Using AI to Improve Your Employee Experience

The workplace of the modern world is developing at an unprecedented pace and technology is pivotal in shaping how organizations function and employees’ connection with their work. The transformation begins with artificial intelligence (AI) which has revolutionized businesses, especially by improving the employee experience (EX). It does this by automating monotonous tasks, giving personalized learning and development opportunities, as well as enhancing overall communication to create a much better work environment for employees.

This blog post considers different ways AI can be used for bettering the employee experience, suggesting actionable strategies that can be applied using relevant industry data and insight.

What is Employee Experience?

Employee experience includes all contacts an employee makes during working hours. This consists of an employee’s duties, the physical workspace, corporate culture, and management, as well as their leaders’ commitment to their growth, success, and well-being.

Employee experience is significant not only in terms of driving motivation, engagement, and retention among employees but is also profoundly connected to customer experience. The linkage between these two factors is so strong that some are even saying that employee experience is quickly becoming the new battleground for customer experience.

Employees with good experience put in more effort, feel proud of their work, and contribute to quality customer service.

Organizations that have a friendly staff experience growth in customer satisfaction and service, innovation, and 25% higher profits compared to those who don’t focus on employees’ good experiences.

What is the Digital Employee Experience?

Employee experience and digital employee experience are deeply interconnected. Employee experience studies an employee’s journey in a wider context, touching various points such as employment contracts, enhancement programs, or social events in the organization. Digital employee experience is narrower and offers a limited scope of study to an employee’s interaction with an organization on its website.

The digital employee experience is what workers think and feel as they interact with the various digital platforms in the course of their work.

Unlike the employee experience that deals with employee perception, the digital employee experience focuses on the interaction between employees and various technological tools like applications, networks, devices, and software; the design and usability of these tools and their effect on interpersonal interactions in the workplace.

By ensuring that the systems and tools that employees are using on a day-to-day basis are competent, efficient, effective, and usable, it is possible to provide the desired positive digital employee experience.

While these tools are meant to help employees by saving time and reducing work processes and responsibilities at work, they should not make employees’ work more cumbersome. Thus, the focus is on taking measures to facilitate the implementation of such tools in a manner that enhances user experience for employees.

What is AI For Employee Experience?

Artificial Intelligence in Employee Experience deals with the employment of artificial intelligence on the many cycles of the employee’s journey with the organization. Some of these stages include recruitment, onboarding, operational activities, the progress of the career, and performance evaluation. This is further made efficient by the fact that AI can sponge up information, carry out tasks, and give recommendations that help address constraints in improving the employee experience.

Embedding AI into the employee experience is not simply about putting advanced technologies into action configurations; it is rather about designing a workplace whereby the employees feel appreciated, cared for, and driven. With the inclusion of AI to enhance certain procedures and tailor assistance, employers can build a better and more appealing working environment.

How is AI Being Used To Improve the Employee Experience? 

Automating Repetitive Tasks

The one very key and remarkable transformation of workplaces is the substitution of the mundane, repetitive, and laborious tasks that the human workers are better off without. Several tasks that include capturing or entry of data, setting up appointments and other calendar issues, and document control among others, can be automated by AI technologies, allowing employees to offer their skills and metals in more strategic and creative elements. This improves productivity and even combats the problem of burnout by permitting employees to carry out tasks that give them more satisfaction and a sense of purpose rather than monotonous tasks.

For example, it has become common practice to deploy AI bots to take care of the low-ly focused administrative matters that include processing forms and sending out invites for meetings or interviews that would ideally require a lot of time and effort. In this way, a useful feature of AI is time management efficiency as it relieves the physical workers from unproductive duties even though they are crucial to the organizational running and structure.

Enhancing Learning and Development

Another great shift is that AI-based systems are facilitating a change in the learning process by facilitating individual learning paths for each employee. They rely on the information they have about an employee and suggest the type of training they should undertake based on the employee’s performance, attributes, and other career prospects. A major characteristic of these learning platforms is that they emphasize the importance of the acquisition of relevant skills to be able to perform specific functions within an organization, which raises the engagement and satisfaction rates of employees at their work.

For instance, it is possible to analyze the resume of an employee who has shown a willingness to take up a higher position in the company and suggest how this employee can be mentored, what courses they may consider enrolling in, and even what executive training programs would be appropriate for the expected work role. This ability not only speeds up the career path but also increases the retention rate of the organizations as it shows dedication towards developing the employees.

Improving Recruitment and Boarding

The evolution of AI is also reshaping recruitment and onboarding by eliminating various processes and supplying valuable information needed to increase the quality of decisions. In the course of recruitment, AI systems have been developed that can read and analyze CVs, book interview slots, or even carry out a first-round interview through NLP and AI mechanisms. This makes the process of hiring easier, minimizes bias and objective assessment of candidates is achieved.

