Say Hello to Your AI HR Assistant
Earlier today, one of our junior developers was setting up a brand new fun chatbot. Without even thinking about it, the first sentence he made the chatbot say was the good old 'hello world'.
This somehow sparked my imagination for this article. For years, geeks have made computers say hi. Today, we get to say hello back.
Say hello to your AI HR assistant.
What is an AI HR assistant?
Good question, let's start with the basics.
As I always say, most of the chatbot enquiries we receive are about HR. The HR department is the ripest for chatbot disruption. It is central to the company, internal, and full of optimisable processes.
An AI HR assistant is an artificial intelligence powered chatbot that focuses on helping HR reps. Depending on how advanced the chatbot is, it can deliver different complexity level of help. We will see a few examples of that below.
What does AI have to do with this?
Most HR departments have assistants. Most companies have junior positions they fill with people doing that role. Of course, the novelty here lies in the artificial intelligence. So, what is AI and what does it have to do with an HR assistant?
AI, or artificial intelligence, is computer brain power on steroids. It allows a machine to make more intelligent decisions, fasters, based on more information. It is currently being used all around the world to achieve cool things like self-driving cars, beat world champions at various games, and pretty much save the world.
For the purpose of an HR assistant, the AI is most usually used to understand the chatbot users (aka employees) intent. When an employee asks the assistant a question, the chatbot needs to understand the intent behind that question to respond appropriately. Natural language understanding (NLU) and, to a wider degree, AI allows this.
What can an AI HR assistant do?
Now you're asking the right questions! You know what I'm about to answer, though, right?
A whole bunch of cool stuff.
There is no denying an HR chatbot can do lots. In fact, if you go to a reputable chatbot building company (*cough* ubisend *cough*), your AI assistant will be built to do exactly what you need it to do.
Having said that, you might need a bit of direction to understand the true power of chatbot adoption. Your HR chatbot assistant can...
Handle recurring enquiries
You know all these questions your HR department gets all day every day (and every month around payday...)? Questions like 'why has my tax code changed?', 'do we cover dental?', or 'how do I apply for a leave?'.
Yeah. Don't let your humans waste their time answering these, automate them.
Be your personal assistant
We mostly work with large businesses. In the HR department, we tend to first automate the easy stuff (see above). Surprisingly, we've also started developing personal HR assistants.
Personal HR chatbots help a single HR employee throughout their day. They take meetings, sync calendars, and organise tasks.
Deliver documents
What is worst than getting an email from an employee asking for a sample NDA document for the 17th time this week? With your HR chatbot, no more. Your employees can request documents via a simple conversation.
Even more exciting, your chatbot can advise your employees on which document they actually need. After going through a series of questions, your chatbot can either deliver the right document or draft a brand new one. Easy peasy.
Onboard employees
Onboarding employees is a primordial HR task. It is essential to the company that employees are shown around, introduced, and handheld for a little while.
A chatbot can help you with that. While you can't be there for the entirety of your new hires' first few days, your chatbot can. It sits on your portal, ready to help them at any point. Not sure where the canteen is? Who do I report to? My chair is wonky, who do I speak to?
All taken care of.
Be there to listen
Sometimes, an HR rep is there to listen. Whether they are laying off some steam or reporting potentially serious issues, someone needs to be there for them.
A chatbot can be their first helpline.
Gather feedback
We all know the power of gathering feedback. Employee feedback drives the direction of the company. It helps you make sure you are doing your job right, and that everyone else is.
Surprise surprise, a chatbot is a great tool to help you do just that.
Any of the interactions discussed above can end in a neat survey. More than that, real-life interactions can be reported through a survey as well. Let's say one of your marketing teams went to their annual retreat. Get the chatbot to gather some feedback on the activities you've organised for them.
That's not quite right for me, though
That's fantastic. This is why at ubisend we build our chatbots completely custom. We know every sector, every company, every HR department is different.
Hopefully, the ideas I have laid out above have sparked some inspiration. What would your AI HR assistant do for you?
