How HR Chatbots Can Improve HR Processes (Includes Company Examples)
No doubt you’ve heard about AI chatbots and you’re not alone. There were more than 1.2 million mentions of AI chatbots recently, a staggering 440% increase from the previous year. HR chatbots offer a means to reduce cumbersome admin tasks, freeing up capacity to focus on value-driving initiatives.
HR chatbots are software programs that use artificial intelligence (AI) to handle various human resource functions like answering basic questions, performing tasks, and offering support.
According to Precision Reports, the HR chatbot market is projected to grow considerably between 2023 and 2030. The US will play a key role in the development trend of HR chatbots. The high adoption of this technology and the presence of large players in this area will create enough growth opportunities for the market. Growing demand in the e-commerce, BFSI, telecom, government, education, food, and beverage industries directly impacts the growth of HR chatbots.
Contents
What are HR chatbots?
Types of HR chatbots
The advantages of using HR chatbots
The disadvantages of using HR chatbots
5 examples of companies using chatbots in HR
HR chatbot providers
What are HR chatbots?
HR chatbots are AI-powered virtual assistants designed to perform various human resources inquiries and tasks. They use natural language processing (NLP) to understand employee and candidate questions and provide relevant information or complete actions. Think of them as friendly, self-service HR representatives available 24/7.
In Engagedly’s State of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Human Resource Management report, the AI adoption rate worldwide stands at 21%. More companies recognize the benefits of AI for managing their employees. Global HRM leaders are adopting AI to drive transformations in HRM, with 45% incorporating AI for HRM.
Also, 65% of respondents reported that AI improved productivity and efficiency in their HR departments. Performance management, employee engagement and satisfaction, training and development, recruitment and talent acquisition, and employee inquiries are among the top five functions that AI has significantly impacted.
Types of HR chatbots
- Recruitment chatbots: Reply to basic candidate questions about the company and the open role, collect initial candidate information, schedule job interviews, and pre-qualify them by scoring their responses.
- Onboarding chatbots: Guide new employees through onboarding and discuss company policies, benefits, tools, and culture. They also collect documents and answer questions.
- HR helpdesk: Handles routine employee inquiries like benefits information, leave policies, and policy clarifications. They can also update employees’ information, track attendance, and direct staff to relevant HR resources.
- Surveys and feedback chatbots: Conduct employee surveys (pulse surveys, exit surveys, engagement surveys) and gather employee feedback and sentiment to improve work culture.
- Employee engagement chatbots: Help improve the employee experience by giving them access to company resources, allowing employees to communicate with each other, gather employee feedback about culture and business practices, and promote company events.
- Wellbeing chatbots: Respond to health-related concerns, offer mental health support, and connect staff to wellness resources.
- Training and development chatbots: Assist employees in accessing training materials, recommend training courses, and answer training-related questions.
- Performance management chatbots: Guide managers and staff during performance assessments, setting goals, and giving feedback.
- HR analytics chatbots: allow HR personnel to access analytics and insights to make data-driven decisions related to workforce planning, talent management, and employee engagement.
The advantages of using HR chatbots
- Increase efficiency: Chatbots can streamline workflows and automate repetitive and routine HR tasks, so HR personnel can focus more on performing more strategic duties.
- Enhance accessibility: They offer 24/7 access to information and support so that employees’ concerns can be addressed promptly.
- Improve employee experience: HR chatbots empower employees to self-serve and take control of their HR needs anytime, anywhere.
- Cost savings: Reduce HR operational expenses related to handling basic inquiries.
- Boost employee engagement: They can offer a convenient and accessible platform to communicate and send feedback between employees and managers.
- Better decision-making: HR chatbots collect valuable data from employees’ interactions, so HR can identify areas for improvement
- Improved compliance: Provide consistent and accurate information on policies and procedures, lowering the risk of human error and ensuring adherence to laws and regulations.
- Promote inclusivity: Chatbots can support multiple languages and provides accessible options for employees with disabilities, catering to a diverse workforce. It also eliminates potential biases in information delivery, which is impossible with human interaction.
