Using AI to Revolutionize Hiring for Top Talent, While Avoiding the Pitfalls

BY Matthew Koehler | November 15, 2023

The influence of AI on our world is profound and ongoing, though its effects may be more understated than the sensational headlines suggest. Instead of the Matrix abound, AI is enhancing the work of human hands by simplifying or eliminating rote tasks, and making it easier for companies and workers to focus on more important tasks.

“AI is a job transformer, right? What it is basically doing is automating things, like high volume, repetitive tasks. And it is giving us more time to think and do something that we’re good at like problem solving,” said Ankur Saxena, SVP & head of strategic operations and talent at Mphasis.

One of those areas of work where AI is improving processes, and will continue to streamline on both the client and user end, is in hiring and talent acquisition. But there are many pitfalls, namely in how AI carries human biases. During a recent From Day One webinar, Matt Charney, talent acquisition leader at HR.com, spoke with professionals in-the-know about AI and how it affects talent acquisition.

The Genetics of Bias in AI

“There was one very famous article about Amazon creating an AI hiring bot, and it failed miserably because it was trained on data. The data was from all the people who are working in the firm. Being about 70-80% males, they unintentionally created a sexist AI hiring tool. It kept on selecting only people who are males,” said Saxena.

The matching of resumes to job descriptions has been a practice for over 20 years, with a historical feedback loop embedded in the machine learning and AI processes, says Dan Finnigan, CEO of Filtered.

To overcome bias Saxena says organizations need to look at the data AI is getting trained on, because the people training the AI carry their own inherent biases. Next you have to monitor the output so you can understand the results you’re getting. He likens this to going to the gym and maintaining an exact regimen but never seeing any increases and positive changes in your abilities. You have to change your workout to see different results.

The full panel of speakers from top right: Dan Finnigan of Filtered, Ankur Saxena of Mphasis, Alec White of Computershare, Madeline Laurano of Aptitude Research, and moderator Matt Charney of HR.com (photo by From Day One)

Madeline Laurano co-founder of Aptitude Research turned the discussion to ethical AI and how it should be defined by transparency and specific use. “Ethical AI is pretty much defined by transparency. And are these providers going to be transparent with their algorithm? Or are they going to be transparent with the methodology that they’re using? Are they constantly re-evaluating it?”

Focusing on ethics, Charney directed the panel to think about two questions. First, will AI reduce bias going forward, or is automation bias simply replacing hiring bias? And within an organization, who is responsible for making ethical decisions behind AI-driven processes?

“I firmly believe that AI and recruiting is by definition biased, and maybe significantly so,” Finnigan said. He says that earlier in his career with Hot Jobs, product people found candidates using unseeable fonts to game the algorithm, and basically create a marketing document for themselves. On the company side, hiring managers would do the same, adding in things to make the job more appealing.

“And so it is biased by definition. It's just like the way we read news on social media; it's an echo chamber. So I would argue it's a bias accelerator so that we don't have to take the time to really try to figure out what's in the resume, or for the candidate to really figure out what's in the job description.” Finnigan says that the power of generative AI should be one that double checks bias and includes a process that is better at matching verified job skills, instead of just looking for patterns in applicants it's been trained to favor.

AI Is Still in its Infancy

Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of companies out there that use AI very well for the hiring process, according to Laurano. She referenced Amazon's crash and burn with AI recruiting as a cautionary tale that’s still scary to a lot of talent acquisition leaders.

Charney turned to Alec White global head of talent acquisition at Computershare, which is in the early stages of that journey. White is working on the applicant tracking system. “We started with some fundamental things like digital interviewing, and self scheduling of interviews. And that, from the very beginning, felt natural. It’s the feedback loop that we’ve talked about.” White says that based on their metrics, their process doesn't “feel off putting to candidates, but like they are interacting with something human.”

“They could interview with us at midnight, with a digital interview, and then the system would tell them, ‘Hey, this is what is next’ and respond to questions and send them information that was customized to their role,” White continued. He says by personalizing the application process it doesn’t feel like a black hole with an automated email at the end saying not you.

Defining the Perfect AI Recruitment Tool

“I completely see it as an enhancer. I see AI as providing tremendous value to TA professionals, whether that’s being a campus recruiter all the way to a TA leader. “There’s lots of value in a lot of these use cases where AI can come in and improve the recruiter experience,” said Laurano.

