Artificial intelligence is starting to take over basic HR tasks.
The human resources realm appears to be a natural fit for artificial intelligence.
After all, HR is a paperwork and data-driven discipline that could help get tasks completed more efficiently and speedily.
It seems HR executives agree with that sentiment.
A new Gartner study released February 27 states that 38% of HR leaders “are piloting, planning implementation, or have already implemented generative AI (GenAI), up from 19% in June 2023.”
Case uses point to an unsurprising strategy point for the burgeoning number of human resources leaders pivoting to GenAI to get departmental tasks completed.
The top three AI-based use cases respondents said they prioritize include the following tasks.
• HR Service Delivery: Employee-facing chatbot (43%)
• HR Operations: Administrative tasks, policies, document generation (42%)
• Recruiting: Job descriptions and skills data (41%)
“More organizations are moving from exploring how GenAI might be used to implementing solutions,” said Dion Love, vice president of advisory at Gartner HR. “Yet, the same Gartner survey revealed that 67% of HR leaders reported they do not plan to add any GenAI related roles to their function in the next 12 months.”
Job Cuts Are Happening
So far, AI is impacting HR staff headcounts, but not as severely as experts first thought. For January 2024, the average headcount reduction was (-) 5.1% average. In June 2023, the average expectation for headcount reduction was a 6.7% decrease.
That leaves some ambiguity on how AI is actually impacting HR job cuts, if at all.
“As HR leaders experiment with GenAI solutions, it remains unknown at this point how they will potentially affect the organization’s HR headcount,” said Eser Rizaoglu, senior director analyst at Gartner HR. “Human resources must work with business leaders across the organization to assess how GenAI investments should change their teams’ roles and workflows and the impact to current employees and future hiring needs.”
About 65% of human resources executives told Gartner that instead of laying off staff, they would “use cost and productivity gains from using GenAI to reallocate impacted employees to new roles within the organization.”
Even so, 46% of respondents told Gartner they plan to “stop backfilling roles arising due to natural attrition.”
Brian O’Connell, a former Wall Street bond trader and best-selling author, is a prominent figure in the finance industry. With a substantial background as an ex-Wall Street trader, he has authored two best-selling books: ‘The 401k Millionaire’ and ‘CNBC’s Creating Wealth’, demonstrating his profound knowledge of finance and investing.
Brian is also a finance and business writer for esteemed national platforms and publications, including CNN, TheStreet.com, CBS News, The Wall Street Journal, U.S. News & World Report, Forbes, and Fox News.
