How HR can adopt and scale AI to keep up with rapidly evolving technology
The way HR currently invests in new solutions is broken and prevents companies from leveraging new tech to scale and evolve.
This past year was a huge year for artificial intelligence, and there are no signs of this slowing in 2020. In 2016, $26 to $39 billion was invested in AI; in the coming decade, AI-powered applications are estimated to add $13 trillion in value to the global economy.
Major areas of growth have been apparent in the human resources and talent acquisition spaces. Niilesh Bhoite, chief digital officer of global HR at L’Oréal reported saving “45 working days on a six months period” for their UK recruiting team, “thus helping them to redeploy this time in other value-added tasks.”
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The tech is here. It’s well invested in and proven to be effective, but to reap the benefits from the technology, the way HR organizations invest in new solutions matters, too. In 2018, human capital trends shared that 72 percent of HR and business leaders saw the value in implementing AI, but only 31 percent felt prepared to address it. Many companies are only piloting AI or using it in a single business process, only gaining incremental benefits.
The way HR currently invests in new solutions is broken and often prevents companies from leveraging new tech to scale and evolve rapidly. Technology requires a faster adoption time and better post-adoption management, implementation, and scaling. However, this usually doesn’t happen in HR organizations as it should, especially when it comes to scaling with artificial intelligence. Changing company culture is the key, and is often the biggest challenge to scaling AI tools across your organization.
Among executives, 67 percent agree their company must become significantly more digitized by 2020. AI system pilots are a great start for your business, and successful pilots should be scaled and adopted across the organization. This includes producing, testing, evaluating, and scaling in a consistent, fast and repeatable manner. Also look to pilots already run by your peers–gathering all stakeholders and understanding their needs upfront and committing to a change will solidify the culture shift. It can start small, but needs to start with some commitment.
So, where is fragmentation happening? Organizations generally tend to fall into one of two categories when it comes to tendency to adopt new technology: enlightened versus unenlightened. Unenlightened organizations are often a result of a disconnect between HR teams and the C-Suite. New technologies require a fast adoption time, and thorough post-adoption management, implementation, and scaling. In a 2017 survey from KPMG, 65 percent of CEO respondents said that they view technology as an opportunity, but if HR is not aligned with the C-Suite’s goals, there is little value in the tech as a competitive advantage of the company.
Transforming the HR function and capitalizing on emerging technologies is one of the key drivers to success. Here’s what needs to be done to adopt and scale AI in HR:
1. Preparing the HR function for AI
Business leaders need to bring in a diversity of perspectives to ensure initiatives address broad organizational priorities, as well as surface user needs and necessary operational changes early on. Analytics will be particularly useful in determining which areas of the business AI can make the biggest impact. The goal is for employees to augment their judgement with recommendations from data-driven insight to come up with the best possible solutions. It’s also important to keep in mind that this shift will take time, and embracing a “test-and-learn” mentality is key to a sound foundation.
2. Structuring roles and responsibilities around AI
Once HR and C-Suite goals are aligned, the next step is to get employees on board and feeling empowered to implement AI in their day-to-day roles. AI enabled companies must also divide the workload throughout the organization, making sure business leaders and IT leaders are aligned with the goals of the program. Setting up these proper teams keeps the organization on track and ensures the company is using the AI solution to its fullest potential. Additionally, it is important for education to happen at all levels around a new technology. Taking the time to educate your workforce with a foundational understanding of AI, and provide opportunities for teams to sharpen skills is key to quick adoption.
3. Keeping the organization focused on the AI initiative
Leaders must take steps to keep the momentum for AI going. Using a scorecard that captures success criteria and project-performance metrics for all stakeholders, for example, is an excellent way to align the goals of analytics and business teams and keep the business accountable. Adoption should also be regularly tracked so the company can adjust their solution usage as needed.
In order to successfully scale technology in HR, hiring teams should take hold of their digital strategy, which includes ownership of the digital experiences they create for candidates before, during, and after application. Seamless digital experiences for transitioning new hires into the workforce and for helping employees have their needs met throughout their employee journey are essential to fight fragmentation.
Vinita Venkatesh is vice president of Mya Systems.
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