AI technologies are being widely implemented to enhance HR services, boost productivity, and help deliver more rewarding and personalized experiences for job candidates and employees.
HR departments are already using conversational AI bots for a wide range of tasks, resulting in multiple advantages:
- HR departments can organize mundane tasks better and focus more on transformational and productive actions that require their specific, deep expertise and skills.
- Low-productivity, administrative tasks can be automatically handled, in a much more cost-efficient way.
- Internal communication is more efficient, effective, and effortless.
- Hiring leaders can create seamless and customized candidate or employee experiences by providing unique, individualized assistance throughout the employment lifecycle (from onboarding to retirement.
Looking Ahead
The “next frontier” of conversational AI and HR is for learning and development (L&D). Conversational AI can do so much more than provide one-way conversations that bombard trainees with generic information. The new generation of customizable, interactive bots offers many benefits for employee training and education.
Aside from customizability, bots are logical and much more cost-efficient than traditional training routes. Conversational AI enables businesses to provide a unique platform for learners to engage with them, regardless of location, time of the day, or device, leading to improved experiences and company reputation.
Benefits of AI for Learning & Development
The advantages of investing in learning and development (L&D) are well documented. According to Accenture, one company saw an incredible 353% return on investment. Sources of ROI include improved employee performance; reduced turnover; and even more innovation.
Incorporating conversational AI into your L&D program is a great way to maximize that ROI because it improves the learning experience in multiple ways:
- Enhanced Learning Experience: Remote and on-demand access to information and learning resources significantly improve student engagement and experience.
- Improved Productivity: Reduce the amount of time spent by managers handling repetitive tasks and answering simple, recurring questions and free them up to focus on higher-value tasks.
- Lower Costs: Using AI can reduce the costs of educators', and employees' in-person training and the software only has to be set up once and is ready to go for the long haul for present and future learners.
Conversational AI for "Tutoring"
Conversational AI can do so much more than answer simple questions and take care of simple tasks. Thanks to natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning, these intelligent bots can be configured to handle more complex queries and answer inquiries in a natural, conversational way. The new bots can then host unique, extensive, and customized options to fit the needs of trainees during the learning process, guide existing employees and continue to push them to be their best.
Conversational learning bots are often asked questions regarding training because of their role as virtual assistants. They can provide knowledge; take on the role of a personal coach and instructor by answering specific questions; provide two-way conversation, and initiate drill-and-practice exercises to check learning progress.
These sophisticated bots can actually become partners to educators and classmates to students; they are there to help deepen exploration, practice, and to help training take shape in the mind of trainees and current employees. There are many ways AI can be seen in training tools and applications:
- Vocabulary trainers
- Talking bots that act as a tutorial system for teaching new product features
- Dialogue-based, interactive bots that use a more playful approach to take the user into their world of learning.
Tips for Incorporating Conversational AI Into Your L&D Program
Implementing these intelligent bots can seem like a daunting task, but the right approach can make the process much easier. Educational bots need to be adequately trained to gain acceptance, create a natural learning environment, and progress via conversational AI learning. The system needs to be fully developed by the time it is implemented, must fit the actual learning context, and have specific goals as training progresses.
It is vital to have a clear, precise idea of the application and the goals, and the target audience in mind. Many developers equip the bots to appear as “human-like” as possible when engaging with users while also staying unique to provide a different experience for users.
These tips will help make the implementation and maintenance of your conversational AI-powered bots go more smoothly:
- Start small: You’ll want a “quick win” to ensure that your team remains excited about the implementation process. Choose a small, straightforward project first. For instance, you could build a bot that educates employees about the company values, mission, and history (and perhaps even mention how the bot fits into your company’s commitment to delivering an exceptional employee experience).
- Take your time: Just like a human, an intelligent bot takes time to train! It can take practice, many changes, and many different opinions to develop good dialogues for these bots that are factual, contain relevant content, and use a conversational technique that involves the human partner.
- Design the experience thoughtfully: If your bot looks and sounds like a robot, it will likely turn off employees. Focus on training the bot to interact naturally, with a good balance of listening and talking; the ability to ask and answer open-ended questions; and convey an approachable tone and “personality.” Collect feedback from employees, and capitalize on what works well.
- Leave room for your own learning curve: Your HR department’s L&D leaders will be at the forefront of the bot adoption process. They need to feel comfortable with this new technology before it’s rolled out to the entire company. As you plan the implementation, be sure to allow plenty of time for their own learning process.
- Develop a data governance plan: Employees might be (rightfully) concerned about the data that gets collected while they interact with bots, even when those interactions are for learning purposes. From the start, communicate with employees about how data is collected and what (if anything) the data might also be used for. For example, let employees know that the questions they ask might be used to help refine and maintain the bot over time (more on that below).
- Use each interaction to make the bot better: With conversational AI, bots can evolve over time, but they sometimes need some help. Keep track of common questions and interactions, and use those to update the bot as needed. Even less common queries might be worth adding to the bot’s repertoire, particularly if they pertain to a very specialized task or job responsibility where few people in the organization would have deep expertise.
Conversational AI offers many practical applications to educate current and future employees while also providing training, independence, flexibility, accessibility, and organization, among other essential services. Conversational AI for L&D opens the path to other forms of knowledge and allows corporations to modernize their training and current requirements, while also cutting costs and time.
