HR Automation Trends 2021: What HR Should Know About AI, Blockchain, and Chatbots
The current unpreceded times and technology is turning HR upside-down. While this has been true, the technological part has been disrupting this paper-heavy department for a while now. The year 2021 looks to be no different. As emerging technology becomes more popular, HR will continue to evolve and reinvent itself. An unpredictable and changing business climate is forcing businesses to spend and improve productivity in ways that engage their workers. To keep pace with the demands of today’s talent-hungry world, HR professionals need to look for new ways to add value and find a competitive advantage. At the same time, employers are looking for quick and easy ways to sort through large volumes of applications and identify the best candidates. And going forward, the pace of change will only accelerate. So, here’s a rundown of the top HR automation trends for the coming year that HR Departments must be aware of.
Blockchain and Chatbots
The business world is moving into a brave new world that is difficult to predict. From artificial intelligence to blockchain to chatbots, the future is likely to be filled with potential and possibility. Despite the fear surrounding blockchain, many companies will likely begin exploring its potential to improve operations and cut costs. The technology is already being explored for its use in IT, healthcare, and many other industries. Blockchain, when properly implemented, could add significant value to HR in many ways.
When blockchain technology becomes more mainstream and accessed, it will affect all members of the HR department—from recruiters to senior management—including recruitments, skill pools, background checks, job records, the engagement of smart workforces, onboarding, maintenance of employee data. It will also ease cross-border payments by automating real-time exchange rates and other regulatory criteria that have consequences for multinational companies.
2017 saw the emergence of chatbots — intelligent voice-based systems that can converse with human employees and clients. It is estimated that by 2020, there will be more than 20 million chatbots on smartphones and desktops. Many companies are now getting rid of human staff members to better employ bots and establish collaboration between HR and the business. As with any new technology, the adoption process can be slow, but once in place, chatbots can significantly improve productivity and efficiency in the HR department. The process has yet to see mass adoption but that doesn’t mean it won’t.
The bots work on the basis of inherently advanced analytics and these analytics, in turn, are driving improvements in business processes. With respect to recruitment, several AI-focused solutions such as chatbots cut the mundane and burdensome tasks associated with sourcing and talent recruitment. For instance, the AI-based recruitment app Headstart can screen cover letters with the help of its machine learning models designed for the novel requirements of the organizations.
HR automation is among the most disruptive trends driving the adoption of new technologies. Recent technology advancements, such as mobile and cloud computing, are helping HR professionals automate key aspects of the recruitment process. However, these advances don’t immediately resolve the shortage of high-skilled professionals. In fact, the global demand for skilled workers is expected to grow to 1.5 million by 2022. This puts pressure on HR to deliver the necessary talent faster and keep up with increasing demands.
Read More: Top HR Trends to Watch out For 2021
Interviewing
Interviewing is extremely labor-intensive, and it is costly because HR staff have to have a lot of people sitting there waiting for candidates to arrive and process through all the answers they give. Inevitably, a lot of candidates will drop out or they will get stuck somewhere. This is where AI is coming in. Herein, AI offers the potential to reduce costs, and even do away with interviewers completely in many cases. With robotic, AI screening tools, employers can provide the tools to make the screening process a lot faster, with minimal effort on the part of the employee.
For example, there has been a substantial increase in demand for advanced video interviewing since the beginning of 2020. Hence, in recent news Criteria, a market-leading SaaS people analytics platform decided to acquire Australian-based Alcami Interactive, an on-demand video interviewing platform. Now, Criteria offers its 4000+ customers Alcami’s video interviewing service through its platform.
Talent Management
The past few years have seen businesses gradually move away from a ‘talent first’ approach. In fact, recent research indicates that the idea of an employer’s first duty to a potential employee has drastically declined. The research goes to show that HR has come to be viewed as an administrative function. That said, managing employees is still an essential part of any business. So, while we may no longer be recruiting talent to work in our businesses, it is still vital that HR stay on top of the many issues involved in managing employees. The increasing importance of employee engagement is a great starting point, and many HR solutions now include features that give employees a voice in a variety of ways.
For instance, talent resilience has become core to post-COVID organizational success. 2020 challenged companies to reconsider and redefine how they support their workforces and optimize talent moving ahead. Identifying key soft skills and redeploying talent to align with the dynamic – often unpredictable – nature of business has become a primary objective that can be systematically accelerated with a talent management platform such as Plum.
Finances
Last year in October, BrightPlan, a leader in Total Financial Wellness released findings from their Financial Wellness Barometer survey, a snapshot of financial perceptions from a range of knowledge workers and human resources (HR) professionals. The survey reveals a surprising disconnect between HR leaders and knowledge workers regarding the state of their personal finances during the COVID-19 era and demonstrates that perceptions around finances have worsened significantly since the summer.
Consequently, as organizations face cutthroat competition for talented professionals, they are also looking for ways to cut costs. HR’s hiring and onboarding process are expensive, especially with all the paperwork involved. HR Automation is coming to the rescue with a range of tools that can help cut costs and time. Automated applicant tracking systems help candidates log into an application server and access all the information they need to apply, go through the interview process, and review background checks. A new wave of software tools promises to give applicants complete visibility into how they are being evaluated and offered positions, as well as notifications when they’ve been offered a position or have been passed over.
Technology like that of AI, Chatbots, Blockchain is already embedded in the industry and now puts every potential candidate on equal balance. By automating administrative tasks, an employer can ensure they only put their best foot forward and stay ahead of the competition. An employer can also start sifting through more data to better identify candidates who have the best qualities for their company. The technology is just now starting to disrupt the market and allow for results-driven recruitment. HR departments will likely be trying to put the technology to work in the next few years.