Across the world, digital transformation is widely regarded as a priority for today’s businesses, made even more essential by the pandemic. For the past few years, digitalization has been altering how companies work in previously inconceivable ways. In 2020, COVID-19 demonstrated that remote work could be successfully implemented at even the most significant scale, bringing the need for digitalization closer to the HR function.
Traditionally, HR departments were looked upon in a transactional fashion, designed to carry out recruitment and administrative tasks narrowly. However, the workforce market is changing – physical barriers to recruitment begin to blur, and millions worldwide are likely to look to reconvert professionally in the coming years.
In this ever-globalized context, the role of HR must inherently shift towards a more value-adding strategic function that effortlessly finds, attracts, and shapes talent to contribute to the financial bottom line directly. Digitalizing HR is a critical lever for companies looking to remain relevant and at the forefront of the business world.
When it comes to HR and workforce management, the retail industry faces many unique challenges coming together: high employee turnover, high volumes of applicants for new jobs, large teams, and numerous legal regulations limiting the activity. This translates into massive volumes of tedious administrative tasks that pressure teams and take them away from more valuable tasks.
At that moment in time, the administrative activities related to the workforce of 21,000 were still very manual in nature, with store managers having to individually fill in and submit all employment forms and contracts, employee records, internal timesheets, and other activities specific to human resources.
With growing pressure on ensuring timely supplies and stocks, as well as dealing with new responsibilities for health & safety, Profi’s time-consuming HR work desperately needed an upgrade. Working in close partnership with PwC Romania, the solution was to design and train an AI virtual assistant integrated with HR software systems, supported by DRUID technology in conjunction with UiPath RPA bots. The intelligent virtual assistant implemented can automate all activities related to the generation of employment contracts and staff integration within the company, but not only.
Thus, the AI chatbot automatically collects data from the identity card through Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology, then works with the candidate to fill in the rest of the necessary information in the employment documents. Ultimately, it sends the finalized contract to the HR team to be registered and properly filed. Concurrently, a new electronic file is automatically created for each new employee, which will subsequently contain all that person’s information, certificates, and records.
The virtual assistant also assists by automating the generation of certificates and documents. The new solution, designed and implemented entirely by PwC Romania, a DRUID strategic partner, streamlined store managers’ performance and simplified the employment related administrative tasks required for thousands of employees every year.
The problems facing HR teams often come down to two key things: time and resources. Embracing technology systems and automating essential processes is key to freeing up retail human resources professionals’ time to focus on the company’s initiatives that matter.
Using conversational technology to digitize HR processes can increase efficiency and offer a better experience for internal and external audiences, clearly impacting the bottom line. The power of the next generation of HR lies in assuming a more driven role in supporting the business objectives of any company and creating a holistic approach to supporting the workforce of the future. Conversational technology is one of the tools that will help and speed up this process.