Human-computer interaction has grown spectacularly in the past decade. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been predominantly taking over the world where the repetitive works done by humans have now been replaced by computers. Artificial Intelligence has transformed our everyday lives to interact with AI-powered chatbots, making our lives easier. A chatbot is a program that enables human beings to have audio or text-based conversations with it. The most famous examples of chatbots include Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Echo. Consider the chatbots as virtual assistants that automate the routine tasks performed by the employees. The chatbots never get bored or tired of doing it. Besides, the employer can never worry about the bots taking a day off or asking for a sick leave.
What is it?
In any organization, Human Resource Management System (HRMS) is the link between the employer and employee. HRMS software mainly focuses on the recruitment, training, development, and management of the people who work in an organization. The main responsibilities of an HR employee include hiring, firing, payroll, benefits, handling queries about holidays and overall well-being of the employee. From the onboarding process to the exit process, everything is handled by the HRMS team. As an employee, managing these everyday HR related tasks can be tiring. In order to make the HRMS more efficient, chatbots are used to automate the basic HR tasks done by the people, for e.g. schedule a meeting with the manager and send emails. Usage of chatbots in the workplace ensures more time for the HR manager to focus on strategic initiatives for the organization.
Uses of Chatbots:
Some ways in which chatbots are useful in an organization are
- Chatbots can help with the interview process and in recruiting new candidates.
- The bots interact with the employee and respond to their basic needs and queries.
- The bots can be used send emails, text messages and place phone calls to employees.
- The chatbots also help receive feedback from employees.
- The bots store and retrieve candidate’s information as and when needed.
- The bots also play a major part to boost the efficiency of the employee.
- The highly interactive user interfaces of bots also make them more user-friendly and convenient to use.
How does it help an HR?
The main task of the HRMS team is the recruitment process. Choosing the right candidate, analyzing the candidate’s profile and interviewing the candidate can be exhausting and involves a loss of crucial work time. Well, this can be made simpler by using a chatbot to analyze the candidate’s profile by providing the right suggestions. Similarly, the onboarding process of a new employee can be a tedious work for an HR professional. On the other hand, interaction with the chatbot can make it simpler. The new hires can interact with the bot throughout the complete process which makes it a lot easier on both the employee and the HR professional.
Handling the expenses and payroll of an employee can also be taken care by the chatbot. The bot acts as an interface between the manager and the employee. The employee communicates with the bot for leave request which is then escalated to the manager by the chatbot. The bot gets the leave approved from the manager. Similarly, when it comes to taking a survey or giving feedback to the organization, bots come in handy. Instead of filling out forms, employees can just send their feedback through chatbots.
Advantages of Using a Chatbot
The advantages of chatbots are
- As compared to the traditional approach, the bots reduce the cost by almost 90%.
- Chatbots can be intelligent and easy to use.
- The efficiency of the organization can also be increased by 200% by this using bots.
- The best part of bots is that they are cheap.
Application of Chatbots in Organizations
A Recent survey indicates that 38% of HR professionals said that the primary challenge that they face is “maintaining high levels of employee engagement”. Using bots can help overcome this challenge. Through the usage of Artificial Intelligence, the bots can answer employee questions in real time.
There are three ways in which the chatbots revolutionize the way in which the HRMS collaborate with the employees
- Gather employee data to make more informed decisions:
The bots can use real-time analytics to find out what kinds of questions are frequently asked by the employees based on which it can make informed decisions. The employee satisfaction rates can be understood by running a sentimental analysis by the chatbots. This enables the bots to understand the employees more and cater to their need more effectively.
- Connect to the HRMS through devices:
The employees can be connected to the HRMS using their mobile devices through the chatbots. This ensures the connection between the employee and the HR team. It is widely appreciated by everyone. Specifically, the millennials find the chatbots more useful and time-saving. The employee’s message is received by the chatbot and sends an immediate response.
- Answer employee questions in real time:
A chatbot for an HRMS team will answer questions by the employee in real time, which in turn enables faster decision time for the employees. The bots will become smarter in future and can answer the most frequently asked questions in a shorter time. This way the employee is also expected to have a shorter wait time to make faster decisions and the HR team is also free to work on strategic issues for the organization.
Although the technology is still in its early stages, the introduction of chatbots has made a huge impact on the corporate world. Many multinational and corporate companies are using bots to make the employee’s transaction into the company, an easier process. With the advancement of technology, chatbots can be used in a productive way to improve the employee-employer interaction and reduce the workload of the HR team. With uttermost confidence, we can say that the chatbots are revolutionizing the way human-computer interactions take place. But most organizations are still behind in adapting to these technologies. Embracing new technology which benefits the organization can help improve and enable the growth of the organization in leaps and bounds.