THE IMPLICATIONS OF AI ON TALENT MANAGEMENT: HOW READY ARE YOU FOR THE DISRUPTION?

"Opportunities multiply as they are seized."?— Sun Tzu

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There is a broad agreement among scholars, that talent management can be described as actions and methods that are aimed at systematic attraction, identification, development, engagement, retention, and deployment of those talents which are of value to an organization to create strategic sustainable accomplishments or methodical processes of identifying, assessing, developing and retaining people with critical knowledge, skills and competencies. Organizations that seek to win in the competitive environment have sought to implement talent management strategies in various forms and to various degrees of success in both implementation and meeting their objectives.

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Talent management, which is the thrust of strategic human resource management therefore serves the purpose of ensuring the organization has the right employees to support its business strategies by performing their jobs in a particular manner. This provides a degree of certainty that employee effort, behavior and activities are aligned with the organization’s strategic objectives. Over time, advances in HR technology have aimed to support HR’s strategic role in organizations. These advances have matured recruitment systems to enable them search for suitable candidates on the internet, deploy online assessments to screen potential candidates and onboard successful candidates suitable for the role. Thus, ensuring the organization has the right individual with the right competencies at the right time to enable the organization to achieve its objectives. Deployment of performance management systems that facilitate communication, measurement and tracking of individual performance, and their contribution to the organizations strategic goals through cascading and alignment during the goal setting process.

These advancements have also seen the integration of critical employee data to give real time information on employee performance, qualifications, compensation levels, succession planning bench strength among others. The advancements too have supported people development by providing learning management systems that provide tailored or targeted courses to meet the organizations strategic, operational, and tactical needs.

For talent management, the world is changing fast and there is need to adapt, or risk being encumbered with obsolete approaches, practices, and technologies. The workplace has seen seismic shifts in ways of working with the post pandemic workplace embracing remote and hybrid working approaches, increase in diverse demographics working together co-located or virtually, new hiring trends based on increasingly informed and skilled workers with job options/opportunities. Of all these changes, the one with potentially disrupting capabilities that are currently unfolding is the integration of artificial intelligence and its potentially infinite capabilities. This infers using technology to execute tasks that require a degree of intelligence to be undertaken. The emergence of Big Data and innovations in the power of computing have unlocked new possibilities for AI. Artificial intelligence can yield amazing results by enhancing performance management, workforce planning, people analytics, virtual assistants for employee self-service, career pathing, leadership, and coaching. AI creates precise and reliable databases by making possible rapid access and transmission of data, thereby boosting human resources. AI technologies such as machine learning and natural language processing have been adopted to various processes in HR to enhance performance, create efficiencies and effectiveness of these processes. For instance, chatbots and NLP can be used to enhance candidate experience by engaging in communication and addressing candidate queries. Additionally, the immense value that AI can bring to data mining process in recruitment, by enabling the recruiter to access meaningful and insightful information about candidate(s).? AI also facilitates knowledge management and learning thus building capabilities of human resources, improves performance and employee engagement.

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You may already be interacting with AI in your day-to-day usage of your desktop applications. For instance, Microsoft 365 has deployed MyAnalytics which leverages on AI to analyze your work patterns and help you work smarter, enhance your efficiency by helping you map out your areas of focus and optimize collaboration with your various stakeholders. All this is based on how you utilize Microsoft 365. Additionally, you can leverage another AI application; Cortana, to effectively manage your meeting schedules and Power BI, that facilitates informed decision making by leveraging on data analytics and insights. Or Open AI’s ChatGPT the generative AI app that enables workers find answer to questions on demand, aid in tasks such as creating interview screening templates, composing emails, essays, sample tests questions among others.

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Driving organizational effectiveness and employee productivity necessitates adoption of digital personal assistants to optimize decision making, free up time for higher level thinking and innovation or may see deployment of AI technologies in areas such as coaching. For instance, the AI application can harness machine learning, algorithms, voice recognition and generation of potential solutions/provoke insightful reflection and generation of cerebral perspectives based on various permutations derived from big data to provide a personalized and digital coach to enable leaders gain clarity on their decisions and cause of actions. Coaching models such as GROW can be integrated into the AI with voice command and recognition features to allow for verbal communication between the individual leaders and the app, such as demonstrated in Apples Siri with its voice commands features or Androids deploying of Google assistant. For instance, LinkedIn Learning has deployed AI-powered coaching, that provides advice and tailored learning content suggestions, that is informed be the users job title, career goals, and skills of interest.

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Every strategic HR leader should therefore be asking themselves the following questions:

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A.??? Are We Well Prepared?

1.????? How can my Team and I leverage on AI to effectively and impactfully contribute to the organization’s strategic imperatives?

2.????? How can I build a business case for investment of progressive technologies to optimize management of the organization’s talent?

3.????? Which AI tools are best for driving your business and employee effectiveness?

4.????? How can I leverage on AI to drive efficiencies?

5.????? What is the readiness level of our talent to embrace AI?

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B.???? What Skills and Structures Will We Require?

1.????? How can we leverage on AI to attract the right talent, identify their development needs, and provide talent retention interventions?

2.????? What are the various talent needs (skills and capabilities) across various demographics in the organization and in different geographies that we operate in?

3.????? What jobs or roles are likely to be impacted by the advent and evolution of AI and how can I get my organization ready for this change?

4.????? How can we foster continuous learning?

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These and many more questions should be at the top of the mind of all strategic HR leaders and Talent managers, much as when the computers came to the workplace, AI will disrupt our approach to work and nature of jobs. Yes, the change will impact the nature of jobs and the way we work, but what matters is how ready are we to embrace these new impending change, seize opportunities it presents and contend with its implication on the war for talent? As in any global change event, such as the continuing war for talent, time waits for no man/organization, it is therefore incumbent on strategic talent managers/leaders to be aware and be cautious not to wonder as in the words of Dr Seuss, “How did it get so late so soon? It's night before it's afternoon. December is here before it's June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?”