The disadvantages of using HR chatbots
While there are many advantages of using HR chatbots, there are also some disadvantages to consider:
- Limited capabilities: Might not be able to understand nuanced or complex employee concerns, which requires human judgment for example. It may not understand sarcasm, emotions, or the context completely.
- Lacking human touch: Can feel impersonal, especially when handling sensitive issues. Cannot replace empathy and authentic human interaction.
- Data privacy concerns: Data collected by chatbots needs proper handling and observance of privacy and security measures. Data usage must also be transparent to avoid breaching employee privacy and trust.
- Implementation costs: Initial development and implementation can be too expensive. It also requires data integration and employee training.
- Technical glitches: Chatbots can also malfunction or misinterpret queries, leading to employee frustration. Algorithms powering the chatbots may inherit biases from input data. Careful monitoring and strong IT back up and mitigation strategies are critical.
5 examples of companies using chatbots in HR
1. Eightfold AI
Ubisoft is a video game publisher, creating Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, For Honor, Just Dance, Prince of Persia, Rabbids, Rayman, Tom Clancy’s, and Watch Dogs video game series.
Departing employees found applying for openings at different Ubisoft locations, offices, or studios challenging. When employees applied internally, their job boards would submit their applications through the same ATS used by external candidates, resulting in misplaced applications. This meant that employees did not use the system widely, leading to an increasingly low attrition rate and a perceived lack of career progression within the company.
Ubisoft sought the help of Eightfold AI. Using Eightfold AI’s Talent Management solution, Ubisoft implemented its own internal talent marketplace. This centralized hub contained job openings, projects, gigs, events, and mentors to increase internal applications’ engagement. It also allowed hiring managers to identify employees with the skills they need to complete projects.
As a result, Ubisoft launched its talent marketplace in 28 countries in six months. Over half of the employees now use the platform to grow their careers. It has helped improve the company culture and increase employee satisfaction and retention.
2. Bloomfire
Aite Group is an independent research and advisory firm specializing in business, tech, and regulatory issues and how they affect the financial services industry.
The company needs the processes and technology to capture and share training documents, best practices, and knowledge from other employees. They wanted to improve their onboarding process by providing a single source of information that could be updated and shared within the organization while encouraging collaboration among employees.
Using Bloomfire’s Knowledge Management Software System software, Aite Group created hundreds of pieces of content for employees. The company’s knowledge base has helped new employees self-pace their learning by searching and accessing information by themselves, without the assistance of HR or their managers. Also, sharing feedback about the knowledge base is encouraged, so management can measure their effectiveness and make adjustments when necessary.
3. Hirevue
National Safety Apparel (NSA) manufactures protective clothing for customers in industrial environments. The company wanted to find and evaluate candidates rapidly. They also needed to fill their requisitions faster without hiring a staffing agency, ensuring they have enough people in their Ohio factory.
Working with Hirevue, the NSA created a system that allowed candidates to find a job on the NSA’s website quickly, prescreen for the position, and self-schedule an interview via text or web chatbot. Recruiters could then focus on interviewing candidates within a shorter time frame, connecting within days rather than weeks. The time to hire was also shortened. Candidates receive job offers within 15 days, 4x times faster than before.
4. Leena AI
Globe Telecom is the Philippines’ largest mobile telecommunications network, with at least 86.6 million subscribers. It provides broadband services, fixed-line telephony, and money remittance services.
Before, the telco was manually monitoring HR tickets, issues, and queries, which meant many pending tasks and delays in resolution. 25% of tickets were unresolved within the set SLAs. Most KPIs were unmet. The lack of automated processes resulted in inaccurate data. The telco wanted to reduce the employee query resolution time from 24 hours to real-time, strictly adhering to established SLAs and TAT. They also want to gain insights from HR dashboards and analytics and optimize HR processes within the organization.
