In the ever-evolving landscape of today’s business world, organizations are constantly searching for innovative ways to enhance efficiency and elevate the employee experience (EX). HR leaders have come to recognize the need to pivot away from traditional EX strategies and embrace artificial intelligence (AI)-powered approaches that align with the evolving demands of their workforce. In the not-so-distant past, the adoption of technologies like conversational AI to enhance employee engagement unfolded as a gradual process. The emergence of generative AI has accelerated this adoption, effectively addressing the challenges that once impeded the full potential of EX technology.
We’re seeing that generative AI has revitalized the optimism of both HR professionals and business leaders, positioning itself as the linchpin for enhanced productivity. In fact, 84% of HR leaders believe generative AI will make existing activities more productive. This holds true because a conversational and generative AI-powered dynamic AI agent can assist HR teams and existing systems in tasks like recruiting, onboarding, training, performance management, and payroll. In essence, it emerges as the ultimate digital assistant, effortlessly transforming HR processes with finesse.
Have Traditional HR Solutions Lost Their Luster?
It’s an important question: Have traditional HR solutions lost their luster? The immediate answer is no. Your HR management system (HRMS) may need sprucing up. Adding AI-powered automation to your existing HR tech stack is necessary for an enterprise to improve its HRMS and avoid spending millions of dollars. Some of the most common organizational challenges with HRMSs include:
- Insufficient data and poor reporting: Off-the-shelf software products that manage only one area of HR rarely interface with your other systems. Siloed HR tech often demands manual data entry, consuming time and raising error risks
- Overdependence on IT support: It takes a high level of technical skill to get diverse systems to interact and work together as your organization requires. This typically necessitates significant involvement of an IT specialist, which isn’t inexpensive.
- Staying compliant: Staying informed and updated on legislative changes, especially across multiple locations, is a full-time job, making it an even more challenging task for a business leader juggling many other vital obligations. Outdated, nonintegrated HR systems lack real-time advice and resources for HR professionals dealing with employment regulation changes.
Where HRMSs can improve lies with generative and conversational AI-powered dynamic AI agents. For instance, at Yellow.ai, our digital HR assistant, Raya, helps us deliver human-like conversations with interested candidates and employees, streamlines business tasks, boosts HR department efficiency, and handles employee support and engagement. By adding a layer of automation to the existing HR tech stack, leaders can help release HR personnel from administrative duties so they can concentrate on improving the employee life cycle by developing more high-level engagement programs.
Dynamic AI Agents Empowering HR to Better an Organization
It’s not a lie that legacy chatbots have had a bumpy road. Nevertheless, it’s also undeniable that the advancements in generative and conversational AI are making us see “chatbots” and “digital assistants” in a whole new light.
In HR specifically, the use cases for generative AI are plentiful and continue to expand as users experiment within their organizations. For example, consider screening and recruitment. Human capital is often regarded as a company’s greatest asset. Cognitive digital HR assistants come in handy and contribute to smart recruitment by:
- Sending offers on multiple platforms and probing the candidate in conversations;
- Scheduling interviews and meetings by accessing multiple calendars and other systems;
- Answering FAQs on company policies, culture, and other interview/role-related questions;
- Providing post-interview feedback to candidates regardless of the result;
- Taking interviewer feedback from candidates;
- Sending offer letters, call letters, and salary contracts;
- Notifying employees of new team members; and
- Creating more interactive onboarding programs.
And recruiting is just one area of impact. Imagine an employee is eager to develop skills. Instead of traditional one-size-fits-all methods, AI agents proactively gather data about the employee’s skills, interests, and career goals. They tailor a unique learning plan, recommend courses, and adjust the pace. Continuous monitoring and feedback ensures personalized and effective skill development, enabling HR teams to help employees in a very effective way. They can also streamline payroll operations, address inquiries related to policies and benefits, provide personalized employee support, gather valuable insights through frequent voice of employee surveys, automate tasks like time-off management and reimbursements, and enable thorough performance reviews and goal-setting.
In each of these use cases, these AI agents provide various benefits. First, they offer an accessible, 24/7 conversational channel through which employees from anywhere can ask questions in any language about a wide range of topics, including company policies such as employee benefits, referrals, and salary breakup. Essentially, it’s self-serve at its best. Second, they can help collect and organize data. They can enter or fetch details from an Excel or a .csv file, segregate them, and convert them into valuable information. Businesses can use this data to eliminate unnecessary manual paperwork, while managers and the HR team can make informed decisions and keep employees happy and satisfied.
Most importantly, they improve employee engagement and enable consistent communication. EX is of great importance to any organization. To retain employees and keep them motivated, HR departments must use different strategies to maintain consistent levels of engagement, and chatbots are an excellent tool for just that. They can interact with employees and provide accurate information from wherever and whenever without limitations.
HR departments are responsible for far more than meets the eye, and while juggling various obligations, these teams can always use an extra hand. It’s clear that HR is one of the most essential aspects of an organization, so why should their tech stack cause them more headaches?
With so much innovation happening at an increased rate, organizational leaders and HR teams must come together to find a coordinated approach to automation, leveraging technology such as generative and conversational AI to its full potential. By doing so, HR teams are empowered to lower their total cost of ownership, create a streamlined workplace, and ultimately boost business profitability. But most importantly, they’re successful in creating a digital EX with a space where employees feel heard, empowered, and motivated.
Raghu Ravinutala is the CEO and Cofounder of Yellow.ai, a global leader in conversational AI that delivers autonomous, human-like experiences for customers and employees to accelerate enterprise growth. Since Yellow.ai’s inception, Ravinutala and his team have successfully expanded its presence across the United States, Southeast Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Japan, Australia, and Latin America, with 1,000+ customers in 85+ countries.