HR Professionals Are Burned Out. Can A.I. Help?

• Human resources teams have been flooded with new and challenging responsibilities to accommodate the needs of the modern workforce. 
• Whether it be creating brand new experiences for employees or drudging one’s way through endless administrative tasks, human resources teams are overwhelmed and need assistance.  
• Artificial intelligence systems can aid human resources teams by acting as informed HR assistants capable of automatically completing back-office tasks and answering easy questions.  

The needs of today’s workforce are far more complex than they were even twenty years ago, and such complexity is increasing rapidly.

Human resources departments exist in all industries to manage the needs of modern workforces for diverse corporations. Challenges faced by human resources departments are also growing with considerable speed — especially within the past five years — and will continue to evolve in the future of work. 

In some cases, these challenges are extreme. For example, according to a study published in the scientific journal PLOS One, COVID-19 generated unique challenges for the human resources industry in Iran, including discriminatory payment practices and a near-complete lack of institutional funding.  

Less extreme cases include having an endless pile of tedious administrative tasks to work through. This is partially due to remote work, which has caused a marked increase in work-related email in-flows, according to a study published in the scientific journal Heloiyon.  

The Heloiyan study also states that COVID’s impact on businesses increased bureaucratic pressure on HR departments, as a critical role of human resources is to uphold organizational structures. 

With businesses in a precarious economic position, human resources have obtained far more responsibilities — including a substantial increase in both hiring and firing interviews, most of which are now occurring on Zoom. 

Human resources workers are under a considerable degree of stress as a result of these increased demands. Can artificial intelligence help human resources careers become a less stressful in the future of work?  

How can artificial intelligence help with human resources tasks  

Some challenges that human resources departments face simply cannot be automated. Chatbots might be an alternative to human resources staff for interviewing job candidates. However, they severely underperform compared to an actual human interviewer, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.  

The good news is that there are other tasks human resource departments and individual workers can automate to make their lives and jobs substantially easier.  

According to Geoff Webb, VP of Solution Strategy at isolved, AI will play a major role in the future of HR. 

“Organizations that actively plan to integrate the power of AI in their HR systems will be able to get back to focusing on the human connection aspect of HR. One way HR teams can leverage AI is by thinking of AI software as an informed assistant that has the capability to automate tasks like fulfilling payroll or assisting in the onboarding process for new employees. AI can also go a step further to help HR professionals analyze employee data to identify trends like retention drivers for key talent. With the ability to understand and even predict employee sentiments at a deeper level, HR and leadership can better support a better employee experience within an organization, reduce costs, and minimize the risk of losing key employees,” Webb told Allwork.Space.  

Even non-mundane tasks, however, can at least be partially automated. For instance, software programs possess features that automatically create and send documents to candidates and employees to verify and sign for onboarding and offboarding purposes.  

Many major processes of human resources can be automated, such as recruiting, timekeeping, accounting, employee performance tracking, and even paid leave management.  

Putting all of these tasks into a software program to automate them can considerably reduce the stressors that are especially weighing on the human resources industry currently, and in the future of work.