She referenced research her firm did in early 2021 that looked at the recruiter experience. There were 14,000 job openings for recruiters that January, and the research found that they were wasting their time on tasks like managing job boards, manually advertising jobs, scheduling interviews, and more,  instead of connecting candidates with jobs. “AI can provide tremendous value in a lot of these use cases for recruiters. And I think recruiters that better understand and get excited about AI, they can get excited about generative AI."

“If you view a human as an algorithm, and you view AI as an algorithm, what do you trust as having less bias? We bring these biases into our organization, and it’s hard to unlearn those. But with AI, you can unlearn things, you can retrain it, and you can reduce bias in a way that you really can’t do with humans," Laurano added.

Editor's note: From Day One thanks our partner, Filtered, for sponsoring this webinar.

Matthew Koheler is a freelance journalist and licensed real estate agent based in Washington, DC. His work has appeared in Greater Greater Washington, The Washington Post, The Southwester, and Walking Cinema, among others.

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Creating an Optimal Workplace for Hourly Employees: Essential Tips for Leaders

In an industry where employee turnover is famously high, what might keep a grocery store employee with the same company for decades?Mayerland Harris, group VP of talent at Texas retailer H-E-B, started at the company right out of college, taking her first job in store operations before moving into HR. She spent some time in the pharmacy department then held a few corporate roles where she oversaw all the centers of excellence for compensation, talent development, recruiting, and people analytics. Recently, she’s taken over HR for all store operations. Harris estimates she’s had a new role roughly every three years, and more than three decades later, she says the experience still feels fresh. Though Harris isn’t an hourly employee, the majority of H-E-B’s 160,000 employees are.“But the fundamental reason I’ve stayed all this time is the company has never really given me a strong reason to look outside,” Harris said during a From Day One webinar on creating an optimal workplace for hourly employees. “To take another job, you have to take that call from the headhunter, and you have to go on the interview, and you have to have some level of curiosity or dissatisfaction.” Harris just hasn’t felt that. “By the time I started thinking, ‘Hey, this doesn’t seem right,’ the situation would change, or my role would change, or that person would leave.”Lots of hourly workers start at H-E-B with a temporary summer job—then they end up staying, and it’s not uncommon for careers to last decades like Harris’s has. Some have been at the same store for 55 years. “I believe it is 100% the family orientation,” she said. “People will tell us they feel like when they work here, they’re a part of a family. Your [direct supervisor] is a big part of that, but so many people have best friends that are co-workers that they feel like they’re coming to, if not a reunion, at least a place that’s very, very comfortable.” Those who come from other organizations tell her they feel a genuine sense of respect from all levels of the team that they haven’t felt elsewhere.When Harris goes into the stores, she doesn’t put her title on her name tag, just her years of service. “The line employee or sweeping the floors or bringing the carts in is just as important as a manager or a leader, because it’s all about serving the customer.”Mayerland Harris of H-E-B spoke with journalist Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza during the webinar (photo by From Day One)A good employee experience depends on having a good team. “We try to find people who are able to start and hold a conversation easily. There is an expectation that we’re talking to our customers as they’re going through the line or while we’re bagging groceries without being too intrusive about what you’re purchasing. We’re looking for people who genuinely like talking, who like interacting, especially for those roles that are customer-facing. Everything else, you learn on the job.”Growing the Careers of Hourly EmployeesAt H-E-B, even hourly roles can expand. There are career development tracks for those who want to be a specialist in their department. Hourly employees who want a chance at being a department manager can apply for a multi-week program called the School of Retail Management, where they gain both technical and leadership skills they still need for the job. Those who want to can keep going, progressing through the organization to become a top store leader or move into corporate. “We love when partners who start in hourly, non-management positions rise all the way to the top.”It helps that the company doesn’t contract with external companies for any of its store employees. That means they employ their own doctors and nurses for on-site health clinics. They also have pilots, engineers, and food scientists on the payroll. “We joke that we have every single career path in the world except for astronauts,” she said. “People see that and they feel like, ‘OK, I don’t have to be stuck here in this one role.’ There’s so much flexibility to do different things.”The operational implications for such a large organization are huge. Those who regard grocery retail as boring soon learn this isn’t the case. Front-end managers might be responsible for 500 or 600 people in a store that’s open 17 hours a day. Inventory and store experience has to flex with consumer preferences. “We’re always having to reinvent who we are, having to reinvent what we are providing. Do we do self-checkout or not? Do we provide meal solutions and all the different things people are looking for? You have to stay on top of that.” One TikTok video or news story can spike demand for a single item, and stores need to meet that need quickly. “That speed of change keeps everything pretty exciting.”Rewarding Excellent Work and Long TenureTo reward those with outstanding contributions, H-E-B has a company-wide recognition program where employees can nominate a colleague or a manager can nominate their direct report. The rewards are prestigious, she said. “You can win at your store level, your facility level, your regional level, or your division level, and then you can make it all the way up to the top person in the organization.”To get a sense of what it’s like to be an hourly worker, Harris uses the annual engagement survey to find a company baseline and identify aberrations, then address them at the store level with on-the-ground research and focus groups. “We have a whole department called customer insights, and these people are amazing at talking to customers and doing focus groups,” she said. “Well, now we’ve been using them to help us internally, because they are so good at asking questions and coming in with recaps. We use them also to spot-check and get feedback from our employees. And then we figure out what we can do to make the environment better.”One thing that makes the store environment so great is that the hourly workforce is so diverse, and that’s something employees really love, Harris said proudly. Hourly workers range from teenagers to octogenarians. “You’re not just working with people who have your same life experiences or your same background; the thing that you have in common is that store or that facility that you work in; the thing that you have in common is H-E-B.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Deputy, for sponsoring this webinar.Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a freelance journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about work, the job market, and women’s experiences in the workplace. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Quartz, Business Insider, Fast Company, and Digiday’s Worklife.

Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza | November 21, 2024

Support the Change: Why Menopause Should Be Part of Your Women’s Health Strategy

Did you know that signs of perimenopause can start appearing in women of childbearing age? Many of us are lacking crucial knowledge that can help us or our women colleagues navigate this time in their lives.Offering solutions to improve and support needs specific to women can also be an important factor to retention. But a new survey reports that only 1% of US women have menopause support as part of their employee sponsored benefits. What’s more, according to a new survey, 85% of women said they don’t know enough about menopause, and 83% experiencing menopause report that their symptoms impact their ability to work.During a From Day One webinar, panelists shared how employers can better support women experiencing the change, and the impact it can have on productivity, medical spend and retention.Often, the concept of “women’s healthcare” ends with postpartum. But Dr. Leslie Saltzman, chief medical officer at Ovia Health, says health care support for women of all ages is vital. “It’s so important to support women who are experiencing perimenopause and menopause because the symptoms aren’t just a nuisance. Evolving evidence is showing that severe menopausal symptoms, which impact a great portion of our population, also have long term health effects and accelerate cardiovascular disease and impact brain health. They’re having lots of negative impact in terms of quality of life and performance at work. We see women dropping out of the workforce just because of the symptoms that they're having,” Dr. Saltzman said.Juliet Vestal, corporate vice president, total rewards at B. Braun, says 50% of their workforce is women. “As our workforce continues to age, these are issues that we know are not being supported within the community by providers. And so we need to find solutions to help,” she said.Even younger employees are starting to ask about these topics, despite perceived taboos, says Melanie Baxter, director of global well-being at Alorica. “As a collective we stop women’s health awareness at motherhood. Opening a space of easy dialogue about any health issues when we're in the workspace can create a much happier workforce, can create longevity and can increase retention. It’s also just the right thing to do,” Baxter said. “It’s a way to communicate with our employees that, ‘Hey, you matter to us.’”Lisa Hammond, CHRO at Veradigm, says that she is answering the relatively recent call from employees to address this issue by providing webinars on the topic. “For me right now, it’s thinking about, how do we articulate menopause to our leadership, which is largely male, and help them get context for this in a way that’s not overly clinical or overly emotional, so that they can gain an understanding and become allies with us as we move through this next phase of our benefits programs and our culture internally,” Hammond said.Breaking Barriers to Healthcare AccessThere are a few issues that make it hard for women to get accurate and helpful information about menopause, says Dr. Saltzman. She cites a study from the Women's Health Initiative that “has been widely criticized [and] created a lot of fear” around the standard of care for menopause.The panelists spoke about the importance of menopause support in the workplace (photo by From Day One)This includes hormone replacement therapy (HRT), which is again now generally considered to be effective, though the stigma remains. Doctors also primarily experience “hospital-based training” tied to birth, and are less prepared for the one-on-one intimate office conversations necessary to discuss menopause. And lastly, the current shortage of primary care physicians means “we don’t have enough providers who are trained to be able to support the needs of women who are experiencing these symptoms,” Saltzman said. 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But be wary, as there’s a lot of misinformation. “If you’re looking for those resources, if you’re looking on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, make sure this is a licensed physician,” Baxter said.Especially given recent political developments in the U.S., panelists agree women’s healthcare education is more crucial than ever. “It’s a perilous time,” Hammond said. “We want to do everything we can within our organization to support women in making sure that, no matter what political party we are, we’re all humans. We all have bodies. We all should be able to maintain and enjoy power over our own beings.”Editor's note: From Day One thanks our partner, Ovia Health, for sponsoring this webinar. Katie Chambers is a freelance writer and award-winning communications executive with a lifelong commitment to supporting artists and advocating for inclusion. Her work has been seen in HuffPost and several printed essay collections, among others, and she has appeared on Cheddar News, iWomanTV, On New Jersey, and CBS New York.

