🌟 AI is reshaping HR, but are businesses ready? From hiring to employee engagement, AI has the power to transform HR, but only with the right vision and strategy.
💡 David Lloyd reveals how organisations can harness AI’s potential – without losing the human touch ❤️
The potential presented by AI creates new opportunities for all areas of the people profession. However, realising this potential is only possible by taking a strategic and human-focused approach.
AI technologies can be a catalyst for remarkable transformation in HR, but they cannot deliver this positive change without careful planning, staff training and sensible processes
Effective leadership is key. First, leaders must carve out a clear vision of how they want AI to improve a business or functional discipline, which should involve multiple, deep discussions with key personnel. Once the vision is jointly established, robust data assessment and training initiatives should be the next focus. This means ensuring that data is relevant, unbiased and securely stored to foster trust and minimise risk. It’s also important to help ensure responsible AI usage through accessible AI guidelines and training programmes.
With HR teams already encountering AI in areas like recruitment, where candidates are increasingly leveraging technology in applications, HR departments face growing pressure to keep up with the technological advancements required in today’s rapidly changing workplace.
But, while the technology can be a valuable asset for businesses, a disjointed approach to implementation often results in disappointment. With less than one quarter (24%) of employees saying they feel AI literate, enterprises have a long way to go in staff training to realise AI’s full potential.
There are often misconceptions that using AI within departments, like HR, is simply about automating monotonous assignments, or simple content generation. However, the true value of AI tools comes from their ability to enhance human decision-making so that businesses can address bigger issues such as employee engagement, talent retention and productivity.
Focus on five areas
To successfully utilise AI as a driver for HR transformation, businesses need to focus on five main areas:
- Developing a fundamental understanding of AI technologies.
- Establishing a company-wide AI vision, with guiding principles.
- Forming a cross-functional team with selected leaders to make evaluations.
- Promoting employee AI literacy by investing in training.
- Create a pipeline of ideas in partnership with employees and vendors.
How to implement your AI strategy
Here are some key factors organisations must consider when implementing a comprehensive AI strategy:
Establishing a clear vision
Just as the first international treaty on AI usage has created a framework for the UK’s adoption of AI, businesses must develop their own internal structures. Instead of getting swept up in overhyped AI trends, leaders should focus on identifying specific and achievable applications and goals.
AI implementation should be deliberately human-centric at its core, focusing on strategic investments that enable the reimagination of existing HR processes. Businesses need to get acquainted with what they want to achieve with AI, and which processes could benefit most from the application of AI.
It’s not just about enhancing a collection of individual tasks, it’s about redesigning the processes that surround them too. This is what determines the greatest improvements in productivity. The difference between simply using generative AI to create a new position description and redefining how a position might be filled from vacancy to hire can be the difference between a 6% efficiency gain and 60% or more.
A vision for AI should also draw from a broad range of AI-powered possibilities. This should enable you to navigate a path through the long-term challenges in the business, strengthening existing foundations and expanding in ways that can bring more opportunities for employees and the wider business.
Integrating data management procedures and training
In approaching AI’s potential with enthusiasm, organisations must also remain cautious, prioritising data management and AI ethics. These two elements are vital proactive strategies for companies embedding AI as the backbone of any core business functions.
Prioritising data management requires businesses to have dedicated teams that can evaluate data appropriateness, consider implementation methods, and ensure privacy and security of data from the beginning of implementation. All AI technologies require a secure, unbiased and transparent data foundation. Without this, businesses cannot truly trust the system they are creating. Inaccurate AI systems can have significant knock-on effects that disrupt employee workflows and the services they deliver.
Eliminating the harm caused by biased data should also be the focus of good data management strategies and review. AI models tend to mirror the biases present in the training data, leading to potentially discriminatory results. Organisations need to actively strive to identify and eliminate bias in data and ensure there is diverse representation within the team responsible for AI adoption to critically evaluate AI outcomes. When using partners, businesses should assess whether they are also doing the same.
With proper data management procedures, businesses can reduce the risk of GDPR or other data security violations that come with the improper use of data. This is especially important in HR since it involves personal (employee) data and therefore has fairly high standards for data compliance. Putting the workforce at the heart of decisions about data usage is the best way to foster transparency and trust during AI implementations.
Based on current and previous experience many firms providing solutions will claim they are following proper processes, frameworks and regulations, but many are not. Simple questions related to where data is stored, how it is processed, whether models are private, are they trained on multiple client’s data, lead to ambiguous answers. You need to dig into the details.
Guidance and training for employees
If conversations about AI are centralised in top-level management discussions, and not actively disseminated throughout the business, the technology can become meaningless or even simply unwanted. After a lengthy implementation process, no business wants new solutions to be misused or ignored.
Following the release of GenAI tools, like ChatGPT, employees from a range of sectors have already been experimenting with the technology independently. But, without full guidance on how to use company data in a compliant way, the consequence of using these systems freely means organisations risk putting their business and customers at risk – with a BYOAI (Bring Your Own AI) attitude.
Companies should take advantage of the widespread enthusiasm for AI by investing in training programmes and creating comprehensive AI guidelines, regardless of whether they develop their own internal AI tools. This includes working with IT to build a safe ‘sandbox’ enabling employees to use these technologies in a safe and secure environment. In addition to safety tips, when using large language models already on the market, employees can benefit from skills like prompt writing to maximise the model’s output – and ensure company data remains secure.
Looking beyond the technology
AI technologies can be a catalyst for remarkable transformation in HR, but they cannot deliver this positive change without careful planning, staff training and sensible processes. Businesses should embrace the expertise and tools available on the market right now and draw from the creativity and expertise in their workforce at every stage of the process.
Engaging team members from the outset is a crucial aspect of maintaining a human-centred approach to AI implementation which works for the entire workforce, and enables a business to achieve beneficial, long-term results.
David Lloyd is Chief AI Officer at Dayforce
