Introduction
Notwithstanding the ever-growing degree of work automatization, a variety of professions continues to be dependent on the human factor. In one respect, this is positive, primarily, in people businesses, as machines lack flexibility and frequently are unable to respond quickly and adequately to the changing circumstances, adjusting their performance to those. To the contrary, humans are substantially more probable to make mistakes, by accident or intentionally, which may have unwanted consequences. These two nuances drive to the assumption that natural and artificial intelligence can be complementary; in other words, applying both in parallel to certain processes may allow for a substantial addition to productivity. The sphere of human resource management provides bright examples of how helpful the solutions of such a kind may be, which the paper seeks to illustrate.
Problem Statement
Business House is a small but gradually developing company that specializes in teaching the basics of business, economics, and management to adults who have no relevant degrees. Notwithstanding its relative youth and the limitedness of the area that it covers currently, the firm has serious ambitions in terms of expansion. Financial as well as reputational resources are sufficient, and the country’s economy continues to recover from the crisis, providing new market opportunities.
Human resources, however, are a concern; the staff turnover in the company is high, many employees complain about burnout, and conflicts occur several times a week. Two lecturers whose qualification is the highest are planning to leave Business House voluntarily as soon as their students complete the courses. Their supervisor is aware of those intentions but does not know how to persuade the employees to stay. The company doubtlessly should reframe its recruiting as well as retention system, which determines the need for investigating on the innovative approaches in the industry to choose and adopt the most suitable.
Literature Review
One of the leading trends in modern human resource management is the use of artificial intelligence (AI). Notably, 38% of the firms that participated in a recent study are utilizing machinery in hiring already, and 62% are planning to implement such technologies in the near future (Tiwari et al., 2021, p. 159). The main reason for the strong interest apparently is the possibility to rationalize the process. First, AI has no physiology-based barriers to work, due to which it is able to perceive, analyze, systematize, and sort information endlessly, improving the effectiveness of the search for candidates (Gupta et al., 2019). Second, utilizing machines adds to the precision of the outcomes, as they focus on a particular goal without getting distracted on the condition of appropriate programming. Furthermore, they can learn, which allows for a maximally adequate adaptation of their performance to the current tasks (Votto et al., 2021). These and other possible advantages determine the relevance of using AI in the industry.
The ways in which machines are possible to engage in human resource management are quite numerous; they may be helpful at each stage of the recruitment process. Thus, Singh & Shaurya (2021) describe how AI simplifies strategic planning, which lies in summarizing the prior work and designing the development patterns based on the outcomes. Notably, it can systematize the data on the company’s performance in accordance with a certain algorithm and, consequently, enable setting maximally specific goals.
Regarding selection, the use of AI enhances the scope of personal data to process while reducing the time needed. As a result, it becomes substantially easier and faster to check how candidates are similar to as well as dissimilar from each other to form maximally productive teams. In-house training also can grow more advanced with AI; thus, it allows for designing individual development plans that consider the values, achievements, and intentions of each particular employee (Singh & Shaurya, 2021). Such an approach improves not only the quality of work performance, but also job satisfaction because employees appreciate respectful and careful attitude towards them. Analyzing the links between certain factors of the atmosphere at workplace and staff members’ mood is another frequent task for machines.
Strategic Plan
All of the above makes the need for Business House to apply artificial intelligence to the recruitment as well as retention of specialists doubtless. Applicable to hiring, such a decision would allow for a broader depiction of not only professional, but also personal characteristics of the candidates. This, in turn, increases the chance to pick those who have a sufficient amount of common features; hence fewer conflicts. Regarding retention, machine analysis would be helpful in identifying the most important nuances that factor, both positively and negatively, into job satisfaction. Finally, it would be possible to develop individual plans targeting to minimize or eliminate the negative aspects, which, consequently, would improve the overall climate.
Vision and Goal
The company’s vision lies in providing everybody who is willing to master finance and management with a chance to do that. It is worth noting that adult students frequently are shy, have fear, or consider it shameful not to know the basics; lecturers, therefore, should treat them with care. However, this is impossible in a firm where the employees cannot agree with each other, as they are in constant stress, which demotivates them dramatically. Considering this, the company’s goal at the current stage lies in creating a comfortable and pleasant atmosphere that would favor future development. This is the primary purpose, as without fulfilling it, no expansion will be possible.
Values
The values of Business House doubtlessly need reframing; in fact, they hardly have a strict verbal formulation currently. Clear value statements, meanwhile, are essential for accomplishing the goals in the most appropriate ways, serving to “guide the thoughts and behaviour of an organisation towards the future” (Tessema et al., 2019, p. 151). Therefore, the school needs a set of ideas and principles to follow on its path towards expansion; the following list comprises proper variants.
- Passion and compassion. These two embody the manner in which the employees are to treat their work and their students, respectively.
- Creation and innovation. These are the main frames, within which Business House should organize its performance. The former means the focus on productivity, while the latter hints at implementing the newest techniques and approaches to remain up-to-date, among which the use of AI in recruiting.
Focus Areas
The most important focus area of Business House at the current stage is creating a well-integrated and productive team to enable accomplishing the goal and realizing the vision. Both attraction and retention of competent specialists form another area; this enables the company to remain competitive. Finally, innovativeness is essential as well since the sphere of HR management changes quite rapidly together with the global economic environment (Anwar & Abdullah, 2020). Artificial intelligence, as apparent from the above, can help resolve each of the issues.
