AI for HR: How It Benefits Your Business (And How to Get People on Board)
Part of a series | Insights in Action Series
AI provides advantages for business operations and HR teams, but challenges to adoption persist, such as staff concerns. During a recent ADP Insights in Action session, panelists discuss AI benefits and how to get employees on board.
Artificial intelligence is a priority for HR teams. According to Gartner survey data, 76 percent of HR leaders believe that if their organization doesn't adopt AI solutions in the next year or two, they'll lag behind in organizational success.
Staff members, meanwhile, are more worried about the impact of intelligent solutions. As EY notes, 75 percent of employees are concerned that AI will make certain jobs obsolete, and 41 percent say adoption is moving too quickly. The result is opportunity balanced by a challenge: How do businesses achieve the benefits and ensure their people are on board?
Dr. Chris Mullen, vice president of Workplace Insights and Transformation at ADP; Kim Coldiron, senior vice president and chief human resources officer at American Woodmark; and Zachary Nunn, CEO at Living Corporate, explore these ideas in their recent Insights in Action session "AI for HR and Business: What It Can Do for You and How to Get Your People on Board."
The business benefits of AI
The technology offers multiple benefits for business operations and HR processes.
On the business side, Coldiron highlights the use of intelligent tools for data reconciliation and summarizing information; they excel at combining disparate data sources to produce actionable outputs. When it comes to HR, meanwhile, she says, "We're beginning to explore some more sophisticated use cases where we want to improve the employee experience, such as chatbots and ways that we engage with our employees and respond to their basic inquiries."
She notes that most employees don't need or want drawn-out conversations with HR staff. Instead, they have simple, specific questions they want answered quickly. AI helps enable speedy, self-service response and, according to Coldiron, "would allow my HR professionals to spend their time on the more valuable parts of their job where human interaction is really the differentiator."
According to Nunn, meanwhile, it's a great way to streamline the process of analyzing large, unformatted and qualitative datasets. "However," he says, "there's still going to be that human element, right? I think about AI as a really smart college undergraduate intern. Are you going to trust that intern to write up your entire business strategy? Probably not. Instead, you'll give them a task to complete and review their work a couple dozen times." The same is true for AI.
From an HR standpoint, Nunn says, "I really believe the most effective and beneficial use of AI right now is to enrich employee experience by streamlining or eliminating redundant tasks."
All aboard the AI train
As noted earlier, workers are worried about AI adoption. Some are concerned intelligent tools will take their jobs. Others are troubled about the prospect of getting pushed to the sidelines as AI-enabled tools take on more mission-critical tasks. Still, others are leery of rapid adoption, voicing legitimate apprehension at the risk of tools misusing data or delivering erroneous conclusions that put business operations at risk.
Simply put, getting staff aboard the AI train isn't as easy as blowing the "All aboard!" whistle. Businesses must demonstrate that intelligent solutions can help get the organization where it's going — without leaving staff behind.
"You want to be really thoughtful and intentional about who you decide to partner with," says Nunn, "and also have an internal team to help develop strategy. You need to define the actual problem you're trying to solve and be honest about whatever that problem is. Then, go find and select a partner who knows what they're talking about and can help guide you to the right solution. Finally, make sure your rollout is tactical and stretched out over time. There's a lot of change management involved."
In other words, encouraging adoption means involving staff in every step of the process, from problem identification to vendor selection to implementation. Employees' biggest concern around the technology is the loss of control; by ensuring they have a voice, they can regain a measure of that control.
Coldiron notes that, in many cases, HR teams can be their own worst enemies when encouraging adoption. "I remember reading survey comments," she says, "and I remember an employee asking for something. I saw that employee later and said, 'Hey, don't forget the next survey,' and they said they wouldn't bother answering it because the last time they did, nothing changed." In fact, HR had already made the change — they simply didn't announce it. As a result, staff felt unheard and unappreciated. The same goes for AI. While it's important to take employee feedback into account, it's even more important for HR teams to communicate exactly what's been done, why and how it benefits employees.
The bottom line? HR teams recognize the growing impact of AI. Making the most of intelligent tools, however, requires a combination of processes and people — it's not simply what AI can do for business but how employees interact with solutions that drives effective adoption.
Ready to discover more AI benefits for your business and get the inside track on adoption? Check out the full Insights in Action session.
