Is it possible to have a recruitment process that exclusively relies on technology and eliminates human intervention, even though the objective is to identify and hire suitable human talent? The notion of such a system may seem paradoxical!

There is a widespread belief that artificial intelligence (AI) is set to replace human labor. However, a recent report suggests that AI generates more employment opportunities than it eliminates. Instead of being a substitute for recruiters, AI, and machine learning technologies are emerging as valuable tools to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of talent acquisition.

In recent times, technology has contributed significantly to streamlining the recruitment and hiring process, making it more efficient and cost-effective. Today’s recruitment landscape includes sourcing, screening, and pre-employment testing of job applicants based on the hiring manager’s specifications, thereby reducing recruiters’ workload.

AI and machine learning are transforming workplaces and commercial procedures by enhancing consumer insights and enabling HR applications such as recruitment. Nonetheless, it is essential to note that technology can only augment human resources and is not intended to replace them.

Data-driven recruitment and how to humanize it

Although AI has certainly streamlined many aspects of the recruitment sector, it has not yet been able to replace human recruiters entirely, as is the case in certain other industries such as telemarketing or retail sales.

One might wonder why this is the case, given that recruitment automation can produce precise results by effectively screening the right candidates, saving recruiters up to 23 hours for a single hire. Moreover, it can help companies achieve a 4% increase in revenue per employee and reduce turnover by as much as 35%.

However, hiring a candidate for a company involves much more than just relying on machine-based screening and automation. It requires a human real human-to-human connection, building rapport with candidates, and ensuring a positive candidate experience. This human element remains crucial to the recruitment process globally. Even in today’s business and data-driven world, human emotions and sentiments continue to play a major role in the success of recruiting and hiring the right candidates, and the overall human resources management.

How to balance humans and technology when recruiting job candidates

#1 Recognize the limits of technology

Despite the significant progress in the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other technological advancements, certain weaknesses and potential errors still exist. It is crucial to acknowledge that digital solutions are not a panacea for all problems, and overreliance on technology can lead to undesirable outcomes.

For instance, research has revealed that AI-based screening programs for candidate selection can be prone to bias, resulting in distorted outcomes. In this context, employers and HR departments must make informed decisions while selecting and implementing AI-based tools. It is vital to understand that no digital solution is completely immune to potential risks and vulnerabilities. Therefore, it is essential to have skilled personnel available to oversee the proper functioning of digital tools.

#2 Play to your strengths

To attain equilibrium between technology and human interaction, it is imperative to recognize and leverage the strengths of both.

Technology excels in automating repetitive tasks and sifting through voluminous data. For instance, it can be utilized for scheduling calls or screening candidates based on specific keywords, resulting in accelerated hiring procedures and diminished costs.

However, for establishing a connection with potential candidates, human intervention is indispensable. By employing technology proficiently, recruiters and HR personnel can be relieved from mundane tasks, enabling them to concentrate on more valuable, interpersonal responsibilities such as engaging in one-on-one conversations with desirable candidates.

#3 Look for collaboration as well as compartmentalization

Ensuring a harmonious balance between technological and human decision-making may entail maintaining a clear distinction between the two. To this end, employers ought to explore methods of enabling human-technology partnerships.

One promising avenue for such collaborations is social media, where recruiters can capitalize on the unique strengths of both individuals and machines. While algorithms can facilitate the targeted dissemination of job postings, it can also be advantageous to encourage current employees to share employment opportunities and positive experiences with the organization on their personal social media platforms. In this way, recruiters can infuse a human element into the digital sphere.

#4 Make the candidate experience a high priority

To strike the right balance between digital tools and human recruiters, it is essential to understand the preferences of job candidates and cater to their needs accordingly. While most candidates are accustomed to some degree of automation, they also desire human interactions and connections during the application process.

Prompt responses are critical in attracting and retaining candidates, and delays in response time can result in a loss of interest. While automation can help expedite the process, it is important to have a person available to reach out to candidates, express interest, and address any concerns they may have.

The hiring process plays a significant role in determining whether candidates accept a job offer or not, thus it is imperative to provide them with the best possible experience. Seeking input and feedback from experienced recruiters can help identify the most effective digital and personal techniques to employ.

Conclusion

The process of hiring goes beyond simply filling open positions. It involves finding individuals who possess the requisite skill set and are compatible with the organizational culture. In fact, while interacting with candidates, the recruiter is demonstrating the company culture and hence it is extremely crucial that the human element is leveraged at its best there. Despite the advancements made in AI, recruitment remains an industry that requires human input to ensure successful hiring outcomes. While technology can certainly be advantageous, we mustn’t overlook the significance of human intervention in the recruitment process. To achieve optimal results, it is prudent to utilize both human and technological resources.

