The Role of Generative AI (GenAI) in the Future of Human Resources

Generative AI has been a mainstay in the headlines ever since OpenAI released ChatGPT at the end of 2022.

And for good reason: it’s set to change knowledge work as we know it and transform the fabric of your organization’s workforce.

Read on to find out how GenAI is going to shape the future of HR so you can stay ahead of the curve.

What is Generative AI in HR?

Generative AI is an artificial intelligence that can generate human-like text, images, and audio by repurposing the data it’s been trained on. 

This has wide-ranging implications in the world of HR, and GenAI tools are already being used to optimize everything from resume screening to onboarding new hires.

How is HR using Generative AI in performance management?

Generative artificial intelligence is already helping the 15% of HR teams that have already implemented it optimize their performance management processes.

Here are the most common ways forward-thinking HR departments are putting generative AI software to work:

Boost employee retention

Chances are that employee retention is a priority for your business this year.

In fact, the average organization experiences a 18% turnover in its workforce each year. And the cost of replacing an individual employee can cost an incredible two times the employee’s salary.

Luckily, Generative AI tools are already helping businesses around the world keep those numbers down.

Bill Nowacki, the decision science lead at KPMG, recently told CIO that his organization uses AI to:

• Quantify an employee’s risk of leaving as a score.
• Suggest why they might be thinking of leaving.
• Recommends what KPMG can do to keep them.

Nowacki says this helps KPMG predict two-thirds of people about to resign and convince 10% to 20% of those identified to stay.

Quickly analyze survey responses 

Another effective use of Generative AI in HR is in analyzing the responses to your employee surveys to give your teams a quick overview of their sentiment. 

This is helping HR teams quickly understand how their people are feeling about things like the employee engagement initiatives they roll out. Armed with instant access to this data, they can quickly course correct when things go wrong – and double down on the initiatives that have a positive impact – rather than waiting weeks to sift through and synthesize each reply.

Reduce unconscious bias in the recruitment process

One of the most useful Generative AI use cases in HR is helping your team find the right person for every job faster – and at a lower cost-per-hire. 

Plus – while it’s certainly not perfect – artificial intelligence can more objectively evaluate applicants without a human’s preconceived notions around race, gender, or age. This helps you mitigate against unconscious bias when your organization is deciding who to hire and promote.

Generative AI in HR can also analyze your organizations’ salaries, promotion rates, and employee engagement rates and suggest where DEI interventions might be needed to make sure all your employees are being treated equitably.

Optimized learning and development programs

GenAI is also a huge boon to HR teams looking to optimize their learning and development initiatives.

AI can create training strategies tailored to each individual employee by helping to identify their skill gaps, customize the path to filling those gaps as effectively as possible, and then providing your people with chatbots or virtual assistants that answer ongoing questions and concerns every step of the way. 

Generative AI for HR can even track how each employee engages with their L&D plan and then tweak the materials they’re assigned based on their learning style and preferences.

How does GenAI impact HR?

AI can not only help create and maintain a healthy culture.

It’s also set to transform your organization, with executives estimating that 40% of their workforce will need to reskill due to AI and automation in the next three years. 

Which means it’s safe to say that GenAI is going to have a huge impact on HR teams around the world as upskilling your people in this new technology becomes a priority. 

As your people start to understand all the ways AI can help them say goodbye to busywork and spend more time making strategic decisions, they’ll become a lot more open to the idea of using it as a tool to enhance their workflows rather than fear it as something that’s going to replace them. But HR teams are in for a bumpy ride until the average employee starts to see things that way.

Plus, HR professionals have to navigate their own changing roles as AI-powered tools become their digital assistants. This will free your HR team up to spend more time designing recruitment efforts, employee engagement strategies, and onboarding processes that will really move the needle on their KPIs. But it’s undoubtedly going to be an uphill battle selling some of your HR team on Generative AI and the future of HR – and the smart HR leaders are focusing on making that transition as smoothly as possible. 

What are the benefits of integrating GenAI in HR?

GenAI can streamline the most tedious HR tasks and help you quickly spot trends and key takeaways in big datasets.

Here’s a quick look at just a few of the benefits that will come from integrating GenAI into your HR processes.

Efficiency and time saving

The most obvious benefit AI can bring to your HR team is in eliminating busywork.

Take resume screening. Artificial intelligence can analyze each application and award it a score based on how well suited the candidate’s experience, skills, and education make them for the role.

After AI has done the grunt work, your team can step in to make the final call.

Enhanced decision making

AI can also help you quickly boil big datasets down to the key takeaways so you can quickly make informed decisions.

For example, natural language processing algorithms can quickly analyze the sentiment of responses to your employee surveys, quickly surfacing trends and areas for improvement. Plus, they can optimize your employee benefits packages by letting you know which of the benefits you offer your people use most often – and which they rarely make use of.

Personalization

Providing a truly personalized employee experience to every one of your teammates is a difficult task for even the smallest of start-ups – and an impossible one for large organizations.

But AI chatbots can change that by:

• Welcoming new hires with an automated onboarding flow that hits all the onboarding best practices.
• Requesting important information you need from your people at a time that’s most likely to get a response based on their communication patterns. 
• Provide real-time feedback on the tone and language used in internal and external communications to help your people develop more inclusive communication habits.

Improved employee experience

Last but not least, AI is set to dramatically improve the employee experience by essentially becoming a digital assistant to each of your people. 

For example, Assembly’s Dora AI – which is currently in beta – lets your employees upload a personal database of files into Assembly and then ask it all sorts of questions relating to their work. Instead of having to trawl through files and folders to clarify what the next step in an SOP they’re following is or find out what was covered in the last team meeting, they can get that information in seconds by simply asking Dora for it.

The final word

Some HR teams are already using GenAI to handle repetitive tasks and quickly crunch big datasets so they can quickly make informed decisions. 

And it’s set to have an even bigger impact on the way HR departments operate going forward. 

Keep the developments we’ve outlined here in mind to make sure you stay on top of the changes GenAI is going to bring to the world of HR over the next few years.