After a candidate has been secured, AI can also improve the onboarding process by offering services such as helping a new employee familiarize themselves with policies, training, and people in the company. Such systems can screen new employees according to their social affiliation, previous employment experience, and educational preparation so that the newcomer does not feel overwhelmed and is helped to adjust to the new environment from the very first day.

According to a study by LinkedIn, companies that adopt AI in the recruitment process managed to shorten the time to hire by 30% and increase the quality of candidates by 20%, noting the productive nature of the recruitment techniques powered by AI tools.

Enhancing Employee Communication

To get a positive employee experience within any organization, effective communication is paramount, and the incorporation of AI technology takes center stage in changing the interaction between employees and the organization. Employees can interact with the use of AI chatbots and virtual assistants which can give relevant replies to employee questions regarding HR, IT support, or just workplace-related queries.

AI can also be used to improve the communication between interpersonal members of the group, through evaluation of communication interactions and how the teams work together. For instance, based on patterns of communication, AI can be able to pinpoint problem areas due to limited interactions among members of the team and recommend adjustments that can enhance interactions among members of the team, facilitating effective teamwork.

Providing Data-Driven Insights for HR Decision-Making

Big data analysis and big data mining by artificial intelligence are refining the HR decision-making style. By digging through the data regarding employee performance or engagement and goodwill, AI arms HR personnel with information that can be useful in coming up with better practices for establishing employee engagement. Such insights can also point to where assistance for staff is needed, areas of work where employee benefits ought to be highlighted, and even what could trigger employee turnover.

For example, in performing such analysis, AI can indicate where the hotspots of emotional heat are and how these trends might differ between management and non-management teams or between departments. This way HR can nip the problems in the bud and all stakeholders feel engaged and included.

Research by Deloitte notes that organizations that incorporate people analytics in their HR operations are 4 times more likely to register higher worker productivity and involvement levels as compared to those that have not embraced people analytics into their corporate culture.

Advanced Applications of AI in Employee Experience

AI-Powered Career Pathing

AI has made it possible to make a more complex career pathing statement by predicting the prospective career paths for the employees using their skills, experience, and interests. It enables the patterns rather than trends of job vacancies in the department to pitch provisions such as horizontal movements, elevation, or new occupations that fit an employee’s career expectations.

Such a developmental initiative by AI helps organizations in their quest for capital retention as it helps the workers understand their career prospects. Employees tend to be loyal to an employer who cares for their individual growth and provides a clear route of promotion.

AI in Performance Management

In a lot of cases, traditional performance appraisals are vague and expose different opinions from the evaluators. More revolutionarily, AI is adopting a more objective and evidence-based performance management system. Through data on project management systems, and stakeholders feedback (peer review and customer review), AI achieves just, well-structured, and focused evaluations.

The capability of AI to also give feedback, particularly instant feedback, enables staff to make corrections on issues and improve their performance throughout the year rather than deferring it to the annual spectrum review. This feedback mechanism enables the employees to be on the course and within the trajectory of the organization’s purpose.

AI for Diversity and Inclusion

A complex and controversial problem that organizations face is diversity and inclusion in the workplace, but here’s where AI is stepping in once again. Organizations gather information on their workforce, recruitment, and promotion patterns, as well as on the wages paid for different jobs. Then, this information is subjected to an AI system that effectively resolves these potential challenges. For instance, AI can screen searches for inappropriate or gender-exclusive phrases in advertised positions and reverse discrimination through impact assessment of promotions across gender and ethnic groups.

Organizations can also perform sentiment and comment analysis using AI to determine the level of diversity active as well as areas that require improvement in their diversity and inclusion efforts. Such analytics makes it easier to create a situation where all workers will feel appreciated and respected, thanks to properly developed diversity and inclusion programs in the company.

A study by PwC reveals that companies that engage in supporting diversity and inclusion initiatives through the application of AI witnessed a 15% increase in gender diversity in the workforce and a 10% enhancement in employee satisfaction with inclusivity aspects.

Predictive Analytics for Employee Retention

Just like many other companies, organizations are not immune to the challenge of employee turnover, and this is an issue for which AI is offering new solutions based on predictive modeling. By looking at attributes like job satisfaction ratings, employee engagement, and external conditions in a labor market, AI can identify those employees who are likely to leave a company. This makes it possible for organizations to take corrective actions to enhance employee retention such as improving retention policy, development support, or workload balancing.

How to Implement AI to Improve Employee Experience?

A strategic and thoughtful approach is necessary when deciding how to enhance the employee experience through AI. In this regard, organizations should take the following critical steps:

Assess Organizational Needs

Assessing the company’s needs and issues regarding the employee experience comes first when determining how to apply AI in your setting. Determine the processes that can be automized, for instance, submissions processes, recruitment, or learning and development processes among others.