Human intelligence has distinguished one group from another since the dawn of time. HR leaders will therefore need to rethink the workplace to lead enterprises into the future and emphasize HR technology to manage their mixed workforce, assure cooperation, create a strong culture, and facilitate pleasant employee experiences. As important as the overall flourishing of HR tech is, so is the Talent management facet of it.

Technology adoption in talent management within an organization

To manage cutting-edge technologies in IT, Telecom, Automation, Data Science, and ML/AI, there is an increasing need for new skill sets due to the rapid growth of technology and digitization in recent years. The expense of acquiring and keeping talent is rising as a result of the rising demand for particular abilities. For instance, if we don’t address the skills gap, we could lose $1.97 trillion in GDP growth from investments in cutting-edge technology over the next ten years, according to Accenture’s research on Fueling India’s Skill Revolution.

Through efficient learning and development (L&D) programs and the scalability of learning technology, organizations may address skill challenges. Learning could be made possible more rapidly, effectively, and affordably with the use of technologies like artificial intelligence, augmented reality, virtual reality, and blockchain.

Here are a few ways organizations can leverage technology for learning and skilling-

Mobile Learning: With the global workforce expected to be 75% millennials by 2025, Mobile learning offers a low-cost solution and provides easy access anytime-anywhere, and just in time.

Personalized Learning: Many organizations are adopting personalized learning as a preferred way to deliver training. Moreover, learning technology tools and Learning Management Systems (LMS) can use advanced technologies to assess and track individual learning patterns to tailor learning programs according to each person’s needs.

Gamification: Gamification is a great way to drive engagement in learning programs. One way is to introduce a leaderboard and game mechanics to reward learners with badges and points, making it a competitive learning and engagement tool.

Social Learning: Team collaboration is encouraged by social learning. Social learning tools like discussion boards are available on many learning platforms and are a terrific method to find organizational “experts” and work together to solve challenging problems. Social learning makes ensuring that knowledge sharing occurs across all teams, promoting a culture of ongoing learning.

A Complete Learning Ecosystem: An efficient LMS can provide a complete Learning Ecosystem and help employees throughout their organizational lifecycle. A learning ecosystem has many advantages, including-

• Integrating learning delivery processes and standardizing systems’ processes
• Facilitating knowledge collaboration, social learning, performance support, etc.
• Creating a unique and continuous learning environment.
• Enabling the L&D function to be Agile.

In today’s highly competitive corporate landscape, it has become increasingly difficult to analyze the value of learning technology. Thus, the ability to be flexible with the learning setup has become business-critical.

Ergonomic Evaluation in talent management

An Ergonomic Evaluation is an objective examination of the risk factors in your workplace that may cause musculoskeletal diseases or injuries in your employee. Ergonomic Assessments Ergonomic assessments are a scientific examination of how people work. The assessments can assist detect ergonomic concerns such as repetitive tasks that can create strains, inappropriate workspace setup, and improper tool use, all of which can lead to work-related musculoskeletal illnesses.

Ergonomics-based tools are delivering innovative risk management solutions to help combat and minimize risk for organizations, their employees, and those they are responsible for.

Examples of Ergo based tools that enable Talent management:

1. VelocityEHS: Ergonomics educates and empowers your employees while giving them all the tools they’ll need to maintain a healthy and productive lab environment.

2. ForgetMeNots: It provides two critical injury-prevention tools: awareness reminders and microbreaks. Users are reminded to be aware of their body and work routines through awareness reminders, which helps to ensure that an academic grasp of safety is translated into actual conduct at the computer. Microbreaks are short rests that can aid with weariness and circulation.

• The sit-stand tools- It reminds you when to sit and stand, teach you how to optimize the benefits of sit-stand workstations, and enhance ForgetMeNots to keep you aware of how you’re sitting & standing.
• Ergonomics-based tool- The notebook computer tools warn you if you need to switch to an external keyboard & mouse, remind you to do an ergo quick-check when you are in a new location, and add ForgetMeNots to keep you aware of how you’re using your notebook.

3. Velocity human tech tool: VelocityEHS Industrial Ergonomics is an ergonomics management system for industrial and non-office contexts. The organization will have all it needs to deploy, monitor, and manage the ergonomics process, from one to hundreds of locations, by combining interactive online training, AI-driven evaluation tools, expert-led site improvement events, and a robust management database.

While we talk about 360-degree development, employee well-being in post covid / recent times stands as the highest priority and more of an acknowledged call-out. Ergonomics-based assessments and evaluations using tools embedded in the devices and infra can be highly effective in making informed decisions and prioritizing employees’ well-being.

How an effective talent management process can improve productivity​

To ensure that when an employee quits or joins a company, it has the least potential impact on their team, the talent management process inside the organization must be as efficient and frictionless as possible.

