How AI Can Improve Hiring Process For Hourly Workers
AI takes out the tedious and manual work out of the HR processes
Posted on 02-19-2019, Read Time: Min
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Any HR professional responsible for hiring hourly workers knows the burden of a bottomless pool of candidates. Your job is to find the best few candidates out of hundreds, if not thousands, and then keep turnover low. But if you can’t holistically evaluate every single candidate, how are you supposed to do your job effectively?
Artificial intelligence plays a key role in making it possible. Its ability to digest data and make decisions eliminates key pain points from the hourly worker hiring process, especially when vetting candidates and funneling them through the hiring steps.
But many HR professionals have yet to fully embrace AI’s capabilities to ease their own workloads. Only 22 percent of high-performing HR teams currently use AI in their operations, and only 6 percent of low-performing teams do, according to Deloitte.
Despite low adoption rates to date, HR professionals overall see the promise that AI offers. Fifty-nine percent believe AI can improve operational efficiency and half believe it could enable faster decision making, according to Oracle. So how exactly would HR professionals reap the benefits and how can they work toward including the tech in their own processes?
Artificial intelligence plays a key role in making it possible. Its ability to digest data and make decisions eliminates key pain points from the hourly worker hiring process, especially when vetting candidates and funneling them through the hiring steps.
But many HR professionals have yet to fully embrace AI’s capabilities to ease their own workloads. Only 22 percent of high-performing HR teams currently use AI in their operations, and only 6 percent of low-performing teams do, according to Deloitte.
Despite low adoption rates to date, HR professionals overall see the promise that AI offers. Fifty-nine percent believe AI can improve operational efficiency and half believe it could enable faster decision making, according to Oracle. So how exactly would HR professionals reap the benefits and how can they work toward including the tech in their own processes?
Benefits for Hiring and Onboarding
Inviting AI into the hiring process for hourly workers addresses multiple pain points. The struggle in hiring hourly workers stems from the sheer volume of hires they must make. In 2017, 80.2 million Americans were paid hourly — that’s 58 percent of all American wage earners.
With hourly workers comes a higher-than-ideal turnover rate — 49 percent, according to the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) — which puts additional strain on HR. For hiring managers, the repetitive demands of hourly hiring can fuel disengagement.
But AI takes the tedious and manual work out of the process so that HR teams can supervise larger initiatives instead of spending all their time getting bogged down in the hiring processes. Here are a few examples of hiring steps that can be improved with the help of AI.
With hourly workers comes a higher-than-ideal turnover rate — 49 percent, according to the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) — which puts additional strain on HR. For hiring managers, the repetitive demands of hourly hiring can fuel disengagement.
But AI takes the tedious and manual work out of the process so that HR teams can supervise larger initiatives instead of spending all their time getting bogged down in the hiring processes. Here are a few examples of hiring steps that can be improved with the help of AI.
- Candidate screening – Many candidates’ applications never even get reviewed because HR professionals have so many to manually vet. By integrating AI in the initial screening process, hiring leads can prevent qualified prospects from slipping through the cracks. Letting AI take on the screening of candidates means the process is built around rules: years of experience, geographic location, industry experience, etc. Rather than expecting a human to scan thousands of applications with their own eyes, AI can digest the information from applications and determine which of them meet the preset rules for approved candidates.
- Candidate alerts – During the application phase when candidates upload their resumes and other materials, multiple people will inevitably upload materials incorrectly or leave out certain elements altogether. When this happens, most hiring systems trigger notifications to the hiring manager that applications are incomplete. But with hundreds or even thousands of candidates pouring in, hiring managers can’t alert each candidate to their incomplete application status — and that can mean losing promising prospects. By relying on AI, hiring platforms can automatically alert the candidate instead of the hiring manager of incomplete application status, putting the onus on the candidate to correct their error.
- Interview coordination – Coordinating interviews from a large candidate pool is challenging, to say the least. With so many hourly positions on the job market at all times, candidates are often securing different opportunities before they can come in for their interviews, and as a result, ditch their interviews without sending word to the hiring manager. It’s frustrating for hiring managers to spend time going back and forth via phone or email with a candidate to communicate interview times, only to have a number of candidates not show up at all. Trusting in an AI-powered system means that candidates can schedule their own interviews when the system presents them with time slots. It then sends reminder emails leading up to the interview and prompts asking the candidate to confirm if they still plan to show up or not. Making it easy for the candidate to communicate their plans for the interview provides the hiring team with much more accurate expectations.
If HR teams see the potential in AI tools for their jobs, then why do so few actually get to implement them? There’s an endless stream of hourly talent out there, so some organizations’ technology decision makers likely don’t think of equipping HR with new solutions. But there are financial consequences for not doing so. In fact, it costs an organization an average of $5,000 to hire and train every new hourly employee.
It’s up to HR professionals to start the conversation about bringing AI into their hiring process. They can begin this conversation by documenting data points around manual hiring processes — things like budget spent on hiring and onboarding, hours spent on hiring hourly employees as opposed to other high-level initiatives, and employee morale when working through the hiring process. From there, they can look for AI-driven solutions that will address these specific issues.
HR professionals understand the potential that can come from incorporating AI into their daily tasks, but stakeholders throughout an organization will ultimately feel the benefits. Its effect trickles across an entire organization if its frontline hourly employees are performing their jobs well and turning over less frequently. If hiring managers are set on bringing AI into their processes, they need to speak up and make their need — and its benefits — known.
It’s up to HR professionals to start the conversation about bringing AI into their hiring process. They can begin this conversation by documenting data points around manual hiring processes — things like budget spent on hiring and onboarding, hours spent on hiring hourly employees as opposed to other high-level initiatives, and employee morale when working through the hiring process. From there, they can look for AI-driven solutions that will address these specific issues.
HR professionals understand the potential that can come from incorporating AI into their daily tasks, but stakeholders throughout an organization will ultimately feel the benefits. Its effect trickles across an entire organization if its frontline hourly employees are performing their jobs well and turning over less frequently. If hiring managers are set on bringing AI into their processes, they need to speak up and make their need — and its benefits — known.
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