Businesses are not as cautious about exploring generative AI. The adoption of generative AI in business processes has skyrocketed. It increased by 400% between 2023 and 2023.
AI offers HR leaders a huge opportunity to unlock benefits for their business. It allows teams to automate processes, make data driven decisions and improve employee satisfaction by increasing productivity. Over the past year, HR teams have increasingly realised the power of intelligent automation in transforming tasks and responsibilities, from referrals and onboarding to wellness applications and recruitment automation.
The adoption of generative AI at speed and scale poses challenges, however. HR teams must not only consider the success and impact on the business but also from an HR perspective.
While experimenting with new technology was traditionally the responsibility of IT, generative AI allows employees from different departments to adopt automation independently.
HR leaders are faced with a difficult challenge. They must balance the need to embrace the momentum of automation while also considering the impact on business policies and processes.
Generative AI being implemented company-wide
Workato’s Work Automation Index 2024 shows a ‘democratisation of AI’ within businesses that is unprecedented. Simply put, the hype surrounding generative AI has led employees to automate work processes on their own.
The number of applications and processes in companies are increasing rapidly. The number of automation tools is increasing at the same time.
The promise of each new tool is to revolutionise and minimise fragmentation, but the ‘patchwork approach’ has only exacerbated it. Businesses are creating new silos instead of tearing down existing ones.
Manage democratisation without causing discord
Accessibility is the reason for the democratisation in generative AI. The advent of low-code and no-code technologies means that technical expertise is not a requirement to automate processes at work. The Work Automation Index revealed that 44% of automated processes were built outside the IT department.
The HR team, for example, can automate certain aspects of recruitment using generative AI. This is done without the need to wait on an IT specialist’s assistance in writing lines of code.
The rise in automation has created a new set of challenges for businesses, and HR plays a key role. Scaling automation with generative artificial intelligence can quickly turn into anarchy in a company that lacks a solid governance system. The complexity of generative AI automation increases, and processes become more complicated.
The use of generative AI has a significant impact on the employee experience. This in turn leads to the need to examine how it affects both the individual and the company.
Similarly, there are differences in the sophistication of generative AI across departments. Some teams, for example, will not likely have the technical expertise required to manage the majority of the implementations that they manage on their own. This can lead to differences in security, scalability and compliance throughout the company.
IT still builds over half of the automations (56%) and must also provide governance and guidance to the other 44 % built by other departments.
How HR can help the successful implementation of Generative AI
To maximise the potential of generative AI, and to ensure that HR supports the business to use it effectively, there needs to be a governance system and guiding voice. This should be the responsibility of the CIO and IT department. If the HR team is able to provide guidance on HR issues, they can do so if they have a high level of oversight over the different stages of AI generative being developed across departments.
While IT perimeters might not seem to be a part of HR, they can play a vital role in helping to connect the dots and help the business map out the impact technology has on employees. This is especially true when using generative AI for projects that involve highly sensitive employee data.
It will become increasingly important for HR to align on AI policies, as well as consider long-term issues such as incorporating AI into employee job descriptions.
HR leaders who are savvy will not only implement generative AI in the business but also actively find ways to guide the roll-out of the technology for the company.
