HR Automation Trends: Leveraging AI for Best Practices and Future Insights

The impact of AI in HR in recent years has been revolutionary. AI tools have the potential to transform the way people teams work and pushed forward certain HR automation trends, significantly reducing administrative burden. This, in turn, enables HR professionals to focus on more strategic activities that add value to the business, such as company culture, employee development, or talent management.

According to a recent survey by Eightfold AI, 40% of HR professionals are optimistic about AI in HR, while 29% are excited about its impact and view it as a game-changer.

A separate report by Gartner found that 38% of HR leaders have explored or implemented AI solutions to improve process efficiency within their organisation, while 76% believe that if their organisation fails to adopt and implement AI solutions in the next 12 to 24 months, they will lag behind companies that do.

Using AI to ease the burden

“AI in HR is already changing the game, especially when it comes to cutting down admin tasks,” remarks Peter Wood, chief technical officer at Spectrum Search. “Imagine a chatbot available 24/7, ready to answer those routine questions like holiday balances or payroll queries. This frees up HR for more meaningful work and provides instant, consistent answers for employees, which is a win-win. When it comes to more complex processes, like payroll or performance tracking, AI can automate the data entry, spot trends, and even flag any potential issues early on, taking some of the legwork out of HR’s duties.”

AI is even able to maintain that personal touch when needed, he adds. “Instead of basic automated replies, we’re now seeing AI that can sense when a query might be sensitive and route it to an actual human.”

Aidan Cramer, CEO and founder of aiApply, says that AI can also help with data entry and document processing, both of which are extremely time consuming for HR, especially in large organisations. “HR tools with AI capabilities can automate the processing of documents such as employee contracts, expense reports and timesheets, all of which often require manual data entry. The use of AI removes the need to manually process these documents, improving efficiency, speeding up approvals and reducing input errors.”

Recruitment is another area where AI can dramatically improve efficiencies. “Sifting through CVs and applications is no longer burdensome,” remarks Peter Wood. “AI speeds up the process with accuracy, analysing top performers’ traits to find similar prospective candidates, thus providing valuable insights to hiring managers without making definitive choices, improving the overall quality of hires.”

AI can also help HR teams analyse vast amounts of company data to help predict current and future trends in the workplace, such as employee turnover or potential skills shortages, adds Aidan Cramer. “This enables HR teams to take proactive measures to address smaller and upcoming issues before they cause a significant impact in the workplace, which can help to improve workforce planning.”

Fast-paced development

As you can probably imagine, the use of AI in HR continues to accelerate at a rapid pace. Some of the more basic tools, such as chatbots and virtual assistants, are already being used by many HR teams, however smarter AI-based tools are now available that can have a significant impact on both HR professionals and employees, says Aidan Cramer.

“We’re seeing AI-powered automation tools that are being developed that can streamline a wide range of HR tasks, including onboarding, offboarding, payroll, and performance management. These tools are designed to reduce errors, improve efficiency with the HR function and free up HR professionals to focus on more serious matters in the business. As more employee data is collected, these AI tools will be able to assist HR teams to predict upcoming issues that may arise, help to identify trends and undertake tasks such as workforce planning if there’s a skills shortage.”

Like every other field, the use of AI in HR is intensifying rapidly, comments David Rice, HR expert at People Managing People. “A growing number of software vendors are developing solutions that incorporate AI into their platforms. HR professionals are using it to create communications, modify job descriptions, screen candidates, identify skill gaps and help with employee development plans. It will continue to grow, but the important thing is that humans remain behind a lot of this, rather than blindly accepting what it gives them. Many of the decisions HR makes should be driven by humans.”

AI & HR Automation Best Practices

When leveraging AI for HR automation, there are a few things HR should consider first, such as identifying which tasks are the most time-consuming or inefficient, that have the potential to be automated using AI.

“Choosing the right tools is also an important factor to consider,” says Aidan Cramer. “Select AI tools that align with your specific HR goals and the complexity of your processes. AI tools will be able to provide you with demonstrations to show your HR teams exactly how it will work and how it will integrate seamlessly into their current systems and workflows.”

He advises HR leaders to consider introducing AI automation to a small area of their functions, before rolling it out on a wider scale. “Beginning with a pilot project will help to test the AI solution in a controlled environment, understand how it can benefit the company and identify any issues without having a major impact on the day-to-day running of the HR function.”

David Rice agrees that HR teams should not rush into using AI. “Identify areas where you believe it can add significant value and investigate different tools so you find ones that will be most effective for you. And then be careful about what you put into it. If you feed it bad data, you’re going to get a bad output. You need to understand how bias looks in AI and what causes it so you can mitigate for that. In HR, you’re typically dealing with data about people, how they work, sometimes even health or behavioural information, so you’ve got to be careful about what you’re doing with it.”

Emma Cromarty, HR consultant at EC Human Resources Ltd, adds that businesses need to identify where their time is used, and where can AI add value and save time. “AI systems need to be unbiased to ensure discrimination doesn’t occur and the business ethical standards are met.  Training is important to ensure staff understand the AI in place and what its limitations are.”

You might be interested to read: AI & HR Data Security: The Pros and Cons

Future of HR Automation & AI Trends

In terms of future developments, much of the talent acquisition process is going to be handled by AI, predicts David Rice. “I think eventually, we won’t interact with a person until the interview stage and even then, AI might help drive the conversation at first. I also think we’re going to have AI deeply embedded in performance management processes and identifying career paths or learning and development journeys.”

Aidan Cramer believes that the future of AI in the HR industry goes further than automation and making the lives of its professionals easier.

“Whilst that is a useful component of the technology, I think the ability to analyse vast amounts of employee and company data, and identify potential issues, could have a positive impact for HR teams and organisations,” he comments.

“By analysing the data, AI systems will be able to identify strengths and weaknesses, provide feedback and offer actionable insights that could rectify issues or make improvements before they become a problem for the business. Having the ability to look at the performance of different areas of the business, identify any shortcomings or skills shortages, and then provide a solution quickly will help to optimise workforce planning to ensure the business is running efficiently and successfully as possible.”

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