According to some industry insiders 30% of HR and back office jobs could be done by AI in the future. However despite the advances of AI , being human will be even more important in the future. Managers ability to manage people will be a very important human skill or will it? Some organisations are not only making hiring decisions by AI they are making firing decisions by AI.
It takes all the emotion out of firing if the algorithms work out who should be fired . “Sorry the computer says”. It takes the human bias out of the situation and so ensure racial discrimination doesn’t come into play. Oh but it doesn’t ,this has already been tried in the US justice system when making decisions about juvenile offenders. Collating a massive amount of data on offenders profiles and the out comes of custodial sentences v community sentences the judiciary felt confident the resulting algorithm was an accurate predictor of future offending and should be used by judges when sentencing.
It was a disaster with an even high proportion of black and ethnic minority offenders receiving custodial sentences and removing judges ability to judge each case on its merits and take account of human factors. The simple explanation, the bias was inherent in data apron which the algorithm was based. The data being a reflection of human bias when it comes to making judgments about people.
In the future managers people management skills will be even more important. It will be managers who motivate their teams. It will be managers who show compassion. It will be managers who offer emotional support. It will be managers who demonstrate empathy. It will be managers who take the health and well-being of their people seriously. It will be mangers that encourage creativity. It will be managers who engage meaningfully with employees, customers and partners. Not AI using algorithms.
So despite the fact that human bias influences recruiting decisions and managers in general feel uncomfortable firing people they should not give these tasks over to AI but instead work on improving their human skills. Which is where HR can help and support.