Katie Chambers | October 14, 2024

How to Use Skills Data to Power Development and Achieve Business Objectives

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Her team mapped out the new skills plan based on manager feedback, honest self-assessments, and forecasted what would be needed down the line.Those self-assessments, though, can be tricky. “Oftentimes people are not terribly good at assessing their own levels of facility with certain things,” said moderator Lydia Dishman, senior editor for growth and engagement at Fast Company. “Is there a way to make sure that what people are reporting is actually where they are?”The panel of industry leaders spoke about "How to Use Skills Data to Power Development and Achieve Business Objectives" in a session moderated by Lydia Dishman of Fast CompanyLarger companies, especially, must work hard to not lose track of  each individual’s growth. “With 600,000 employees all around the globe, it’s hard to know who can do what and what they are good at,” said Abbe Partee, VP, head of global certified learning at DHL. 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It’s also important to recognize, he says, that “the foundational skills of today might not be the foundational skills of tomorrow.” In turn, the onboarding itself should serve as a mindset shift to prepare employees for continuous learning, rather than the expectation that development will stop after a few months on the job.Skills data should be something that is embraced by employees. “We know employees want to grow with the organization, and skills is a great conversation to get that going,” said Lucy Beaumont, solution lead, manager and leader at SHL. The biggest shift she is seeing is that the skills conversation during reviews is less about how employees are succeeding in their current roles, but rather where they want to go in the future. “What is your skills potential, and therefore, what is the right career path for you where can you lean into those strengths? If you do have those gaps, and they're relevant to the job you're doing or the job you want to do, how can we get around that and support that?” she said.Post-pandemic, individuals are more acutely focused on whether they are happy in their current position, so it’s important for employers to facilitate those conversations early and help workers move and grow internally, rather than externally, to boost retention.Beaumont says organizations should not only be measuring skills as they stand, but also tracking how those skills gaps are then bridged over time. While pulse surveys are helpful, they can sometimes have a tough time measuring soft skills, such as leadership. Therefore, the hard data must then be analyzed with a human approach. “We do take broad strokes, but then that aggregate view allows us to prioritize and see what it’s hinting at,” Vujec said. HR can allow the data trends to drive what areas will require a deeper, more complex dive.Nash notes this “human skills” area is, ironically, where emerging technology can be the most useful during employee surveys. “We use AI to go back into the comments to extrapolate, to see what other additional data points we can obtain to understand what skills employees are looking for,” Nash said. Then those themes are linked back to the organization’s business strategy and core values.What skills do the panelists see as most valuable going forward? All of them are tied to transformation. They include data analytics, to boost agility in reacting to needs; digitization, to make business more efficient;  a digital mindset when it comes to problem solving; and an overall change in agility. And lastly, the skill of learning itself is vital. “Re-skilling potential: what does it take to be willing and able to learn new skills,” Beaumont shared, is integral in today’s rapidly evolving workforce.Katie Chambers is a freelance writer and award-winning communications executive with a lifelong commitment to supporting artists and advocating for inclusion. Her work has been seen in HuffPost and several printed essay collections, among others, and she has appeared on Cheddar News, iWomanTV, On New Jersey, and CBS New York.

Katie Chambers | September 05, 2024