AI technology is becoming more and more prominent in our everyday lives – both at work and at home. For example, some of us at Kara Connect have been using ChatGPT to plan out weekly meals and shopping lists at home, travel itineraries, and so much more. We imagine that these functions are just scratching the surface of what AI is, and will be, capable of!

Now, you might be saying to yourself: “What even IS this GeePeeTee thing? This is way above and beyond my paygrade!” We hear you. Getting into the nitty-gritty can be technically daunting, and fortunately you simply don’t have to. 

Here’s the short version: A GPT, which stands for Generative Pre-trained Transformer, is basically a very smart language robot. It’s been programmed to read and digest immense amounts of linguistic information so it can understand and generate inputs and outputs in human language.

You can then teach (i.e. “pre-train”) the robot (“the generative transformer”) to specialise in the sphere of expertise of your choosing – by feeding it the particular kind of information pertinent to that sphere. For example, you could train a robot to be an expert on your organisation by feeding it all the information you have about the organisation.

But what’s all that got to do with being an HR manager? Well, according to a new study conducted by global HR research and advisory firm McLean & Company, HR managers are likely going to be crucial actors in AI technology adoption. 

Yes, AI tech will most definitely have a broad impact on how we work – but ultimately, companies are run by people, for people. This means that managing how your company adopts and employs new and groundbreaking technologies might have a tremendous impact on how you structure and organise your workforce – and that’s where HR management comes in.

To begin with, simply raising the issue of how the company will come to utilise generative AI with other managers and stakeholders should be enough to get the conversation started. By reviewing the potential influence AI could have on various tasks that are already fulfilled within your organisation, you’ll have a better idea of how to optimise how you constitute your workforce. 

The simple act of defining your relationship and strategy when it comes to the adoption and utilisation of generative AI technologies could give you a valuable head-start for the future – as well as a competitive advantage.

Following up on this step, you could call for a work meeting to discuss and draft a company policy on AI use. There are many angles to explore; for example, should AI expertise be an important hiring factor? Are there roles or areas of the organisation where AI could have significant impact or efficience? Could the introduction of AI in some areas result in a need for reorganisation? 

Jobs that demand greater involvement in decision-making, creative thinking, understanding organisational intricacies, innovative approaches, and advanced social and emotional intelligence are generally less susceptible to automation.

While the aforementioned concerns on AI expertise or role-consolidation and others like them generally have a broader scope and apply to your organisation as a whole, other issues might be more pertinent to the HR dimension in particular. 

By considering and defining your stances on these potentialities, you’re sure to stay one step ahead of the curve as an HR manager. Here are a few examples of how AI might impact your everyday workflows as an HR manager:

• Recruitment: Could you possibly use AI to enhance and streamline your recruitment processes? By automating candidate screening and using predictive analytics to improve the quality of your hires, you could reduce or eliminate hidden biases in hiring decisions.
  
  
• Improved Retention: By using predictive analytics based on surveys or questionnaires, you could use an AI model to identify employees at risk of leaving, enabling you to proactively intervene and meet your employees’ needs.
  
  
• Automated HR-related Queries: By implementing the use of AI chatbots to gather and aggregate  routine HR-related surveys and queries, you could greatly reduce the administrative burden placed on your HR team. Similarly, chatbots could help you to monitor workplace wellness – although we’d always recommend that you simply invest in a Kara Connect Wellbeing Hub instead. 
  
  
• Employee Development: You could train custom GPTs to serve as personal career coaches for your employees, offering advice on career development based on the individual’s skills, their performance and their personal aspirations.
  
  
• Accounting for biases inherent to AI algorithms: If you plan on using AI tech, it’s imperative that you make sure that your predictive models and automations are themselves based on data that is as unbiased as possible – and that you remain mindful of the possibility that the machine is working based on biassed premises.
  
  
• Data Protection and Cybersecurity: When implementing AI technology for HR practices, it’s extremely important that you consider how your employees’ personal information and data are used and that everything complies with legal frameworks and follows ethical best practices.

All this is just scratching the surface. No doubt your team members may already be coming to you with their concerns and ideas about the impact of AI. Don’t underestimate the power of some of those early ideas and thoughts - when leveraged well, these could be the seeds of a plan for your organisation. We haven’t even mentioned the ways in which AI could help you with strategic workforce planning, how it could help you to craft more inclusive workplace policies or how it could help you brainstorm and write out all sorts of ideas for events, announcements or other kinds of content.

We encourage you to try using AI for all kinds of things, if you haven’t already familiarised yourself with the ways this technology can impact our personal and professional lives. This technology has the potential to increase efficiency in your organisation, improve your employee’s experiences, and provide you with strategic and competitive insights. (Or it could just help you plan your dinners for the week. We’ll take what we can get!)