Your HR Tech Assistant
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Artificial intelligence and digitalisation brings about a new wave of technological tools. From fancy cloud-based software to robotics, these technological innovations have vastly enhanced workplace processes. One such technological tool would be the introduction of chat bots.
As defined by Technopedia, chatbots are defined as “an artificial intelligence (AI) program that simulates interactive human conversation by using key pre-calculated user phrases and auditory or text-based signals.” Chatbots are typically used in customer service, whereby it beats having someone physically sitting there 24 hours a day answering customers’ queries.
Increasingly, chatbots are being adopted in various other workplace processes such as supporting the HR department with the recruitment process. This includes receiving applicants’ resumes, scheduling interviews and supporting the onboarding. In short, chatbots can help to expedite the recruitment process significantly reduce the amount of time spent on recruitment, freeing up more time for the HR department to focus on other strategic HR initiatives.
Here are some ways in which chatbots can be incorporated into your recruitment process.
Scheduling appointments
Chatbots can help with scheduling job applicants’ interview time slots based on your calendar or your colleague’s calendar. A lengthy interview scheduling process can create a bad impression on your employer branding, and you might end up losing the candidate to a competitor simply because he or she had to wait for weeks simply to for interview time slot. With a chatbot that has employees’ calendar synced to it, it can easily access employees’ calendar and determine their availability. With this real-time availability, job applicants can easily book an interview time slot through the chatbot. Internally, this helps to reduce the mistake of double booking or rescheduling as well.
Customer service
There is bound to be a point in time whereby employees would constantly ring up the HR department enquiring about HR policies or benefits that can be easily found on the HR intranet. Or job applicants sending multiple HR-related emails to the HR department. Chatbots can help to minimise the frequency of such situations and easily provide the answers that both employees and job applicants are looking for. With this “instant messaging” platform with the chatbot, it can significantly help to improve employee satisfaction and create a positive employer branding on potential candidates as well.
New hire onboarding
When a new hire joins the company, the questions are likely to be repeated - what are my employee benefits, who do I call if i require technical assistance on my laptop. Given the predictability of these questions, the answers to these questions can be easily compiled and incorporated via the chatbot.
Employees’ virtual assistant
Chatbots can also act as virtual assistant to employees. For instance, instead of having to physically be in office to report sick, employees can use the chatbot to “chat” in sick or if they require to take urgent personal time off. Likewise, employees can also make use of chatbots to schedule meetings, apply for time off and other administrative tasks that previously might require an email or phone call. This helps employees to save time and increase productivity as well.
Implementing a chatbot for the organisation can be a relatively seamless process if you already have proper policies and procedures in place. However, do note that there are also other issues to consider such as information security, legal issues and data privacy. It is imperative to also ensure that employees are aware of the intent of the chatbot - while some might be open to the idea, others might be hesitant towards the idea of a chatbot within the organisation.
[Article migrated from dcHR.tech]