Talent management is at the heart of companies’ HR concerns. Human resources means data and flow management: identification / referencing / location of expertise, internal mobility, recruitment, training, company culture, internal processes, corporate information, etc.
What is the place of data in HRM?
Gimmick or real innovative tool, where does artificial intelligence really stand on these HR subjects?
And what if AI allowed HR departments to refocus on people?
After years of talking about digitalisation at all levels of companies, particularly in the HR field, we can see that companies have come a long way in realising that they need to change and review the way they work on a daily basis.
If the digitalisation of processes, new collaborative tools and more transversal corporate cultures are tangible facts in organisations, the current challenges and the pandemic context have shown that it is necessary to go further in the reinvention.
PROCESSED DATA IS INFORMATION.
PROCESSED INFORMATION IS KNOWLEDGE, PROCESSED KNOWLEDGE IS WISDOM.
– Ankala V. Subbarao
Not confusing digitalisation with automation, putting people back at the centre, revaluing expertise, strengthening the collective despite increasing teleworking, and developing well-being at work are the key issues today.
And all of this, of course, with the need to develop or maintain business leadership and increase profitability in a highly competitive global environment.
Make digitalisation great again!
Having set the scene, let’s get back to artificial intelligence.
In this context, AI has its place and is thus inviting itself into all areas of the company.
If we apply this to the company, we quickly realise that AI affects, just like data/big data, a large number of activities: logistics, commercial relations, marketing, business, information systems, finance, strategy, production, etc. and of course human resources.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IS THE ABILITY OF A MACHINE TO HELP HUMANS SOLVE COMPLEX PROBLEMS […] IT LEARNS AND IMPROVES AUTONOMOUSLY.
– Cuillandre, 2018
The use of AI in companies represents both a risk and an opportunity for human resources management.
Indeed, many AI solutions on the market offer more automation, thus supplanting the human to some extent.
Finding the right balance between the efficiency offered by robots and human activity is a major challenge, especially when it comes to HR solutions.
Wouldn’t the winning recipe be to perfectly combine the richness of human interaction with the power of artificial intelligence?
AI as an optimiser and accelerator rather than a replacement. Secondly, to adopt a philosophy and solutions that would allow AI to feed on and learn from human activities, but above all to create new value that would make human activities grow and progress.
Towards an enhanced HR function
AI is emerging as an essential partner for HR departments today and in the future.
AI should certainly relieve employees of low value-added tasks, but it should also help them to become more competent, to better connect with each other, to value their expertise and know-how, to be identified for their real skills, to progress in their career, and generally to feel better in their work.
To this end, HR departments that are already using AI solutions seem to agree on one thing: AI should / can not be used simply as a ‘patch’ tool here and there in the current HR environment and operation. AI leads to an in-depth, almost systemic rethink of the way human resources are managed. Whether it is to get the most direct benefit or simply to transform, the HR profession must rethink itself in the light of AI.
The HR function handles an enormous amount of data, and AI represents an opportunity to optimise performance in this area, a powerful lever for cross-functionality, but also an indicator of situations that were previously invisible.
In concrete terms, AI is a booster in many HR fields of application:
- Smoother HR processes / employee autonomy
- Career management / mobility
- Recruitment
- Onboarding of new recruits
- Offboarding
- Identification of expertise and “expertise gaps
- Training (self-training, peer-to-peer training, etc.)
- Creating links between employees / transversality
- Capitalization of knowledge
- Corporate culture
- The employee experience
- Empowerment / motivation of employees
- Well-being at work
- …
What role for HRDs in the future?
It may be a bit of a disruption to turn HRDs into “Data Sharing Masters”, but the idea is nevertheless worth exploring.
The HRD of tomorrow will clearly have to know how to handle data as well as people.
He/she will accompany the transformation of the company thanks, in particular, to technologies such as artificial intelligence applied to human resources management.
These skills are all the more necessary as the acculturation of employees within the company to what underlies the innovation of AI and data is a major challenge of data upskilling. AI will be (and is already) part of the daily life of teams, so it is necessary to help them understand the main principles of these subjects, and therefore to master the fundamentals themselves.
No, the HRDs of tomorrow are not destined to become the “Data Sharing Masters” of companies, but should clearly be Human Data Masters!