HR Professionals need to start looking at HR AI trends
AI is expected to replace nearly 10% of jobs in 10 years. Allegis Group recently surveyed more than 300 HR professionals—senior-manager level and above—who reported mixed feelings about AI and its impact on the future of work. Survey participants saw AI as something to be excited about, 21%, and as both disrupting and enabling, 17%, yet some HR professionals indicated that AI is not being adopted fast enough, 8%. Additional findings indicated that a low number, 9%, believe AI will displace most jobs in 10 years.
We are still in the early stages of understanding how AI will displace old jobs and create new ones. Without question, though, it will have a major impact on how companies compete for talent and get work done. Innovations in AI will become more and more integral to business success, impacting strategic priorities, technology adoption and, maybe most importantly, the overall evolution of the workforce. Organisations need to understand the implications and have a plan to capitalise on what will be a disruptive force.
Take Stock of HR AI trends
When asked to identify areas of talent management that will benefit from AI, top responses from HR professionals surveyed included training talent, screening talent and workforce planning. However, the top roadblocks to adoption include budgets needed to upgrade or maintain AI, a lack of people to build or manage AI and training the AI.
Overall, findings indicate AI will not replace the need for talent professionals; instead, it will change the nature of what they need to do to succeed. Tanya Axenson, Global Head of Human Resources, Allegis Group commented, “When you speak with a person, you trust that she is listening to you, learning from you, and sharing with you out of some level of genuine interest." She continued, "But will you fully trust a machine designed to calculate everything you say toward making a decision? Probably not. That's why people will remain essential to the high-trust aspects of HR—closing deals, solving tough employee issues, building relationships and creating the organisational strategy."
Rachel Russell, head of corporate strategy for Allegis Group said, "A variety of AI niche solutions are emerging in the talent tech market. Competitive advantage will come from adopting the right set of solutions to automate, augment and enhance the experience."
Additional HR AI trends include:
- Increased Demand for AI Skills: While AI is taking on many skills formerly attributed to humans, new jobs will emerge. Likely candidates include AI ethicists to manage the risks and liabilities associated with AI, as well as transparency requirements. Needs will also emerge for AI trainers, and individuals to support data science, the Internet of Things (IoT).
- Constraints Which Influence the Pace of Innovation: Machine learning-driven AI systems require human guidance and programming, and a shortage of skills to provide this guidance may hinder progress. Also, today's AI systems require deep sets of data and information. While data is abundant, it is not always available in pools that can be used to support an AI application. Other constraints include cost, the need for buy-in and adoption, and regulation.
- New Challenges Which Influence AI's Effectiveness: Can AI be prevented from exploiting vulnerabilities in existing data systems or stopped from acting on low-quality data? While these issues, coupled with the impact of failure, product liability, perpetual obsolescence and malicious use are concerns, the research holds that most of these near-term issues will be solved or mitigated over time.
Paul Arkwright
Publisher