Starting with the hiring strategy, the talent management process can be made to be more productive. After all, you may streamline business processes with the fewest disturbances when you quickly make smarter personnel with significant potential. Use the most recent technical tools, such as an Application Tracking System (ATS) or an all-in-one Human Resource Management System, to expedite hiring while also selecting top personnel (HRMS).

Effective onboarding is equally crucial for raising organizational productivity. In fact, according to a report, when companies offer a seamless onboarding program to new hires, they can see a 54 percent increase in productivity.

Source: ADP: What is Talent Management?

Talent management of gig economy workers

The modern workplace values flexibility. People who work as independent contractors, part-time employees, and freelancers are leaving stable full-time jobs in search of greater flexibility and liberty from the 9 to 5 grind. Gen Z workforce seeks beyond loyalty for a company and remuneration from a company, hence it’s about touching human lives impactfully. Technology plays a crucial role in enabling it, owing to the numerous tools, concepts, and methodologies that we use today.

The gig economy began as a fad, but it is now established as a leading factor in the industry. According to a report, 41 million Americans worked as consultants, independent contractors, temporary employees, or on-call last year, contributing $1.28 trillion to the US economy. The HR challenges? Only full-time employees are served by the hiring and onboarding procedures in place today. To accommodate hiring and onboarding gig workers, human resource departments will need to modify their methods and adopt innovative techniques.

To sum up, all firms are considering talent management as the workforce becomes more globally connected, technologically advanced, and competitive. Monitoring what’s going on in the world will be essential as these changes take place during the upcoming decade. The top five trends in talent management as predicted in this article, although there will undoubtedly be more.

“A company’s employees are its greatest asset, and your people are your product,” said Richard Branson. No business would disagree with this sentiment. Back when remote working was not in vogue, an advertising legend expressed similar views when he said, ‘The inventory goes down the elevator every night’. Semantics aside, enterprises agree that talent nurturing is key to business success. Ironically, technology has come to play a critical role in the ‘people’ business.

Digitization, new technologies, and consumer trends have resulted in the emergence of several industries and disciplines. HR Tech is one such and has gone beyond mere automation of processes to impact several aspects of the Human Resources function.

Enterprises are a lot more empathetic to find a fit between goals of the organization and of the talent community. A prudent mix of technology and people skills can play a role in strategy, operations, and talent management for organizations.

HR Tech in Strategy

Leveraging Data, Analytics, and Blockchain

HR systems store hundreds of data points, including resumes, employee profiles, payroll records, and performance reports. HR practitioners can use technology to make the data easy to access and add value to their initiatives.

Augmented analytics is an approach to data that automates insights using artificial intelligence, machine learning, and natural language generation. They use AI to analyze huge data volumes, spot trends, or keep tabs on crucial parameters. Then, using technology for NLP, the tools present the results in a conversational format that is simple to understand and further draw conclusions.

The rise of gig economy and two-sided marketplaces have heightened the need for Vendor Management Systems and Managed Service Providers. Blockchain integration brings a high level of security in managing a large amount of confidential data. Typical use cases include streamlining the payroll process, securing employee data (including CVs) and contract management.

Learning and Development

Employee training is increasingly moving into the digital sphere due to remote work. This change enables it to benefit from modern HR Tech innovations using gamification, AI, and AR/VR. Online employee training is becoming necessary as the field moves toward personalized, self-paced courses that accommodate different preferred learning styles of employees. Technology also opens a lot of opportunities for creating personalized career paths based on the potential of each employee, identifying skill gaps, and assessing work requirements.

Cloud-based HR

If a company has a remote team, there are good chances that the HR department will be remote as well. This is where all-encompassing cloud-based HR tools, which are the resource management of the future, come in. Existing all-in-one HR platforms, including payroll, benefits, time management, onboarding, and collaboration software, integrate many different, essential facets of HR management. As cloud-based HR software is scalable, it is perfect for firms that are expanding quickly because it enables HR experts to work with real-time data.

HR Tech in Operations

Advanced recruitment tools

The recruiting process is a tedious, time-consuming and eats upon the resource’s fruitful time handling critical chores that cannot be eliminated. Hence, tools like virtual reality, video conferencing, chatbots, job aggregators, recruiting CRMs enable effective screening of profiles, automating essential operational tasks. It helps make the recruitment process more streamlined, cutting unnecessary costs and time of the organization’s key assets.

Chatbots

A popular tool that can improve business operations is chatbots, commonly referred to as conversational user interfaces (CUI). Companies use them for internal purposes even though they are typically used in recruiting operations. Chatbots are increasingly being used to help with hiring responsibilities. Chatbots that have Natural Language Processing (NLP) can be used as the initial point of contact for job applicants. Deploying chatbots to improve employee service is another popular trend in technology.

