We last wrote about this in May 2023 and have since used AI at OneHR on a regular basis. We have witnessed the original apprehension shift from theoretical potential to practical implementation. We’re not here to promote any particular AI but we wanted to share our experience of integrating it as part of our work with our clients – which essentially frees us to focus on our operational and strategic offerings.
We have used AI with recruitment, advertising roles and sifting large numbers of applications – all the while being very mindful of any potential for bias. But let’s be practical about this. When you receive over 800 applications for an admin role, are you really going to sift through every single CV or are you going to turn to your AI of choice, give it specific parameters relating to the essential criteria of the role, and let it do the gruelling sifting for you?
Before we tell you how that went, let’s start by highlighting that we invested a fair sum into AI training for ourselves, before we embarked on using the more advanced paid-for version. And what we have learned from the beginning is that it is only as successful as the prompts, context and instructions you give it.
We were told to “speak to it like you would a person”. So, we did…and it worked. Slowly, our AI has got to know us individually, understand our tone, what we do, how we do it and apply this knowledge to help us refine some of our written work. We also learned how to formulate prompts for complex work such as analysing data or create a matrix.
And what we like best is that we can also challenge what AI tells us, for example about a piece of employment law or best practice – “Are you sure? Please check again because I thought that…”. And it does admit when it gets something wrong, which is refreshing!
Ethical issues of using AI in HR
AI does still require the human touch and so it should. No AI should ever be able to make decisions or advise employees on its own because it does not understand the nuances required when managing people in a commercial work environment.
At OneHR, we’re always keen to understand and embrace new technology to see how it can help us work more efficiently and effectively for our clients – but always by keeping an open mind and maintaining a critical eye!
Prioritising transparency, fairness, and data privacy is key as HR Consultants. This means establishing clear guidelines, mitigating bias in algorithms, and ensuring human oversight in critical decisions. Regular audits, employee training, and open communication are essential to fostering a culture of ethical AI use at work, ultimately building trust and ensuring equitable outcomes for all employees.
We have found this guide issued by the ICO on fairness, bias and discrimination and how to ensure fairness in AI useful:
Training staff on using AI
It takes a combination of technical know-how and ethical awareness to prepare your workers to handle the AI technology safely and for the benefit of your business and your customers or service users. AI basics, practical tool use, and data literacy should all be covered in training, with a focus on bias reduction and keeping data safe. The ability to successfully incorporate AI into their workflows and make well-informed decisions that benefit the company is crucially ensured by cultivating a culture of open communication and ongoing learning.
A wealth of training courses exists out there to equip your teams, not just HR professionals, with the skills needed to effectively utilise AI. These courses will help your employees understand the impact, risks and opportunities of using AI tools at work and generate relevant prompts for job-related tasks.
Overall, we are finding AI useful in our work as HR consultants and will continue to use it as and when required. Not for everything, but certainly often enough to justify the cost of training and the monthly subscription.
We even tried to give it a name – ‘Brad’ – but it didn’t like it. Was worth a try, right!?
