7 Things HR Leaders Need to Know About AI

Like those car headlights in your rear-view mirror that suddenly are right up to your bumper, artificial intelligence has arrived gradually and then suddenly. While AI has been with us in one form or another for decades, the last six months have brought more disruptive changes from AI than in the previous 60 years.An outpouring of news stories predict that automation will expand on a massive scale, disrupting potentially hundreds of millions of jobs. New tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard, which generate images and text on the fly with human-like skill from a simple prompt, can make it seem like the robots are on the verge of replacing us all.In an interview Sunday, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said that his experience with AI products like his company’s Bard chatbot were “unsettling” and have left him speechless. “We need to adapt as a society for it,” Pichai said. “This is going to impact every product across every company.”  That includes Human Resources in profound ways. While it can be hard to cut through the hype and uncertainty about such a transformative change, here are seven points to help HR leaders wrap their heads around what’s going on, at least in the short term.You’re already using AI at work, even if you aren’t aware of itAccording to a survey by Eightfold AI, more than nine out of ten HR pros are already using AI to perform their jobs. Common tasks enhanced by AI tools range from records management (78% of those surveyed) and onboarding (69%) to recruiting (73%) and retention (69%). In another survey, a consensus 98% say that algorithms will play a key role in deciding who gets laid off in the future.Those numbers are only likely to go up over time. Per that Eightfold survey, 92% of HR leaders say they’re planning to increase their use of AI over the next 12 to 18 months.AI won't take your job, but it will change your jobAI excels at automating rote tasks, rapidly digesting vast amounts of information, and identifying patterns within data. That makes it an ideal tool for rapidly parsing resumes, identifying promising candidates, or devising customized training programs.One of AI’s biggest benefits is the ability to give busy people a head start on necessary but time-consuming tasks, says Jess Lantis, vice president of people operations at Guru, an AI-powered knowledge management platform for teams.  For example, you probably don’t want tools like ChatGPT to write entire job descriptions or company policies for you, says Lantis, but they can get you 70% of the way there–and that represents a huge time savings for people who rarely have enough of it.But AI can’t simulate empathy or form genuine connections with employees, notes Matt Schmidt, founder and CEO of Peoplelogic, a real-time employee-engagement platform. That’s why organizations will always need a 'human' in 'human resources'.Many lower-level jobs will be automated. Organizations need to anticipate thatThe fact is, AI will make some jobs redundant. HR personnel on the front lines must be ready to deal with it.Information retrieval is an obvious application for automation. Someone on staff who spends all day answering questions about employee benefits, health coverage, PTO policies, and so on is at greater risk of being replaced by a chatbot, says Schmidt. But that person could then be given an opportunity to do work that provides greater long-term value to the company, such as skills development.Organizations need to start by fostering an environment of transparency and trust, says Lantis. When people are willing to talk about the possibility of their jobs going away, it allows the organization to engage in a deeper discussion about what they really want to do.“I would go to concerned employees and ask, ‘What do you enjoy doing? What motivates you? What could you be learning that helps you thrive in a workplace that uses AI?’ You should be having a lot of those conversations already.”Lantis suggests establishing programs that allow employees to rotate in and out of different projects, to see if there are opportunities for them to have an impact elsewhere in the organization. Companies may also have to devote more resources to upskilling and retraining.AI may force HR leaders to change how they assess talentShortly after generative AI platforms like ChatGPT became available to the public, people quickly learned how to use these tools to cheat on tests and plagiarize published materials.Potential job candidates can also use these tools to misrepresent their suitability for roles, says Teresha Aird, CMO and hiring manager at Offices.net. “They could use AI to generate tailored yet disingenuous cover letters, respond to online questionnaires, or pass screening tests,” she said. “Remote hires could leverage AI to complete their tasks, misrepresenting their actual abilities and performance.”Last June, the FBI issued an alert about scammers using “deep fakes” and stolen information to apply for remote jobs, pass background checks, and even perform work. HR pros may need to change their assessment methods, incorporating more in-person interviews, situational judgment tests, and realistic job previews, adds Aird.AI literacy is a new core competency–especially for HRWhile you don’t want to hire people who cheat, you do want your new hires to be AI literate, says Eric Sydell, EVP at the hiring platform Modern Hire and author of Decoding Talent: How AI and Big Data Can Solve Your Company’s People Puzzle. One of the skills recruiters will need to look at is how good applicants are at using tools like ChatGPT to do their jobs.“We have to view people as augmented and figure out what that really means,” said Sydell. “Digital readiness is one of the things we‘ll need to be looking at more”The need for literacy extends to recruiters and talent evaluators. "They've got to be somewhat fluent in data and understand how these tools work at a high level," he adds. "They need to look beyond the marketing hype and know the right questions to ask."HR needs to use AI tools for the right reasons and in the right wayAI tools offer myriad ways to make peoples’ work lives better. They can, for example, determine if someone is struggling with a task and offer automated assistance. But they can also be seen as intrusive, especially when used to surveil employees or identify disgruntled workers.According to a March 2023 survey by Hunter Marketing, 68% of executives whose companies have not yet adopted AI cite concerns over ethics.HR pros need to establish clear guidelines about the appropriate applications of the technology, notes Schmidt. For example, Peoplelogic’s AI tools analyze metadata produced by employee interactions to determine the overall health of organizations and teams, but only with the knowledge and permission of people in each group, says Schmidt.“Our goal is to enhance the employee experience,” he added. “Even then, the tools never look at the content of these interactions, and they only display data at an aggregate level.”HR pros need to tread very carefully when it comes to deploying AI, adds Lantis. “Anything that makes people feel like Big Brother is watching over them is a recipe for a really unhealthy culture,” she said. “It ends up encouraging busy work over business outcomes. At the end of the day, you have to instill a culture of trust and of accountability, so people are focused on the right outcomes, not on how many widgets you're making or keystrokes you're generating every hour.”It’s a good idea to get your feet wet nowUnderstanding AI’s potential, as well as its limitations, is essential for people in the HR business. Fortunately, with many AI models now open to the general public, it’s fairly easy to get started. People are using tools like ChatGPT to plan gardens, organize their messy computer desktops, summarize meetings, write wedding speeches, and much more. Getting familiar with what these tools can do now will help later, when you need them on the job.Dan Tynan is a Bay Area-based journalist whose work has appeared in more than 100 publications. He has served as editor-in-chief of Yahoo Tech and executive editor of PC World. He recently launched a newsletter on AI.