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The Role of HR in a World of Automation

Introduction:

  • The speaker, Nancy, is the Chief People Experience Officer at Automation Anywhere. She discusses the future role of Human Resources (HR) in a world where 30% of the workforce may not be human due to automation.
  • Nancy joined Automation Anywhere 6 years ago and was inspired by the challenge of solving how HR functions will adapt in a tech-driven future.

Pre-pandemic HR Challenges:

  • Talent Scarcity: HR struggled to find skilled professionals, such as engineers and marketing experts.
  • Performance and Efficiency: HR's traditional role was to measure and improve employee performance.
  • Changing Social Norms: In 2019, HR faced challenges like incorporating diverse pronoun preferences into company systems.

Post-pandemic Shift:

  • Global Productivity Crisis: The pandemic caused supply chain disruptions, leading to increased demand for automation to maintain business operations without requiring on-site staff.
  • Workforce Changes: Many workers, especially Baby Boomers, left the workforce or sought more flexible work-from-home options. This created talent shortages, particularly in sectors like elderly care.
  • HR Focus on Well-being: The pandemic shifted HR’s focus toward employee well-being. As a result, HR can no longer revert to its pre-pandemic, less people-centric approach.

Future of HR:

  • Human-Centered Efficiency: HR will continue to focus on productivity and efficiency, but with a human-centric approach. Automation technologies are now being designed to serve human workers rather than vice versa.
  • Redefining Employer-Employee Relationships: Both Baby Boomers and younger workers demand flexibility and autonomy. This shift will lead to more personalized work environments.
  • Leveraging Automation for Strategic HR: Automation frees HR professionals from administrative tasks, allowing them to focus on strategic initiatives such as employee development and retention.

HR Automation Examples:

  • Headcount Automation: An automation was created to manage headcount data efficiently, replacing a manual process that took hours.
  • Compensation Analysis Automation: This automation helps HR make data-driven decisions about promotions and salary adjustments in real time, improving fairness and accuracy.
  • Onboarding and Document Management: Automation streamlined the process of moving HR data during system migrations, reducing errors and saving thousands of hours of manual work.

The Role of Technology in HR:

  • Automation Expertise: HR professionals must become experts in automation technology to remain relevant. Nancy compares the impact of automation to the introduction of the telephone and Excel in previous decades.
  • Automation in Recruitment: ChatGPT was used to score and analyze LinkedIn profiles during an executive search, saving hours of manual work and allowing HR to focus on human tasks.

Conclusion:

  • Automation allows HR teams to tackle more complex and strategic tasks, such as addressing bias in assessments, improving team engagement, and driving organizational agility. Bots, integrated with AI tools like ChatGPT, enable HR teams to handle tasks like performance reviews, compensation decisions, and onboarding more efficiently and accurately.

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Note: The above copy is AI-generated