Strategic Objectives
The first focus area comprises the following objectives:
- To identify the personal qualities that the staff members should have to cooperate productively and provide high quality services to the students.
- To adopt an AI-based technology to enable grouping candidates by the most relevant criteria for forming a proper team.
Within the second area, the objectives are as follows:
- To apply AI to analyzing the reason or reasons for the insufficient job satisfaction of the employees.
- To design relevant strategies of minimizing the identified negative factors or compensating for them.
- To compose personalized development plans for the employees to broaden their career prospects in the company and, consequently, improve satisfaction.
The third focus area requires the following steps:
- To review the existing trends in human resource management, of which many have economic origin (Anwar & Abdullah, 2020).
- To adjust the performance of Business House to the current tendencies to make the school more attractive for future-oriented customers as well as specialists.
Strategic Approach to Implementing the Change
It doubtlessly would be reasonable to appeal to the experience of other businesses as well as the outcomes of the topical research in applying artificial intelligence to employee recruitment and retention. This enables choosing the most relevant techniques as well as being aware of the possible drawbacks. Thus, Chang et al. (2021) describe the method of psychological contract that lies in agreeing what employees should and should not do to accomplish the corporate goals as well as what they acquire in return. AI, according to the experts, can simplify analyzing the personal features of candidates to identify the most promising participants of such contracts.
A similar technology can be helpful in retention; a deeper insight into the personal values of the employees makes it clear whether the atmosphere at the workplace corresponds to them. Therefore, Business House should survey both existing and potential members of its team in a way that allows for maximal accuracy of the response, applying AI to composing the questionnaires and systematizing the outcomes. The critical point is bringing the machine in line with the company’s vision, so that it is able to identify the selection criteria correctly.
Regarding professional characteristics and areas for development, artificial intelligence can identify both; in fact, the former determine the latter. A relevant instance is Takeda Pharmaceutical Co., which “deployed AI to establish competency-based interviews” (Sweeney, 2021, para. 6). The technology allows for creating so-called skills profiles, from which the existing gaps are apparent; relying on those, the HR manager can set the necessary directions of professional growth for each employee. Considering how dissatisfied the personnel of Business House generally are with their career prospects, a solution of such a kind would doubtlessly be helpful.
Final Recommendations and Possible Outcomes
Best Case Scenario
On the condition that the implementation of the technology is not associated with any limitations, it will reduce the seriousness of the firm’s staffing issues in a relatively short period. First, picking candidates within the framework of the psychological contract will make misunderstandings among the members less common; hence fewer quarrels. Second, the prospects of professional development and promotion for the specialists will not solely expand, but consider their individual peculiarities such as gaps in skills, encouraging them to collaborate with the company further. The reduction in the frequency of conflicts and the increase in the personnel’s motivation as well as job satisfaction actually are the key criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of the project.
Worst Case Scenario
To the contrary, it is essential to remember that, as said above, the use of AI does not eliminate the human factor; it only simplifies, quickens, and directs data analysis. Therefore, the probability of bias remains substantial, especially in setting the selection parameters and machine teaching (Chang et al., 2021). Simply stated, there is always a chance that the personal opinion of the HR manager on whom to hire or not will underlie the recruitment process in case it is used in programming AI. This may foster gender, ethnic, or other prejudice and, consequently, discrimination in hiring.
Recommendations
A possible way to avoid the above situation is to implement a two-step scheme. At the first stage, artificial intelligence should assess exclusively professional skills of a particular candidate, removing any information on his or her identity from the CV; Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. uses this approach (Sweeney, 2021). Then, the selected should undergo machine personal trait analysis, whose outcomes show whether they will be able to integrate with the team of Business House. In other words, it is reasonable to combine several directions, in which AI may be used in recruitment, so that they compensate for each other’s drawbacks.
Conclusion
Engaging artificial intelligence in human resource management can enable Business House to solve its problems with personnel in two key ways. First, it improves the accuracy of candidate selection, helping create an integrated and productive team, without which the further development of the company is impossible. Second, the specialists who are disappointed with the career prospects that the school offers can acquire individual development plans based on their skills profiles, for which AI also allows. Such measures can influence the climate of the workplace positively, improving its recruitment as well as retention capacities.
References
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Chang, K., Abdalla, Yo. A., & Lasyoud, A. (2021). Artificial intelligence in personnel management: opportunities and challenges to the higher education sector (HES). In A. M. A. M. Musleh Al-Sartawi, A. Razzaque, & M. M. Kamal (Eds.), Artificial intelligence systems and the internet of things in the digital era: Proceedings of EAMMIS 2021 (pp. 278-289). Springer. Web.
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Singh, A., & Shaurya, A. (2021). Impact of artificial intelligence on HR practices in the UAE. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 8(312). Web.
Sweeney, E. (2021, November 9). AI can help companies remove bias in the hiring process, speed up recruitment, and prevent employees from quitting, experts say.Insider. Web.
Tessema, M. T., Dhumal, P., Sauers, D. A., Tewolde, S., & Teckle, P. (2019). Analysis of corporate value statements: An empirical study.International Journal of Corporate Governance, 10(2), 149-164. Web.
Tiwary, P., Pandey, R., Garg, V., & Singhal, A. (2021). Application of artificial intelligence in human resource management practices.11th International Conference on Cloud Computing, Data Science & Engineering (Confluence). Web.
Votto, A. M., Valecha, R., Najafirad, P., & Rao, H. R. (2021). Artificial intelligence in tactical human resource management: A systematic literature review. International Journal of Information Management Data Insights, 1, 100047. Web.