Choose the Right AI Tools

The next phase is to identify the tools that would help meet the needs identified earlier. There are several AI tools in the market today that aid in different areas of the employee experience. When selecting these tools, one should consider features, ease of use, integration capabilities, scalability, and existing systems compatibility.

Ensure Data Privacy and Security

Data is at the heart of Artificial Intelligence and it is, therefore, important that your firm practices those rules. For instance, if your firm is situated in the European Union, it should be in line with General Data Production Rules (GDPR) or the case of the USA, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). Create strong barriers to avoid external data breaches or intrusions that may expose employee details and also provide policy guidance on the nature of data collected, databases, and the methods of its storage and usage.

Provide Training for Employees and Managers

Conduct training and provide materials for the employees to utilize the AI-based platforms smoothly and also utilize AI in their day-to-day activities. In addition, the managers shall also be trained on how to utilize insights from AI towards decision-making and management of their teams.

Monitor and Optimize

The process of AI implementation is not a one-time event. Ongoing checking of the performance of AI tools against the objectives with user feedback provision will improve some aspects of the tools. Maintaining periodic evaluations of AI systems can be beneficial in identifying and ameliorating prejudices or poor practices.

Real-World Applications of AI  in Improving Employee Experience

Case 1: IBM’s Watson for Employee Experience

Over the years, IBM has been at the forefront of AI innovation and their Watson AI is the prime example of that innovation. Watson is specifically used within IBM’s HR chatbot which handles the workers’ questions, offers customized career advice, and even assists with getting new hires into the company. Consequently, an HR officer can now be able to handle more employees, and the level of satisfaction has increased.

Case 2: Unilever’s AI-Driven Recruitment Process

Unilever, just like many other companies, has embraced the use of AI in automated recruitment, employing the use of AI-based assessment tests and AI video interviews to screen applicants to the organization. This strategy has made it not only quicker to source for but also more creative hires. Candidates may not be subjected to disabilities in the form of prejudices but rather assessed on skills and potential.

Case Study 3:  Microsoft’s AI for Wellbeing

Through its collaborative tools, Microsoft’s AI evaluates how well its employees are doing. Similarly, AI in Microsoft looks for indicators of burnout and fatigue, such as periods on a laptop or downtime in texting, and suggests the user take a rest or use the resources for mental health. This preventive measure has resulted in an active, healthier workforce.

Challenges and Considerations of Using AI in Workforce

As much as AI has great merits there are some challenges to consider: :

Data Privacy Concerns: Machine learning requires employee performance data which is usually private information. Organizations should have plans to abide by the data protection laws as well as risk management plans to avoid loss of data through processes and enforcement of lawful access procedures.

Bias in AI Algorithms:  As significant as they can be, it is hard to guarantee AI systems will be free from bias. Therefore, it is imperative to regularly scrutinize these systems to improve them and enhance the fairness of the decision-making processes.

Employee Resistance:  Some employees may be hostile towards the automated processes due to fear of job loss. This concern can be addressed by giving feedback and allowing workers to have a say in the AI integration process.

What Future Holds for AI in Employee Experience?

It is expected that in the later stages of the development of AI, its effects on the employee experience will become even more significant. Future development might see features such as AI mentorship programs, real-time employee feedback on any subject such as sentiment analysis, and even AI leadership development. Companies that advocate the use of AI will have a higher chance of picking and keeping top talent, enabling progression and development, and generally remaining relevant in the marketplace.

Conclusion

The role of AI in enhancing employee experience is significant, especially through performing repetitive activities, providing learning through tailored experiences, improving channels of interactions, and making sense of various metrics. While it is possible to automate the processes through AI, successful implementation of such requires adequate analysis, tracking, and awareness of ethical issues including protection of personal information and elimination of bias. By integrating AI into your employee experience plan, you can improve the engagement, efficacy, and overall support of your organization.

Are you ready to leverage the power of AI for a great employee experience? Check out Auzmor’s solutions and see how Auzmor’s technologies can empower the workforce.

FAQs

Q: What is the role of AI in improving employee experience?

A; AI enhances employee experience by creating customized learning pathways, taking off mundane tasks, and highlighting engagement levels and productive metrics, making the workplace more effective and responsive.

Q: Is it possible to implement AI solutions in the already used Human Resource applications?

A: Yes, it is possible to use AI solutions in most HR systems, allowing information transfer and improving current operations without replacing entire systems.

Q: What AI technologies can be used to implement employee experience improvements?

A: AI technologies that can be utilized include chatbots used for people’s operation support, AI-based learning platforms, employee retention predictive analytics, and sub-programs that assess workers’ moods.

Q: How much does it cost and how long does it take to implement AI?

A: The cost and time of AI dependence vary, however, many solutions, are flexible and can be adopted without major interruptions in the running of the enterprise.

Q: What is the influence of AI on the privacy of employees?

A: AI solutions focus on confidentiality and data security. Thus it is essential to select artificial intelligence tools and platforms that respect the confidentiality of employee data.