Article by Anjan Pathak is the Co-founder & CTO of Vantage Circle

How AI is Shaping Employee Onboarding in 2021

Technology possibilities have always seemed like a far-flung future, but there is no denying that the future is already here.

In ways that we never even stop to think about, technology impacts our lives every day. Algorithms, apps, and digital automation have become mainstream when it comes to how we shop, communicate, travel, get around, or even watch our health and the steps we walk every day. And at the time of COVID-19, efficient remote working and remote onboarding processes evolved that few could imagine would be possible.

Role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in HR

It was inevitable that the innovations would also touch the HR and employee onboarding domains with automation and AI in every business sector. HR and onboarding may be significantly slower in AI adoption than other business verticals, but the essential functions of onboarding are now quickly reshaped by AI.

Worldwide, AI-powered technologies are gaining acceptance. Each company has started to feel the importance of AI across departments. Organizational leaders have notably recognized the future of the HR department to be both digital and human. Automation and artificial intelligence in HR will transform the whole process, from onboarding to employee experience and talent management.

So Here Are Top 5 Ways On How AI Is Shaping Employee Onboarding In 2021

• Smart Digital Forms for candidates’ biodata

Digital forms are not just electronic forms, but they allow you to collect, validate, and merge the data with the business system. This helps to streamline operations thus cutting down costs and making informed decisions because of the availability of critical information.

It is easy to design and customize these smart digital forms and can be modified by anyone without programming or technical expertise. It offers a high degree of data accuracy. The entry of information into the system in real-time removes the need to fill in the details manually where there are high risks of errors and data loss.

Traditionally, employers need fresh candidates to re-enter the same data over many phases of the new-onboarding process. This repetitive and tedious activity will leave a poor impression on candidates. Companies are using AI to help candidates move data from their resumes to smart digital forms and complete their applications more smoothly to relieve some of the monotony.

• Automation of text and chat-based interview with AI

Conversational AI enables organizations to have complex and substantive interactions with clients, workers, business partners, and candidates on a wide scale.

Natural Language Processing (NLP), a sub-field of AI that allows computers to understand and process human languages, is used for Conversational AI. It aims to bring AI-based conversational technologies (often referred to as chatbots or textbooks) to evolve and apply in new and exceptional ways. The ability to interpret, decode and comprehend written and spoken language has developed through NLP to the extent where it is possible to grasp personality traits, emotions, and other unique human characteristics from written and conversational interactions alone.

• Automated interviews facilitate remote working and remote recruiting

In a COVID-normal economy, work perspectives will be much more competitive. Remote employee onboarding is in fact a difficult task. In the coming year, it will be equally challenging to find and engage the best candidates. AI-powered interviews will allow recruiters to extend their network to reach a wider pool of applicants worldwide and find the best-suited candidates for the positions.

 An automated is a programmed form of interviewing where a video recording allows the applicants to answer a predetermined set of questions. The automated interview is a series of pre-recorded questions that will need to be answered on video by the candidates. Not only by answering the questions but also by appearing truly inspired, enthusiastic, and competent, they can present themselves. An automated interview enables applicants to better demonstrate their personality than a phone interview does. It also ensures a fair recruitment process, since the same questions will be asked to all applicants.

• AI-enabled interviews reduce discrimination & create diversity in onboarding

AI-enabled interviewing reduces implicit bias induced by everyday human prejudices, personal preferences, beliefs, and world views that affect our judgmental abilities. Our biases can easily have a negative impact on applicants and mean that the best candidates for the role are potentially losing out. It could also mean that employers are losing the chance to encourage diversity and inclusion in the workplace and all the possibilities it provides.

Diversity increases productivity for employees, their retention, and job satisfaction. Research demonstrates, time and again, that diversity of background, gender, experience, and more improves employee productivity, tenure, and job satisfaction. McKinsey, a global management consulting firm, estimated in 2020 that the most diverse firms are now more likely to outperform non-diverse firms’ profitability than ever before.

• AI enables recruiting managers to understand employee referrals

According to Bokel Herde, AI is also active in supporting HR teams to better understand employee referral programs by evaluating the types of other employees they refer to and gaining insight into who refers to the most efficient ones. “AI can also analyze performance data from previous referrals and recognize when candidates similar to successful employees are being recommended”, she said.

Conclusion

According to Emily He (SVP, Human Resource Management Cloud Business Group at Oracle), the new developments in machine learning and artificial intelligence are fast hitting the mainstream. In a press release on the Oracle-Future Workplace report, she said that this has resulted in a significant change in the way people around the world communicate with technology and their teams. 

While businesses have increasing quantities and a variety of data that they can use to try to find the best fit for each job, the recruitment process is still stuck in the past, focused on static resumes and perceptions of interviewers (potentially biased). Because of that, businesses are struggling.

Although we’re talking about humans, computers seem to support both source and screen applicants. Research has shown that humans are historically bad at choosing the right candidate, and a meta-analysis has shown that algorithms can outperform recruiting human experts.

Therefore, we can say that AI plays a significant role in the onboarding process of organizations. As we anticipate to march towards a new dawn of post-COVID Economy in the year to come, one can use AI as a potential path-breaker in the onboarding, learning, and development process of organizations.