Source: Engati

While human interaction is very vital in the interactions between two people, tech-enabled chatbots may be an option to solve problems where direct manual involvement is not required. Employee self-service portals and other interfaces for service delivery are starting to include chatbots. Employees can now turn to a chatbot for instant answers instead of asking HR questions and waiting hours or days for a response. Designing such chatbot systems calls for empathy sessions with end users to understand their pain points, use cases and emotions.

Virtual Reality (VR)

The real-world applications of VR in operations are in three key areas:

1. Recruitment: In the upcoming years, the way one’s company conducts recruitment may be significantly impacted by the use of VR tools. VR, for instance, is useful while recruiting for physically demanding positions where hiring managers can assess candidates’ abilities using VR simulations.

2. Onboarding: Just like the recruitment phase, companies can simulate training environments in VR that are more practical or less hazardous than those in the real world. Select roles in construction, firefighting, and similar fields come to mind.

3. Training: The third method businesses might use VR is to educate their staff. Its use in sexual harassment training is one example. An environment can be programmed to teach staff members how to deal with situations and take preventative measures.

HR Tech in Talent Management

Employee Experience Platforms (EXP)

A plush office, creature comforts, great landscaping, ergonomic seating, and opportunities for team bonding used to be hallmarks of a great employee experience in the pre-COVID era. But creating an ‘experience’ around the company brand for remote workers is incredibly challenging. However, the need for Employee Experience Platforms rose prior to the pandemic to address issues such as employee stress, productivity and affinity towards the organization.

In today’s world, ‘employee experience’ faces several unique challenges: remote working, entire digital onboarding, access to training material, knowledge sharing, setting KPIs and measuring them, imbibing the company culture with limited physical interactions and so much more. Also, gone are the days when enterprise software was meant to be dowdy and boring. Today’s employees are used to cutting edge digital experiences in virtually every sphere of their life – cab booking, banking or streaming. Why should they expect their office software be any less? Brands such as Huler have understood this well and provide stunning visual interfaces for sticky employee experiences.

Source: huler.io

Employee well-being

It is not rocket science to appreciate that employee wellness affects team productivity, individual job performance, and the organization as a whole. Several initiatives are aimed at assisting employees in avoiding burnout and caring for their physical and mental well-being, which will ultimately result in greater employee retention rates. As a result, systems for employee health and wellness will become more personalized. In 2021, McKinsey identified digital offerings including wearables and digital biomarker apps, ‘that could be helpful for companies implementing an employee well-being strategy’.

The blurring of work & personal life due to remote work has also caused mental stress. Wearables are increasingly used to monitor employee wellbeing and identify their health concerns. In niche industries where there is high hazard risk (such as exposure to chemicals) robotics is used to sanitize contaminated areas such as sewage pipes and tanks. Even heavy machine tools which traditionally needed manual labor to operate, automation can play a role to reduce human fatigue.

Employer Branding

Companies have been enhancing their reputation and image among potential and current employees by using social media for years. Growing job board sites that rate companies, and career sites that are social networking and HR software integrated are all examples of how technology may be helpful in employer branding. With the support of employee stories and job offers, hyper-targeted social media ads can considerably narrow the audience and connect with the right people. According to LinkedIn, 72% of recruiters concur that a company’s brand and reputation have a major impact on the hiring process as well as the organization’s financial performance, lowering the cost per hire and attracting more qualified candidates.

Embrace technology while remaining human

In the post pandemic world, businesses are grappling with the problem of major and unanticipated shifts in workplace models. A reassessment of one’s personal and professional priorities led to the “great resignation,” which included a record-breaking monthly high of 4.5 million US workers quitting their positions in November 2021 alone.

Digital solutions are being sought to address the challenges of managing teams, up-skilling and re-skilling employees, streamlining employee communication, and ensuring business continuity. The remote or hybrid working scenario has only highlighted the need for ensuring workplace agility as an imperative for enterprises.

There are web applications such as Volonte that empower employees to get in the right mindset, navigate change, and help their peers and the entire organization get better at change, too. A combination of technology, people, and behavioral science can make workplace and employee management a proactive, positive, and data-driven experience, thus creating a win-win situation for both the talent and the enterprise.

Contrary to popular belief, automation and other cutting-edge HR tech advancements may make the human component more important than ever. We might rapidly discover that these tools may be assisting firms in becoming more human in the process if we looked more closely at the potent capabilities, they provide us in terms of personalization or accessing the right talent. The main benefit of the newest HR Tech trends appears to be that people aren’t intended to be replaced entirely by technology. Instead, technology exists to support people in developing deeper relationships with their colleagues and clients, as well as to create more fulfilling careers.