According to recent research released by IBM Institute for Business Value, 33% of chief human resources officers (CHROs) believe that artificial intelligence (AI) will revolutionize the way they do business over the next few years.
Source: iLexx / iStock / Getty
These leaders are realizing that AI helps recruiters to not only attract the right talent but also create a workplace culture that is highly personalized at the employee level and highly collaborative across the organization. When you take into consideration the average time a hiring manager spends—approximately 6 seconds on each résumé—reviewing hundreds of applicants a day for key positions, you begin to understand why AI is important to recruiters.
The ability to make the right decision without analytics and AI’s predictive abilities is limited and has the potential to create unconscious bias in hiring. IBM sees this as a tremendous untapped opportunity to transform the way companies attract, develop, and build the workforce for the decades ahead.
IBM AI Helps Curb Unconscious Bias
With IBM’s new Watson Recruitment tool, Adverse Impact Analysis, CHROs and HR leaders will now be on the front lines of shaping tomorrow’s workforce.
According to Bob Schultz, General Manager of IBM Watson Talent Solutions, Adverse Impact Analysis “identifies instances of bias related to age, gender, race, education or previous employer by assessing an organization’s historical hiring data and highlighting potential unconscious biases.”
Schultz adds that “[t]his capability empowers HR professionals to take action against potentially biased hiring trends – and in the future, choose the most promising candidate based on the merit of their skills and experience alone.”
This new tool is already benefiting companies like Buzzfeed and H&R Block by refocusing recruiters’ time on attracting and hiring the candidates who are most likely to succeed in a given role in an efficient and inclusive manner.
Goals: Ensure Organizations Select Candidates Based on Ability, Not Bias
According to Schultz, “These new tools equip HR professionals with solutions designed to effectively find and prevent unconscious biases that can affect the talent recruitment process and help businesses achieve a stronger, diverse, and more inclusive workforce in the process.”
To combat the bias issue, IBM worked with psychologists to produce an AI scoring system that helps recruiters to parse applicants quickly with unbiased accuracy. By utilizing these AI tools, it helps to take the guesswork out of the applicant selection process, which ensures that those 6 seconds are spent choosing the most deserving candidates based on their fit for the company—not their age, gender, or race.
Schultz says, “Using AI trained with unbiased data, an organization can be secure in the knowledge that the chosen candidate was the one best suited for the role. The result is a stronger workplace that is more diverse, fosters fresh perspectives, and promotes an inclusive atmosphere free of bias.”
To learn more about IBM’s latest technology offerings, click here.