AI for HRM

With the large scale evolution and advancements made in the field of information technology in the
last two decades, the integration of Artificial Intelligence with traditional HR methods can redefine
the way in which organisations manage their human resources. Its capability of providing insights
from large volumes of database and aiding in critical analysis can take the productivity, engagement
and experience of employees to a higher level. In this section, we discuss how the diffusion of
Artificial Intelligence with six activities or dimensions of HRM largely assists and impacts the
efficiency of organisations:

1. Human Resource Planning: Human resource planning or rather Human resource strategic
planning is necessary for organisations to guide in their decision-making and achieving the
vision and mission of the organisation. It generally centres around predicting the future
possibilities and needs of the HR department by implementing proper analysis of the current
scenarios in the present HR workforce of the organisation, factors in external labour market,
studying the current trends in the social, technological, economic sphere and the probable
environment that the organisation would be operating in the future. Artificial Intelligence
can facilitate in making the planning process smoother by assisting in data mining of both
external and internal information and coupling it with the available data of global trends.
Furthermore, these intelligent systems anchors the evaluation of the collected data and
forecasting of future realms and situations, thus making the process of future management
planning of the company faster, smoother and more reliable.
2. Hiring and Recruiting: As human workforce came to be viewed as an important asset which
fuels a company’s ability to gain a competitive advantage over others, recruiting became a
significant part of strategic planning. The biggest challenge for recruiters, generally, is
searching the best fits for their companies, without letting human biases or lack of access to
the correct set of data to affect efficiency of the recruitment process. The analog way of
recruiting i.e. print ads in newspapers or job boards, had the disadvantage of not having a
broader reach and the tedious task of analysing every applicion manually. Hence, with the
advent of internet and the introduction of AI, recruitment was digitised i.e. job opportunities
being posted in online jobboards. Monster.com is one of the firsts jobboards. The
development of LinkedIn is another major leap in digital recruitment.
Since job opportunities now became easily accessible to all potential candidates, huge
number of applications started pouring in for each position. For example, in the year 2013,
when Walmart opened a new store, it received a whooping average of 23,000 applications
for 600 positions. However, this avalanche in outreach brought forth the issue of high
numbers of passive candidates. Hence, AI helped in developing the best candidate pool by
intelligently distinguishing between active and passive candidates. AI tools accomplish this
by scanning the various data set available for each candidate and identifying the most viable
form of representation of data in banners, texts or emails to attract the most likely active
candidates. For example, Johnson and Johnson took the help of Textio to bring changes in
job description and increased the number of hired female candidates.
Moreover, AI enabled screening has significantly reduced lead time in hiring by identifying
keywords and inferring certain characteristics of candidates from their resumes using AI
screening tools. For example, Ideal claims that the lead time for one of its clients has
declined from 24 days to 9 days, a massive 62.5%.
Assessments using AI include gamification rounds which assesses the skills, ability and
personality of the candidates. For example, HireVue recorded the assessments and video
interviews of the top performers of Unilever, through AI enabled technology and
subsequently utilised the results of the analysis to discover the most likely traits in the most
successful employees for recruiting the best ones from the pool of applicants.
Most importantly, companies need to check whether the candidates are having a positive
experience in the entire AI enabled recruitment process, since their appreciation and word-
of-mouth publicity can highly attract or repel candidatures. For example, AI enabled
chatbots to support candidates while filling up applications can provide them with a
seamless experience.
Therefore, AI facilitates in bringing a much-required change and provides efficiency to one of
the most important aspects of the functioning of a company.