Leena-AI created the AI-powered HR bot EVA, which exponentially enhanced the employee experience. This resulted in 2.5x faster average ticket resolution time from 24hrs to 9.5hrs, 4.4x faster average ticket first response time from 8hrs to 1.8hrs, and 126% better average first response time than the set target.
5. The Bot Platform
Honest Burgers started as a small restaurant in London and has since grown into a national group of more than 40 restaurants across the UK. The company uses Meta’s Workplace to keep their staff connected. They wanted to integrate their services and applications into the Workplace, so employees could easily access their work tools, including training.
With the help of The Bot Platform, the company launched Honest College. This personalized learning program directly integrates into the Workplace and can be accessed on desktop and mobile devices. The bot includes bite-sized training modules, offering lessons related to Honest’s various positions and responsibilities. Employees learn skills such as time and money management, and wellbeing.
To date, the program has successfully upskilled 150 waiters to become chefs. It also led to 15.6x positive ROI achievement within the first year, a 100% completion rate on compliance training, and a 73% engagement rate from staff on Honest Ops.
HR chatbot providers
Collects candidates’ data conversationally and creates profiles, converting passive visitors into active applicants. It prequalifies them by asking questions and scoring their responses. Prequalified candidates are automatically scheduled for interviews via text, chat, or video that can be completed and reviewed anytime.
Greet new employees with tailored offer letters and onboarding forms. Answer candidate questions and notify candidates of their onboarding date. Send company new hire documents and communicate job expectations.
Offers engaging survey experiences through chatbot integration:
• Design an engaging video survey showcasing your company culture.
• Conduct quarterly or bi-annual employee surveys to inquire about employees’ satisfaction regarding their jobs & benefits.
• Share employee pulse survey results to measure employee engagement
• Know when an employee needs training and schedule it. Evaluate employees’ knowledge via assessments, quizzes, and auto-score their responses. Collect employee feedback about the training for improvement.
• Set up an all-in-one employee portal where employees can create ad hoc employee requirements, submit incident reports, and submit leave or time-off forms.
• Conduct exit interview surveys and use the feedback to make the culture better.
• Learning and development: An intelligent, AI-powered talent coach, it gives personalized recommendations based on an employee’s career path, succession plan & individual talent profile. Advise employees of their career paths and encourage them to complete goals (OKRs).
• HR helpdesk: Employees can request their leave balances and holiday calendars. They can also access work policies and other employee documents.
• Employee engagement: Experience AI-driven daily pulse check-ins and in-app messagingAutomate surveys across the employee lifecycle.
• HR analytics and actionable insights: Screen resumes for faster and smarter recruiting. Gauge team morale with pulse report. Provide constant reminders on OKRs and check-ins to ensure high-performance.
• HR Helpdesk: Address daily employee queries, including IT support, password resets, hardware requests, HR policy FAQs, leave applications, pay slips, and conference room bookings.
• Recruitment analytics: Analyze job applications and provide insights to the hiring team by crunching large volumes of conversational data.
• Onboarding: Automate the onboarding process for new hires, from document submission and background checks to dispatching welcome kits.
• Employee referral bot: Ask employees to refer friends to fill open positions: Notify employees of new openings in Slack/TeamsAllow them to submit referrals instantly. Notify them of any referral bonuses that exist.
• Wellness bot: Create wellness plans for employees: Set fitness remindersShare mindfulness techniquesCreate company-wide health challenges.
• Buddy bot: Build strong professional and personal employee relationships:Allow employees to set up virtual lunches with other teams and departments Match ‘mentors’ and ‘mentees’
To sum up
HR chatbots can help HR professionals with admin intensive tasks, freeing up valuable time that can be better spent in providing value for the business. From addressing basic employee concerns to providing HR services, chatbots have enhanced how companies attract, serve, and retain employees. As technology evolves, we can expect even more advanced and effective chatbots to further improve HR functions and employee experience.
However, HR professionals should remember that chatbots shouldn’t replace the human touch in human resources. There should be a balance between technology and human involvement to receive the best benefits.
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