised to assist and not to replace humans. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and

Development (CIPD) suggests implementing an AI Use Policy where the organisation commits to recognising that ‘machine limitations exist’; that we will ‘take measures to ensure human intervention’; that we commit to ‘ensuring human checks are always completed to mitigate against risks of bias and unfairness’; and that AI is ‘intended to be used as a tool and not as a human replacement’.

Driving employee retention through personalised continuous learning experiences

A survey by The Work Institute of over 250,000 employees revealed that a lack of career development and learning opportunities is consistently one of the main reasons that employees leave organisations. Employees who aren’t trusted with any 'stretch opportunities' or who don’t feel their manager is interested in their own career goals can become disillusioned, demotivated and disengaged and will effectively ‘bore out’ or ‘quietly quit’.

Progressive organisations understand that as humans we have an innate need for development and that our top talent, who are generally high achievers, have a constant need for growth. AI can provide the opportunity for employees to target their own personalised learning needs and wants. Learning and development theory demonstrates categorically that interactive learning experiences are the most beneficial in terms of retention of new skills and competencies. And if those interactive experiences are fun then all the better!

‘Gamification’ is AI-powered technology which includes typical fun elements of game playing such as point scoring, healthy competition with other team members which aids team bonding, quizzes, problem solving and creative thinking.

Used within a learning and development context, AI allows employees the opportunity to make decisions based on live real-life scenarios, practice role playing with a difficult customer for example, pick-up points or earn ‘rewards’ and/or play and compete against other employees. The learning experience becomes more interactive and engaging. Most importantly, it is highly personalised as AI can learn, flex and adapt to an individual employee’s ability level and learning needs.

Gamification also appeals to our millennials and generation Z team members who are digital natives and used to instant gratification. These individuals now make up the largest proportion of people entering the workforce so it’s a key strategy for both candidate attraction and retention.

Final thoughts

In conclusion, while AI or IA should never replace the human experience which is fundamental to a great candidate and employee experience, HR professionals should consider the benefits of strategically used technology to allow us the freedom to truly act as business partners and provide a contemporary HR service to our organisations.

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