Tara Williams, HR Director, Whiteoaks International details how technology is supporting and streamlining her company’s people management.
HR technology is at a bit of crossroads, according to the tech consultancy Gartner, with AI at the peak of inflated expectations. Its survey of this year’s priorities among 1,400 global HR leaders found HR technology dropped from third place to fifth year-on-year, as enterprises ponder how to drive maximum value from generative AI.
AI is not the whole story, however, even if it is set to play an ever-greater role. In the small and medium-sized company sector (SMEs) where HR teams are tiny, current technology is already saving large amounts of time in recruitment, on-boarding and continuing employee development. At Whiteoaks, the B2B tech PR agency where I work, this has significantly reduced time-to-hire from anything from between eight and 12 weeks, to just six.
Take our applicant tracking system (ATS), for example. With just a few clicks it is possible to publish a vacancy on the online job boards using a prepared specification which also goes up on our website and LinkedIn feed. Since our candidates upload their CVs and applications to the system’s database for review, arranging an interview via the system takes up little or no time. Other systems used successfully by SMEs send candidates all the necessary information and enable them to upload videos of themselves answering five set questions.
Saving time, improving experience
The benefits are not only in time saved but in the consistency of experience it provides. By ensuring every candidate receives a reply, it removes the job-hunter’s common bugbear – that nobody ever acknowledges applications.
Once a candidate is successful, our HR system saves on-boarding time by automating the arrangement of training schedules and induction sessions to fit in with other employees’ timetables. For us, the integration goes further by populating our payroll solution with a new employee’s details.
In any SME the automation of these tasks is a major advantage, especially where the HR department consists of one person who may not be full-time – as in my case. What is important is to choose the right solution or platform, and to focus on the quality of data. Like any other set of applications, HR technology is only as good as the data that we give it.
The AI-powered HR manager is here
While many AI innovations in HR are over-hyped, there is no doubting that the AI-powered HR manager is an increasingly important figure. As managers we are learning fast how to use the right prompts with generative AI to ensure accuracy in analysis or content. The use cases are many – from extracting insights quickly from employee research, to structuring feedback given to employees about where they should concentrate on improving their performance.
It is our use of AI that will more rigorously remove opportunities for bias in recruitment processes by redacting details from complex applications. Advances in the legal technology world mean an HR team’s legal queries relating to employment law will initially be handled via an AI-powered chatbot that offers guidance and presents relevant case studies and legislation. Similar chatbot applications will also provide employees with a wealth of information on company policies and practices without them seeking out the management or HR team or trawling through a 150-page company handbook.
Selecting the right solution
Deciding which HR solution to adopt is an important decision that can have significant business consequences if it goes wrong. It is important for any business to establish what it wants from HR technology before it goes out to acquire it. HR leaders need to map their processes, identify strengths and weaknesses and then decide whether to use a new HR solution to adapt them or maintain them.
Any solution should integrate with employee workflows and must support the organisational culture – “the way we do things here”. No single solution is likely to cover everything a business wants. There are always going to be trade-offs and some processes may have to remain manual or work through another solution.
It is important for the employee experience to be at the forefront of these considerations. Solutions should be intuitively straightforward to use without formal coaching sessions, and they should minimise the complications around log-ins and data entry for employees. SMEs especially, are unlikely to need the full bells-and-whistles functionality offered by elaborate platforms which try to fix problems that do not exist. Our own platform, for example, is relatively simple.
While Gartner believes there is a hype cycle around HR technology, its recommendation is for HR professionals to use AI primarily to focus on task-automation, transforming employee experience and providing insights. This works as well for SMEs as it does for major global companies. It’s certainly true that for SMEs, current solutions already achieve significant gains in these areas through a focus on integration, simplification of processes and accuracy of data and outputs. As I hope I have summarised – there are many areas where HR technology is delivering significant positive change right now.
