How Artificial Intelligence is Changing the Demographics of the HR Industry This issue of Succeeding with AI in HR will provide you with a basic understanding of what AI is, its applications in HR, and how it works

While HR is not known for pioneering nascent technologies, Artificial Intelligence (AI) represents a terrific opportunity. The consumerization of HR technologies has brought AI to the forefront of innovation in HR. From recruitment to employee experience, and talent management, AI has the potential to transform HR.

The future of HR is both digital and human as HR leaders focus on optimizing the combination of human and automated work. This is driving a new priority for HR: one which requires leaders and teams to develop fluency in artificial intelligence while they reimagine HR to be more personal and engaging especially for the candidates; strategic and forward-looking to the business.

This issue of Succeeding with AI in HR will provide you with a basic understanding of what AI is, its applications in HR, and how it works. It's the combination of AI and human intelligence that will transform work and workers as we know it.

Here are few HR trends leaders will need to prepare for as we enter 2020:

• AI Plus Human Intelligence Enhance the Candidate Experience.

For many companies the first pilots of artificial intelligence are in talent acquisition, as this is the area where companies see significant, measurable, and immediate results in reducing time to hire, increasing productivity for recruiters, and delivering an enhanced candidate experience that is seamless, simple, and intuitive.

A good example is JIM (Jobs Intelligence Maestro), a virtual recruitment bot powered by artificial intelligence used to conduct candidate screening for those applying to be wealth planning managers, a high volume job in the consumer banks. Following is the introduction of JIM in May 2018, talent acquisition teams were able to: 1) shorten the screening time from 32 minutes per candidate to 8 minutes per candidate, 2) improve completion rate of job application from 85% to 97% and 3) respond to 96% of all candidate queries through JIM, allowing recruiters to spend more time sharing the culture and values with candidates. While these metrics are impressive, the key learning is that the use of artificial intelligence provides benefits for the recruiters as well, recruiters no longer need to spend hours to screen thousands of applicants, freeing them up to perform higher-value work such as sourcing, recruitment marketing, engaging with candidates, and hiring managers.

• Uniquely Human Skills Will Grow in Importance.

The demand for uniquely human skills will grow, according to the Future of Jobs Report from the World Economic Forum. The World Economic Forum projects that 75 million current jobs will be displaced as artificial intelligence takes over more routine aspects of work. However, 133 million new jobs will be created, and skills in both emotional intelligence and technical intelligence, like technology design and programming, will be important.

• Will There be New Jobs That Will be Created using Artificial Intelligence

Creating new jobs as artificial intelligence becomes more widespread inside companies will be a huge priority for C-suite leaders in 2019. There are jobs today that did not exist 5 to 10 years ago, for example, Apps Developer, Data Scientist, Cloud Architect, just to name a few.

• An Artificial Intelligence Ready Workforce Will be Critical to an Organization's Future

As we head into 2019 — with AI moving from consumers' lives into the workplace – upskilling non-AI workers to learn how to work with AI is becoming increasingly important. Developing an AI-ready workforce involves five key initiatives:

• Identify the business problem to solve using artificial intelligence and start collecting data on the current state of the problem and the key KPI you want to impact with AI.

• Build a cross-functional team of key stakeholders to educate them on the business benefits of using AI to solve key business problems.

• Implement learning opportunities for key job roles impacted in HR by AI (such as those in Recruiting, New Hire On-Boarding, and Corporate Learning).

• Identify new jobs and skills needed as AI is leveraged in the workplace.

• Change performance management and development skills needed in HR roles to include a fundamental understanding of how to use artificial intelligence across the employee life cycle.

When AI is leveraged in the organization, employees will need training on how to work with their AI team members. This will grow in importance, as one in five workers engaged in non-routine tasks will rely on AI to do their jobs. However, in a survey by Accenture, only 3% of executives say they intend to significantly increase investment in training and reskilling programs in the next three years" This is concerning and need to be addressed with urgency.

• Skills-based Hiring Gains Traction

Skills-based hiring is defined as the practice of setting specific skills and competency requirements for a job rather than rely solely on candidates' credentials. Skills-based hiring may start by changing a job description and removing a degree requirement, but it requires shifting mindsets on where and how a company sources talent. What's needed is to change the mindsets of hiring managers and business leaders to source in new ways.

These new ways to source non-traditional candidates range from Boot Camps, Coding schools, technical high schools, regardless of your industry, adopting a skills-based hiring approach requires educating business stakeholders, identifying benefits & barriers of widening the talent pool, and developing a strategy for both skills-based hiring as well as educational and learning pathways to upskill a more diverse employee population.

• Workers Will Trade Money for Meaning at Work

The experience of meaningful work is a personal one, as stated in the reports we are working on average 47 hours per week with one in five working more than 60 hours each week. Increasingly workers are searching for meaningful work, a workplace that aligns to their values and supportive and healthy work culture. In fact, workers said they'd be willing to forego 23% of their entire future lifetime earnings in order to have a job that was always meaningful to them. This means that building greater meaning at work is no longer a "nice to have," but a business imperative. Employees who find meaning at work are happier, more productive and hardworking, and are absent less.

As the quest for meaning in the workplace grows, more HR leaders are putting a greater emphasis on communicating their company's culture and sharing their purpose and meaning across the employee population. This involves creating opportunities from training to mentoring and coaching to promote a shared vision and a healthy and supportive work culture.

• Virtual Reality is Transforming Corporate Training

A growing number of heads of global learning & development are piloting Virtual Reality (VR) to train employees. And the most interesting use cases revolve around using virtual reality for compliance training.

While many continue to debate over the adoption rates of virtual reality (VR) and if it really will be "the future', a VR tidal wave is quietly bringing VR very much into the present. A number of companies are exploring VR as a supplementary tool for corporate training and you could find yourself being trained in VR sooner than you think.