HR professionals have seen their responsibilities grow considerably in recent years. The role is about much more than recruitment, basic compliance, and discipline.
Source: PhonlamaiPhoto / iStock / Getty
They need to think about employee development, company culture, and a host of other issues. Still, much of an HR professional’s time can still be consumed by tedious tasks like reading résumés and arranging interviews.
AI to the Rescue
Last year, Google launched its Hire application, a tool designed to provide efficiency for HR professionals by integrating the various G-suite tools many businesspeople are already using, like Gmail and Google Calendar.
Recently, Google announced the release of an updated version of Hire designed to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to reduce repetitive, time-consuming tasks into one-click interactions.
Features include suggesting optimal times to schedule interviews, auto-highlighting résumés to point out key skills or qualifications, and adding a click-to-call feature for quickly and efficiently contacting candidates.
Beyond Tactical to Strategic Focus
The idea behind Google’s Hire tool is to free up the time of busy HR professionals so they can spend less of their day doing monotonous, but necessary, tasks and spend more time working on other key priorities, such as helping to build a strong and attractive company culture and evaluating areas for improvement in the company’s current practices.
These are tasks that AI isn’t cut out for, at least not in its current state. So, why not let educated and experienced professionals spend more time doing the complex and important work they were educated and trained to do and let the computers take care of the administrative details?
There is monotony in virtually every job: work that is tedious and not necessarily a value-add but that needs to be done nonetheless. Companies should take every opportunity to streamline these activities; AI, as Google Hire demonstrates, has great promise for taking care of the tedium and letting professionals put their higher-level skills to more productive and impactful use.