Between algorithm and emotion: HR work of the future
Would you blindly trust an algorithm when looking for a partner? Even if all the parameters such as appearance, hobbies, level of education, etc. match perfectly, this is no guarantee of a happy relationship. Or to put it another way: would you like to talk to a chatbot about your professional future? Besides salary and benefits, it is usually the supposedly soft factors that attract and retain people.
From hype to reality
Just over a year ago, artificial intelligence suddenly became mainstream with ChatGPT and “the end of work as we knew it” was proclaimed. If we take a look at our HR departments today, we don’t yet see any truly disruptive changes. However, to speak of hype or a temporary trend would be fundamentally wrong. AI is here to stay. The areas of application range from people analytics and chatbots to text or video analysis, which are intended to provide information about the personality of candidates. Time for us to take a critical look ahead. What can AI do and what can’t it do (yet)?
Employer Branding
If you want to design your employer branding quickly and cost-effectively with tools such as ChatGPT or Midjourney, you can sometimes achieve good results. What fascinates us most as passionate copywriters: Targeted prompt engineering can even be used to translate texts into your own brand language. However, there is always the danger of instant positioning and boring social media appearances. Really good campaigns still need the input of creative minds.
Recruiting
Screening hundreds of CVs is not only time-consuming, but also not a very popular task among recruiters. AI can already do this much faster today. But is it better? In theory, this should make the pre-selection process more objective. In practice, however, AI systems often perpetuate human prejudices because they are already embedded in the training data. Even when it comes to aptitude diagnostics, most tools fail in scientific studies.
Employee retention and development
AI can promote employee retention by creating early warning systems for dismissals and highlighting personalized development opportunities. This data is an important basis for shaping the employee experience. AI analyzes the past and uses it to make predictions for the future. But it will never know what is currently on your employees’ minds. AI is therefore only ever a supplement and by no means a substitute for a constant dialog with your own employees.
The more technical the process, the more human HR work must be
Even if we successfully overcome the initial obstacles of AI in a few years’ time, it will not be able to completely replace HR work in the future. This is because the limits begin where human emotions come into play. The biggest advantage from our point of view is that AI can relieve us of many administrative tasks in the future so that we have more time for the really important things. After all, we applied for a job in HR because we want to work with people.