Chatbots and AI are about the get roles in every operation of enterprises. According to a recent Forrester survey, roughly “85% of customer interactions within an enterprise will be with software robots in five years’ time” and “87% of CEOs are looking to expand their AI workforce” using AI bots.
Chatbots and AI represent a significant step in revolutionizing the way enterprise solutions are supposed to work, making them simple, effortless and engaging. Bots have the ability to simplify and automate most of the HR operations, so that employees are better and faster serviced and the HR function changes from being reactive and process driven to a proactive and more value adding business service.
Communication is key, especially when it comes to effectively managing a company’s workforce. Yet establishing communication throughout the workplace has become a challenge for HR teams.
In an effort to drive increased labor efficiencies, labor happiness, reduce costs, and deliver better customer/employee experiences businesses are fastly introducing AI, machine learning, messaging and natural language processing as core elements of their digital transformation strategy for today and years to come.
During an interview, Dieuwke van Woensel, the HR director of Innoleaps, Startupbootcamp & The Talent Institute, she gives us crucial insights regarding time consuming elements of day-to-day business and why HR Chatbot can be a game changer in this manner;
“I feel that employees and managers complain in general a lot about the slowness of HR (and let me be honest it’s a fair point). Employees and managers want quick and efficient service and don’t want to wait a week for a reply from HR. Personally, I would like to focus more on topics like leadership, talent & culture, future proof organizations, which takes time I don’t have, because I am administrating and onboarding 2 new hires, making 2 offers/ employment contracts, 3 extensions letters, 1 letter of intent and calculating the travel costs and explaining it to an employee (this is actually on my to do list of today).”
It is all about time which we all need it, yet nobody has it enough. HR people also need more time to be able to focus on things with more value potential and AI powered HR chatbots can help to create this extra time.
HR chatbots are shaping the employee experience
According to a recent survey conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management, 38 percent of HR respondents said the primary challenge they face is “maintaining high levels of employee engagement.” It’s common for employees to engage with HR teams during the hiring, onboarding, and open enrollment processes, but communication tends to lack otherwise.
For that reason, we are building intelligent chatbots which implements machine learning algorithms to improve employee productivity, satisfaction and optimises HR function.
This paradigm change is taking place across each area of Human Resources operations. Whether it’s regarding benefits, onboarding, or completion of training, HR chatbots can help employees in each step of the process, on-demand. In this context, chatbots are taking care of the more administrative side of HR roles, leaving the HR department to deal with more complex issues. Let’s see how AI can bring value to HR operations in various ways;
On-boarding
Chatbots can make onboarding completely a self service process as they are able to chat with employees on different platforms and interact with workforce management softwares like Namely, BambooHR, Zenefits, Peoplesoft, Kronos, and Workday, and etc.. A conversational user interface can easily walk a new hire through every facet of onboarding, from electronic signatures for paperwork to providing a virtual office tour prior to an employee’s first day.
FAQs on Company Policies
Chatbots can serve as a 24/7 non-stop working HR assistant that helps employees get answers to FAQs.
Delivering Training Materials
HR training with chatbots is much more effective and engaging since it offers more interactive involvement for employees rather than watching a training video or having a look on a presentation.
Replying Common Questions
Employees spend tremendous time each month while searching for some basic company information. HR chatbots would quickly get employees the answers they are looking for, making them more productive and ultimately happier.
Through the use of A.I., your HR chatbot can answer employee questions in real time on the Slack, Skype for Business, Jetlink Web Widget, or other messaging platforms. For example, if an employee wants to know if they have a Day off for Labor Day, they can simply ask in their question, send it to chatbot, and receive an immediate response.
Recruitment
Hiring through large candidate pool brings scalability issues for HR. A chatbot can help in the screening by not only getting prospective employees information but also performing quick background checks.
Surveys/Self Assessment/Reviews
Deloitte reported that 58% of HR executives considered reviews an ineffective use of supervisors’ time. In a study by the advisory service CEB, the average manager reported spending about 210 hours — close to five weeks — doing appraisals each year. Chatbots allow for the instant exchange of feedback and performance insights that allow employees to constantly be the best at what they do. The conversational interface design of the bot makes it much easier to collect feedback quickly from employees
Where should HR start?
Finding the data & create an FAQ
HR professionals must know where the data they hold on their workforce is — is it on pieces of paper, in folders, databases or HR systems? Furthermore, they need to create an FAQ from employees questions that consume much of their time. Repeating and easy tasks can be prioritized.
Digitising and integration
Data about the workforce must be put into an easily accessible digital format. If your case needs integration with your HR system, you have to consider how to do it.
Consider goals
you should prioritize things. Determine what you want improve in HR operations as first and set the related KPIs to follow up.
Iterate
Measure, measure, measure! Data can show everything from your organization, measure employee satisfaction and offer feedback. You chatbot will evolve over time based on the data that you collect.
Vision
As workforce demographics continue to get more distributed and accustomed to mobile communication, enterprises must embrace AI chatbots to streamline their HR processes. When do we get paid?,’ ‘Do we have Friday off?,’ ‘How do I change my dental?’ — those are all things the HR chatbot will be able to answer.
In this way, AI provides a solution for HR teams struggling with on-demand communication and employee engagement rates. However, as Jetlink our vision is for HR Chatbots to grow from a to-do-list helper to an all-around workplace assistant. We believe that this will bring a tremendous competitive advantage for organizations to build culture, because it will give HR professionals more time to focus on the professional development of the workforce and tackle challenging issues.
In Conclusion
It is clear that chatbots and AI will become an integral part of any enterprise digital transformation strategy. AI is going to have a growing involvement with the HR industry. With these three practical examples that can be implemented now, HR leaders can reallocate effort from ‘low value’ work to ‘high value’ work. As Jetlink, we are looking forward helping you to use HR bots to upgrade your enterprise HR experience.