There is a hyper focus on the use of artificial intelligence within the workforce solutions industry — and that focus is well placed, with concerns ranging from privacy to equity and inclusivity issues to the possibility of AI unfairly screening out candidates. On top of it all are fears of AI-related job eliminations.
While all these concerns are valid, your company doesn’t need to put the brakes on plans to incorporate AI into business processes altogether. You just need to know where and when to apply such technology to your operations.
There are many use case scenarios for AI, but to get started, consider how you can use AI to help your team gain procedural efficiencies. In your decision-making process, use this gauge: Is what I’m doing better for a chatbot or better for a human? AI is great for streamlining the onboarding process, but humans are great for connecting with candidates. AI is great for asking basic questions (candidates’ availability, remote or in-office preferences, and salary requirements, for example), but humans are great for deeper discussions around culture, team dynamics and career growth. AI is great for keyword matching, but humans are great for determining potential in other humans.
There are many other ways AI can be applied for efficiencies that won’t cause chaos. You can use AI to:
- Improve your processes around repeatable tasks, such as invoicing.
- Develop job descriptions, starting with a basic template that a human can further improve.
- Screen candidates with general abilities like “customer service” versus an exact match like “10 years of customer service.”
- Test candidates using the amazing technologies in our industry designed for just this purpose.
- Search jobs to match your candidate, also known as reverse matching.
- Pre-interview as mentioned above.
Imagine the time you will give back to your employees by reducing the mundane tasks and replacing them with the important ones.
On the flip side, use humans whenever you want to build candidate loyalty; re-engage with former workers; improve diversity initiatives; conduct a technical interview, benefits discussion or manager discussion; build relationships; or navigate a situation with empathy or critical thinking. You can also ask yourself whether the situation needs a “white glove” approach, and if the answer is yes, let a human take the wheel. AI can be trained by repeatable tasks, but sometimes it gets things wrong. That may be OK if it’s easy to fix, but in situations where you can’t afford to get it wrong, that’s when you know it’s a task best served by your human staff.
Remember to always use people as a balance to technology so that you can ensure you have a fair, equitable and inclusive hiring program. Weighing out these critical components in all of your processes helps limit technology from over-extending its capabilities. AI is intended to assist humans, not replace them. So don’t be shy when trying to elevate your employees to better roles and helping them reduce the tasks that take so much away from their day. Allow them the chance to do the tasks that make an impact while you let technology do the things that just need to get done.
