IE Rewire Magazine
Since HR is all about people, there’s no space left for AI, right? Wrong. New advances in AI are helping today’s HR managers find top talent to drive company performance—and unlock their full potential as they do.
Companies are increasingly looking for dynamic, well-rounded candidates who are able to drive change with innovative technology. But that’s easier said than done. In order to find the right person for the job—and keep them there—HR managers need to take a similar innovative approach.
New tools and technologies are transforming how we can search for and retain talent. At every step of the process, they give us an edge to refine the talent pool and gather insights, resulting in more suitable and satisfied employees.
Recruitment
Looking in the right places
Generally, the recruitment process begins with a job posting. You then spend a copious amount of time searching for the relevant platforms or social media channels. But with new tools, this time-consuming process has become much easier, putting your ad in the most adequate places.
Programmatic advertising, for example, is an automated tool that places your ad on the appropriate job board or even on the social media feed of relevant candidates. It automatically sorts through huge swathes of information to help your ad be seen on the most optimal digital spaces.
But even after you find the right platforms, there’s a problem: you keep getting the same profiles that aren’t quite right for the role. There could be many factors influencing this—and one of them could be the ad itself.
Advertising the right way
The way you phrase a job opening can have a huge impact on the people you attract. AI-powered tools are becoming more useful to help ensure your message reaches the right audience, while also avoiding biased language.
For example, sometimes the words we use can have a perceived gender bias one way or the other. This is where the gender decoder for job ads comes in. While this tool won’t write the perfect copy for you, it will help guide you toward producing a more neutral ad that will boost engagement.
Other websites such as Textio or Boost editor provide augmented tools that can help you produce better copy to attract the perfect applicant. It might take some time until they bring predictable results, but like any AI software, the more they’re used, the better they’ll be.
These are just a few of the tools to facilitate the recruitment process, though. There are seemingly endless novelties in the field, lending a hand to HR professionals by chatting with prospective candidates, leveraging social media metrics, and much more.
Management
Onboarding
Now that you’ve successfully recruited the right person for the job, the next step is to onboard them. Gone are the days when you hired someone and let them figure everything out for themselves. Not only does this result in a negative first impression for the new employee, it also makes it more difficult for them to fit into the corporate culture.
But onboarding doesn’t have to mean spending the whole of your day holding the person’s hand as you ignore more seemingly pressing tasks. Automated digital onboarding can be engaging and time-saving. The new employee simply downloads software like BambooHR or HROnboard onto their phone and it will walk them through the steps.
Performance and satisfaction
Once the team member has been successfully onboarded, it’s important to ensure their performance and satisfaction levels. These two factors are inextricably linked—unhappy employees aren’t likely to produce consistently high-quality work.
PerformYard is a flexible, highly customizable platform that streamlines performance reviews, goal management, and employee feedback, ensuring there is always a healthy conversation taking place. With a multitude of dashboards, charts, and other features, it helps build a mutually beneficial professional relationship that helps boost retention.
Compensation and benefits
Can we afford them?
Compensation has always been tricky. There are so many factors that need to be taken into account when deciding what to offer the candidate. Of course, if you want the best talent, you have to be prepared to make an investment. But how much is too much?
This involves taking a serious look at the data on hand, exploring exactly what stage your company is at and how much you can afford. Sometimes, this even means hiring a consultant to make sure that you read all the data properly, which can add extra costs into the equation. Helpfully, several platforms are out there to help you make sense of this data, while also providing ongoing updates and performance metrics to ensure you made the right decision.
And, ultimately, this extra effort will pay off. Using AI to accurately gauge the right compensation for your candidates will result in motivated employees who feel valued and want to earn their salary—rather than an underpaid, disgruntled workforce whose default setting is “bare minimum.” So you can expect higher performance levels and greater commitment to your business, driving your bottom line.
What the future holds for HR managers
The world of HR is changing as much as any other sector—which is to say, at breakneck speed. Innovative tools are taking the place of time-consuming and frustrating tasks, while also providing clearer insights, allowing HR managers to better spend their time on what they love most—working with people. It’s an exciting time to get into the sector as there is huge potential to bypass repetitive tasks and make a lasting impact.
