Future of HR: Artificial Intelligence Winners and Losers

How HR Can Achieve Clean Transformation

What do you think about the HR department? What are the concepts that spontaneously come to your mind, what are the images that instinctively present themselves before your eyes? Do you think of negatively connoted words such as "administrative", "blockers" or "boring"? If so, you are not alone.

Is a robot stealing my work?

During a recent party, not long ago, one of my acquaintances suddenly said to me: “I hate our HR department… I hate HR in general!”. This phrase was repeated several times during the evening. This may have come from the many beers he had drunk. On the other hand, it may just be that he has a real aversion to the HR industry in his company. As I have known him for quite some time and know that he is perfectly resistant to the influences of alcohol, I will lean towards this last hypothesis.

First of all, his anger at HR gave me a strange feeling. Yes, apparently I was even hurt a bit. Because finally, as a consultant in the HR environment, I have a real passion for this professional field.

My second thought, however, was that HR often has a negative image among staff in companies and in many industries. Thus, the aversion of my acquaintance against the human resources department is probably shared by a not insignificant number of collaborators in the different companies.

Artificial intelligence, friend or foe?

One of the most exciting and at the same time the scariest themes in the environment of this transformation is certainly artificial intelligence and Robotic Process Automation (RPA). These areas are characterized by enormous progress in terms of development. Physical robots will be more and more present in daily life and they will be able to take on more and more tasks in professional and private life and thus help individuals. In industry, for example in the automobile industry, this has already been the case for many years. In addition, software robots can now take on repetitive tasks, but also human tasks.

This development does not extend to simple work on an assembly line. In more and more cases, but also in other sectors, humans can be assisted by robots and by automatic processes, but they can also be replaced by them. Thus, in the future, certain recruitment activities in Recruiting and in administration will be completely automated by human resource management software in the HR field, which means that the job of collaborator in the service of personnel will become obsolete for large parts. But various sales activities or assistant tasks such as coordination of appointments or Travel Management can be carried out in autonomous form by software robots. This list can be extended at will, particularly in work within the acquisition process, in supermarket checkouts, or at the hotel reception, or in the tasks of classic Call-Center agents. Already today, it is possible to register at the hotel reception to take your room while being served by a robot. Each of us will be able to do a Self Check-out of our items, especially at Ikea. The same “automatic checkout” model has long been used in supermarkets and pharmacies in the United States. Depending on the advancement of technology, more and more demanding activities will be strongly influenced or even replaced by the use of artificial intelligence. Thus, companies will be able to use this artificial intelligence, for example, for their own decision-making processes. in supermarket checkouts or at the hotel reception or in the tasks of classic Call-Center agents. Already today, it is possible to register at the hotel reception to take your room while being served by a robot. Each of us will be able to do a Self Check-out of our articles, especially at Ikea. The same “automatic checkout” model has long been used in supermarkets and pharmacies in the United States. Depending on the advancement of technology, more and more demanding activities will be strongly influenced or even replaced by the use of artificial intelligence. Thus, companies will be able to use this artificial intelligence, for example, for their own decision-making processes. in supermarket checkouts or at the hotel reception or in the tasks of classic Call-Center agents. Already today, it is possible to register at the hotel reception to take your room while being served by a robot. Each of us will be able to do a Self Check-out of our articles, especially at Ikea. The same “automatic checkout” model has long been used in supermarkets and pharmacies in the United States. Depending on the advancement of technology, more and more demanding activities will be strongly influenced or even replaced by the use of artificial intelligence. Thus, companies will be able to use this artificial intelligence, for example, for their own decision-making processes.

Future of HR: Artificial Intelligence Winners and Losers

But what does all of this have to do with HR? For me, this means that HR needs to quickly analyze the effects of these technological developments on the recruitment, professional development, and integration of employees in succession planning in our companies. HR must derive corresponding metrics and deploy specific personnel strategic planning. We HR professionals have to accept that a few of our people, and even many of them, will lose their current jobs.

On the other hand, thanks to technical progress, many positions will open up for these employees. This will create the opportunity to retrain the skills that have become available to the newly created positions even though, probably, not all colleagues will want or be able to be trained. It is thus necessary to count on the fact that some colleagues will leave the company. Ultimately, new staff will be recruited to fill existing gaps in qualified experts to fill the new positions. And finally, the new key positions will have to be created for the new technical positions that will be integrated into the process of talent management and business succession - according to the keyword “talent pipeline”.

To comply with this important responsibility, it is necessary for the management of the company to recognize the appropriateness of these changes, to orient their HR strategy accordingly and to strengthen the HR domain in the application.