For most of us, Artificial Intelligence (AI) may soon be making our job better including the Human Resources department. AI is reinventing and helping HR's digital transformation. The future of HR involves AI, with businesses investing in HR automation solutions and focusing on more important tasks.

HR is known for having many tedious and repetitive administrative tasks, especially in organisations which haven't gone through technological updates recently, resulting in less productive employees. Providing the proper tools and technology will deliver a better employee experience and make life easier at work. 

"HR and companies in general should look at applying AI not just to business processes that are high volume, like recruiting, but that also have a high incidence of error," Eubanks said. From auditing business contracts, expenses reporting and workplace harassment chatbots, AI solutions can be as efficient as it is in recruiting and talent acquisition areas.

Organisations are turning to artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies to streamline employees onboarding experience especially after the Covid-19 crisis. Employee internal portals are used for company policies, services and for any other relevant document related to the employee’s everyday work thus reducing unnecessary paperwork. 

HR chatbots as well as gamification onboarding strategies are used to facilitate new employee integration. “This can allow new hires to integrate more quickly into the organization even before their first day on the job,” says Susan Power, founder and CEO of PowerHr. 

When it comes to onboarding, designing and implementing a smart training strategy is important to ensure the new employee can handle requests effectively. An automated and intuitive system will reduce the amount of training time and the employee can focus on “learning on the job”. 

HR departments are also integrating AI technology to automate tedious manual tasks such as offer letters, writing contracts or benefits documents, screening resumes for keywords and documenting any information about the employee during the onboarding process in the HR system. 

NLP (Natural Language Processing) has brought a big change in the field of HR by using algorithms to analyse the interaction between human language and computers. It allows HR professionals to hire or promote a good candidate fit for a role and even identify employee potential. NLP provides a data-driven approach to selecting an employee with the objective of minimising human error or bias. Pre-qualification of candidates via chatbots and automated interviews improves time-to-hire and candidate experience.

NLP use could extend to analysing employee surveys responses, identifying competence, levels of employee engagement, at-risk employees and perhaps even succession planning. Sentimental analysis is an NLP technique used by some organisations to determine whether data is positive, negative or neutral. This analysis helps businesses in understanding customer needs and sentiment toward their brand.

Organisations must understand AI as a tool to assist rather than replace people. Integrating AI in the workplace can be a journey but when full utilised, will prove to be a determining factor for the efficiency of any HR departments.