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Human + AI: The New Frontier of People Analytics and Workforce Intelligence

Illustration of a human inspecting data analytics using AI

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There appears to be an unending chatter in the world of human resources about how artificial intelligence is making the job more efficient, eliminating mundane tasks, and lightening the administrative load. 

Gartner surveys indicated that, in January 2024, 38% of HR leaders were either already using generative AI or planning to. Some thought leaders assume that AI will eventually replace the need for human intelligence in HR, especially because AI is already capable of answering questions, conducting interviews, and making hiring decisions. 

Still, it’s unlikely that AI will completely remove the need for the human element. Instead, AI-driven people analytics platforms will enhance human decision-making, shoring up success when leaders implement targeted solutions aimed at improving metrics and building a better workplace culture. 

In the future, it will only become more important for HR professionals to explore how AI in people analytics can transform their practice and assist in reaching their goals. As they say, “AI might not replace your job – but someone who knows how to use AI effectively could.”

The Rise of AI in People Analytics: A Complement to Human Expertise

The foundational concept of people analytics often centers around dashboards and reports, centralizing and organizing different HR data sets for stakeholders. These dashboards are often manually created and periodically updated by data analysts whose job was to collect the necessary data from various departments, extract insights, and present these insights for review. 

People analytics software has taken this concept to the next level, automating and visualizing HR data sets in a meaningful way for stakeholders. The best-in-class solutions are achieving this with the help of AI and machine-learning. Dashboards have evolved from a tool that involved human labor, disparate data, and lagging insights into something that can provide immediate and up-to-date answers to critical business questions.

While AI can identify patterns, human oversight remains essential to HR decisions. AI algorithms don’t have access to the full context of these decisions. In contrast, humans can interpret AI-driven insights in light of the broader organizational landscape and implement compliant and compassionate solutions. 

Still, AI-human collaboration in people analytics can make the process of extracting business intelligence more efficient. It can also lead to more profound insights than humans may be able to draw out on their own. 

Finally, leveraging AI in people analytics can provide you with a clear, data-backed rationale for decision-making, which is often key for leadership buy-in.

How AI Is Transforming Workforce Intelligence and HR Decision-Making

AI-driven tools provide significant value when it comes to extracting workforce intelligence data to make sound decisions in your role. In addition to helping HR teams get answers faster, these platforms offer the following advantages.

Continuous Feedback and Engagement Monitoring

  • AI algorithms have the power to store and analyze unstructured data through surveys and other feedback mechanisms. In turn, this can uncover hidden trends in employee sentiment and engagement and allow you to develop solutions early on, preventing minor issues from evolving into significant problems that negatively impact the business.

Predictive Analytics

  • The predictive analytics features in AI-driven platforms can forecast critical metrics such as turnover, engagement, and productivity. These platforms allow you to address potential issues in advance and predict how your decisions may affect future business goals.

Automated Workforce Planning

  • AI can make workforce planning tasks like skills gap analysis and scheduling a breeze. These features can facilitate talent optimization, ensuring that employees are using their skill sets to their fullest potential and have the knowledge they need to meet future business objectives.

How AI Is Transforming HR Beyond People Analytics

Though AI is making great strides with people analytics, HR and business leaders can leverage this technology in many other ways. Here’s how AI-powered technology is streamlining and enhancing other HR functions to drive efficiency and improve decision-making throughout the department.

Talent Acquisition and Recruitment

  • AI can now automate resume screening to ensure that only resumes from the most qualified candidates make it to your desk. Additionally, self-service chatbots can enhance the candidate experience to improve your employer brand. Finally, AI can support diversity hiring initiatives by helping you spot and eliminate trends and behaviors that suggest the presence of unconscious bias in hiring areas such as resume screening, interviews, and offers.

Learning and Development

  • Because AI-driven tools automate insights into employee skill levels, AI can also offer personalized suggestions for employee training and development. This can, in turn, help you develop customized educational opportunities and programs based on skills gaps, performance trends, and individual employee career aspirations.

Compensation and Benefits Optimization

  • AI-powered platforms can analyze benchmark data across the market to ensure that you are offering competitive compensation and benefits. They can also help you forecast salary adjustments and ensure your benefits packages meet the needs of your current workforce, which can play a significant role in your talent retention strategy. Although AI can be highly beneficial, it isn’t without challenges. Before you incorporate AI into your HR functions, you should prepare for ethical issues that may arise from its use.

Addressing Ethical AI Challenges in People Analytics

As AI-powered technology continues to gain steam in HR, it is becoming more critical for leaders to ensure transparency and fairness in its use. Maintaining a focus on ethical concerns is key for protecting your employer brand. This focus will also play an increasingly important role in compliance as more states tighten regulations around the fair use of AI in recruitment, hiring, and workforce management.

For this reason, you must ensure transparency in what data you collect and how you use the data in your AI-driven HR dashboards. Although you may be excited about the possibility of lightening your administrative load, it’s also important to ensure human oversight in AI-driven decision-making. Depending on the dataset that an AI tool was trained on, HR leaders may need to look for the introduction of bias or discrimination. 

You also need to ensure data is secure and your practices abide by privacy laws. When making purchase decisions about HR technology, conscientious HR leaders will choose developers who prioritize these issues.

The Future of AI in HR Lies In Enhancement, Not Replacement

There’s little doubt that there are exciting implications for integrating AI into HR functions. As HR and business leaders contemplate the positive impact this technology can have on their organizations, they must balance the need for AI-driven people analytics with the ethical considerations of this emerging technology. 

PeopleInsight by HireRoad has emerged as a leader in this space. Book a free demo with PeopleInsight today to learn how to get started or scale your analytics function by leveraging AI-driven insights.