AI and HR: The Power of "What If" and Lessons from the Voice

It’s the end of an era. After 23 seasons and 12 years from the beginning of the series, Blake Shelton, has finally retired from being a coach on The Voice.  Of all the coaches on the show, I always admired his ability to playfully drive a competitive edginess amongst the cohort of rivaling judges, appeal to and influence mass audiences towards his opinion, and tap into the hidden potential of talented singers on the show.  He always knew how to find rough cornered gems that later could be polished into something brilliant and develop beyond what they imagined they could be. 

As they celebrated his finger pointing style and humorous punch lines on his last show, I reflected on what the world would look like if we had “blind auditions” for job interviews and then my mind did its thing (uh oh!!!) and started to wonder. 

What If….

I know there is a bit of trepidation around the overwhelmingly impressive growth and power of AI, however I’m quite excited about what AI is going to bring for the future. AI is making the powerful potential behind the imagination and the question “What if…?” more and more of an actuality.  Before we know it, our world will look incredibly different with rapid advances in AI and it will be disrupting everything we know…how we shop, workout, learn, travel, etc.  

So what will the world of Human Resources look like after the advances of AI becomes common place?  My hope is that the traditional Human Resources function will be almost unrecognizable and be elevated to something exciting, innovative, and creative providing an undeniable, invaluable impact. I believe that CHROs of the future will be required to recalibrate the HR function and lead the evolution of change to come over time.  It will require big picture thinking, a better understanding of predictive analytics and correlations to company performance, and a mastery of being a leader though change and transformation.

Whatever the solutions AI will bring the valuable impacts will come from looking at holistic ecosystems in HR because processes we have boxed into a neat corner always touch many other processes and bleed into them. For example, Talent Acquisition is responsible for sourcing, selecting, and hiring the best talent for organizations however these decisions can impact diversity, compensation, promotion, retention, etc. goals of organizations, but Talent Acquisition is often done in isolation of these other considerations.   If AI could bring these pieces together in a very seamless, user-friendly, and efficient way and draw in predictive analysis and modeling for decisions in talent acquisition before they are finalized, we will be able to drive better decisions for the future of organizations.

Lessons from the Voice

Part of the biggest innovations came from taking two unrelated worlds and bringing them together. Fast food was inspired by the mass manufacturing plants.  The idea of safe wine packaging was spurred by buying eggs. The Listerine Mint strip was created after a Pfizer executive went on an oversees trip to Japan and was inspired by edible candy wrapping.

As I watched Blake’s retirement show on the Voice, it spurred a reimagination to the world of analyst recruitment in my mind.  (Yes, I know that’s quite the jump!) What if we took our traditional processes for recruiting, development, and promotions for analysts and sprinkled some possibilities through AI.  The table below summarizes my mad scientist thinking.  

For those of you who are not familiar with the rules of The Voice, here’s a quick high-level summary (otherwise feel free to skip to the table):

Singing contestants audition for coaches who have their backs turned to them. The coach cannot see them until they choose to select the individual by turning their chair.  In the process if more than 1 coach turns, the coach gets to pitch to the contestant why they would be best served to develop them into the star they aspire to be. 

1.     The contestants proceed to several rounds of elimination that include:  Battle rounds, Playoff rounds and Knock out rounds. 

2.     The finals round includes some final contestants that are voted on by the viewer audience. 

3.     There are several tricks up the coaches’ sleeves (blocking and stealing) which are explained later in the table below. 

I realize some of this is out there and I’m certainly not advocating for the reimagined column to be the recommended route for the future of analyst level recruiting, but I do believe strongly that AI integration will not just incrementally change some finer steps in HR processes.  AI will enable HR to take leaps and bounds into new landscapes and will require HR professionals to be ready to transform and embrace the new.  I look forward to what comes for us with this. 

#AI #HumanResources