Don't believe the h-AI-ype

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to attend the HR Tech Conference at the ExCel Centre as a delegate, which is quite rare for me; usually at HR conferences I attend with my company and spend my time on our stand. I made the most of my delegate experience and attended as many speaking sessions as possible. Among the many sessions, one topic kept jumping out to me -

AI.

At first, I found myself interested, engaged, excited even, but as the conference went on these feelings faded and started to be replaced by confusion, my head hurting and cynicism. Within the captive audience of the HR Tech Conference, I could feel a palpable enthusiasm for AI, but it didn't match my day-to-day realities as I speak with HR leaders at various levels in a wide range of companies. If I, as someone who works for a tech company and considers myself fairly au fait with technological advances, was feeling out of my depth, what on earth were all of the HR and People professionals, whose primary role focuses on working with people, not tech, feeling?

Using ChatGPT and AI can reduce HR workload by 70%        

Let's start by looking at the sparkly future that those passionate about embracing AI painted for HR. Whilst 87% of companies are not using AI in any part of their processes(1), HR Tech was lucky to host some from the few that already are.

• The big stat I took away was that using ChatGPT and AI can reduce HR workload by 70%.(2) No more working late, no more burnout, and think of all the amazing initiatives HR professionals could develop with all this additional time available!
• Any system requiring human input, for example, searching for vacancies, will move to chat or a conversational interaction. This takes me back to the early days of search engines; 'Oh hello Jeeves, I hope you're having a good day, could I please trouble you to let me know what the current population of the UK is if I may?'. I think the reality of this will be much more user-friendly - rather than having to work out how a company might have categorised their roles or what Job Title convention they use, I envisage us being able to say, 'I'm really good at xyz and love doing these things in my work, are there any roles in the Nottingham area that I'd enjoy?'.
• HR teams will be able to improve processes around recruitment by using AI to quickly collate references, CVs, LinkedIn profiles etc of candidates from a wide range of sources. Connecting people with roles will be quicker than ever!
• HR teams will be able to engage employees more effectively, using AI to create competency, skills and personality profiles of employees and matching these to business needs. This could be a huge game changer for evolving companies, as business needs change, rather than feeling like the only path is redundancies or long reskilling processes, AI could show us which employees would work great for the new company goals based on so much more than their current job titles.

GDPR on steroids – Eek!        

It paints a really exciting future picture, and I wish I could leave it there, but I wanted to share some of the things I heard that started to change my enthusiasm to headache and cynicism.

• EU AI regulation is in the pipeline. This was described as being 'like GDPR on steroids'. As a citizen, I love GDPR and am glad for the protection it provides to me individually, so I'm sure I'll feel a similar gratitude to AI regulations. However, I can't pretend that GDPR is a fun topic from a work perspective. For companies and HR teams, GDPR has been a huge effort to understand and comply with, so I can only imagine what its 'on steroids' sibling might bring.
• AI is only as good as the data and processes it is built on. Before companies can make good use of it, they need to be confident that their processes are robust and work well and that their data is accurate and well maintained. This was a huge red flag to me - most of the companies I speak to can't accurately provide a headcount figure for their geographically disperse employees, so the level of data robustness required for AI is a long way off.
• AI can amplify any bias in the data and processes it Is built on. This one is hugely worrying; if we have processes with our biases included and feed that into AI platforms, those biases remain. One company already using ChatGPT in their HR team said they have to run a specific bias checker on top to try to remove this issue, but how do we know we can trust that?
• The future of jobs will be heavily focused on prompt-writing skills. There was a suggestion with this one that technical skills within an HR team will become increasingly redundant, and replaced by the need for skilled prompt-writers who can get the most out of AI tools. Some of this conversation was almost heralded as, 'Don’t worry about needing any tech skills anymore'. However, based on the two points discussed above, this feels like a naive conclusion to me. If anything, the introduction of AI will increase the reliance on technical skills as HR teams work to ensure their data is accurate and continually work to ensure the AI is built on robust processes.

?

I think the biggest thing that dampened my initial excitement was a recurring remembrance of how far away from this AI-led HR world the HR professionals and companies I speak to seem to be. In a session led by Fosway CEO, David Wilson, he highlighted that the top-rated area key for the future success of HR (with 96% of respondents voting for it), is HR data quality and analytics.(3) If this is seen as key for future success, it leads me to think HR professionals don't currently think their data quality and analytics are at the level they need to be right now, which rings true with lots of the companies I speak to. How could a conference have packed out speaking sessions talking about AI being here now and the need for companies to get on board quickly, while the same delegates are nodding along and taking notes in sessions on 'key HR stats to take to the board', suggesting they need to track DEI, attrition, retention, and absence rates.(4) The two seem so far apart to me that surely both can't resonate simultaneously.

Two things can be true?        

Then I remembered something I read recently in a parenting book (Good Inside by Dr Becky Kennedy) - two things can be true at once. In the parenting world, this was used in scenarios like 'I am setting a boundary as a parent AND I care that it is upsetting you as my child'. In the HR world, I think we can say 'Companies are grappling with the basics of setting up robust data capture and reporting mechanisms AND companies are benefiting from AI in enhancing their HR practices', but surely not the same companies? If AI requires robust data to be successful, then surely, having the data basics nailed is a gateway criterion for venturing into the AI world.

I'm excited and intrigued by the future that AI might bring, to all aspects of our lives, but as a HR Techy feeling daunted by the chasm between basic reporting and AI automation, I couldn't help but worry that others would be feeling overwhelmed too. For anyone else in the HR world, I'd love to hear your thoughts on AI and where your HR teams are at with it. If it feels a million miles away, don't panic! I think spending the time on ensuring your current data capture, reporting, and processes are all super robust and work well will bring you instant benefits, as well as provide invaluable groundwork for any AI ventures you and your companies make in the future.

#hr #peopleandculture #peopleanalytics #ai

References

1.??????My references aren’t going to be up to my usual standard in this article, whilst I pride myself on good note-taking, all I can tell you here is that this stat was shared by Keith Flint from AssessFirst in his session titled ‘How AI can be used ethically to unlock the potential of our people’.

2.??????This one was shared by Bill Boorman, self-proclaimed recovering recruiter, in his session titled ‘The algorithm is going to get you’.

3.??????This session, as well as inspiring me in general, inspired my article title. David Wilson’s session was ‘Don’t believe the hype: understanding the reality of HR tech’.

4.??????A session led by Mark Goodwin, Senior Business Development Manager at NaturalHR titled ‘HR Stats to take to the board’.?