From automated onboarding to personalised learning pathways, here’s how AI is helping HR practitioners create more supportive, dynamic and innovative workplaces.

As organisations strive to stay competitive in an increasingly digital world, HR’s ability to leverage AI has become indispensable.

According to research by Employment Hero, 86 per cent of HR leaders in Australia and New Zealand are already using AI-powered software. The most popular areas where HR is harnessing AI’s capabilities are identifying and reporting on employee data trends (used by 40 per cent of HR leaders) and writing content such as job descriptions and employment updates (39 per cent). 

However, analysing data and drafting communications are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to AI’s potential to revolutionise HR’s workflow.

HRM spoke with two HR leaders to understand how organisations are working with AI in creative ways to drive growth and innovation.

1. Creating an AI employee

One potential obstacle in implementing AI-powered processes is resistance from employees who see AI as complex and unapproachable, and might think they need to be subject-matter experts to use it effectively. 

To create a more positive perception of AI, HR agency HumanX introduced it in the form of an AI-generated ‘employee’ named Xai.

“Writing a policy around something that we hadn’t yet explored didn’t really make much sense for us. So, instead, we gave it a name, a personality and a job description,” says Tahnee McWhirter, Partner at HumanX.

“What that job description does is set expectations not only for how the AI tools will be used, but also how the people in our team and in our system will engage with those tools. This creates an openness for them to play and to explore with AI.”

Naming the tool also contributes to making it feel like part of the team rather than an abstract technological addition, she says. This helped to address varying levels of comfort and confidence with AI in the team. 

“We published the job description and introduced Xai to the team – we literally did an onboarding the same way that we would any other employee… it was a little tongue-in-cheek to create a level of accessibility because AI is not something that everybody is comfortable with.”

Twelve months after its implementation, after allowing for a period of experimentation, the entire team is comfortably using and experimenting with Xai.

As well as taking on repetitive, administrative tasks, Xai functions like a personal coach for employees, providing real-time feedback, information and support. 

“Say you’re an HR professional and you really want to develop your public speaking skills,” says McWhirter. “An AI tool can watch you present, give you feedback on the things that you did well, the things that you should change and areas where you need to be more concise or compelling. 

“That’s a really non-threatening way of upskilling. Instead of sitting down with your boss and having that [intimidating] feedback conversation, you have this tool that helps you get better. And you can do that live in real-time.”

Read more about how HumanX uses Xai here.

2. Understanding and using different communication styles

While generative AI tends to be associated with technical and administrative skills, employers should not overlook its capacity to enhance skills such as communication and empathy, says McWhirter. 

She recalls an instance when her team used out-of-the-box thinking with AI to enhance their communication and get a project over the line with her.

“Some of my team have identified a use for AI to understand how to better influence me as their decision maker. 

“[They were] feeding into a generative AI tool like ChatGPT examples of how I communicate – whether that’s an email, my conversation from a transcript, examples of LinkedIn posts that I’ve written – to skill AI up on my thought process and my opinion about certain relevant topics. They were then asking AI to help them draft the plan for an internal project that they wanted to get across the line.”

By absorbing this information, the software was able to create a persuasive pitch in a tone that would naturally resonate with her.

“ChatGPT inserted some humour, or it attempted to, because it identified that I like a bit of a laugh,” she says. “It was such an interesting, creative use case, and one that has had broader commercial impacts on the business because when we are pitching to potential clients, the same concept and the same methodology could be followed.”

“What’s really quite incredible about AI, and particularly generative AI, is that it [functions] at a self-paced user rhythm, which we can’t curate as an experience as HR professionals.” – Laura Stonebank, Co-Lead of Talent and Change at Accenture ANZ

3. Building customisable learning pathways

In and outside the workplace, technological advancement has had a profound impact on the way we access and absorb new information, says Laura Stonebank, Co-Lead of Talent and Change at Accenture ANZ.

“What’s interesting here is the democratisation of information and, therefore, learning being at people’s fingertips,” she says. “Between AI and social media, learning has completely changed over the past five or six years.”

Now that learning has become somewhat informalised, the amount of time and attention people are willing to dedicate to it has dwindled, she says. Accenture has kept this front-of-mind in designing new AI-driven learning pathways for its employees.

“What’s really quite incredible about AI, and particularly generative AI, is that it [functions] at a self-paced user rhythm, which we can’t curate as an experience as HR professionals,” says Stonebank.

“We can automate the generation of learning materials now. And I think while that’s a really nascent offering, it’s going to fundamentally shift from building learning materials and learning experiences, and really make it about the purpose and experience of the learner.”

Accenture’s AI-powered platform, MyLearning, serves as the home for learning and skills development within the company. It integrates a tool that continuously updates an employee’s skill profile based on their learning activities and achievements.

This dynamic approach ensures that employees receive relevant and timely learning recommendations tailored to their current skill levels and career aspirations. And, what’s more, these insights can contribute to workforce planning decisions by helping to identify skills gaps across the organisation.

“It’s allowing us access to more people with the requisite skills to get the work done for our clients,” says Stonebank. 

“It’s [also] changing HR’s executive reporting from being [purely] qualitative to being a quantitative function in the same way finance might be. AI is a hugely powerful tool to maximise all of the data at your fingertips, and then churn that data and turn it into a narrative that you can then take to the executive. It’s making us, as HR professionals, game-changers.”

4. Using an ‘HR buddy’ to manage feedback

In addition to its AI innovations in the learning and development sphere, Accenture has also rolled out a tool called ‘HR buddy’, powered by generative AI, to assist employees in a myriad of tasks. 

“It’s sort of similar to ChatGPT, or that type of AI where we can ask it a question, and it’s going to scrape all this information that sits in the back-end and come back to us with the answer that it considers to be the most appropriate,” says Stonebank.

This tool has been particularly effective in improving the way feedback is given and received, she says.

“If [someone] has got a difficult conversation to have, [they ask], ‘How do I do that?’ – and the AI can help you with an example of what you might want to say or how you might want to structure that conversation.”

The AI model is capable of retaining information about how people prefer to receive feedback, making it more inclusive of different communication styles when producing its output, she adds. 

What’s more, it has the ability to provide real-time support when difficult conversations arise suddenly or unexpectedly.

When managed correctly, resources like these give every employee access to a wealth of HR knowledge at the touch of a button, says Stonebank.

“It’s amplifying and elevating the voice of millions of HR professionals, so that everyone feels that they’ve got that support.”

How are you using AI as an HR practitioner? Let us know in the comment section.