3 Ways AI Chatbots Can Redefine the Employee Experience

Organizations looking to hire and retain top talent recognize the value of building a positive employee experience. We explore three ways AI-chatbots can help HR teams improve the employee experience and drive exponential performance improvements.

Employee experience (EX) is set to be the next competitive frontier for businesses. AI chatbots, ubiquitous in the consumer technology space, are making inroads into the world of work. Conversational interfaces like chatbots have the potential to transform the employee-employer relationship by automating tasks that were earlier cumbersome and highly repetitive.

In addition to optimizing the HR workflow, chatbots have also come to represent the communications platform of choice for younger employees. Being the largest workforce demographic in the U.S., millennial’s desire for immediate gratification meshes perfectly with AI-powered chatbots’ capabilities. Millennials aren’t used to waiting – having witnessed rapid technological advances like broadband internet and smartphones; they would much rather interact with a chatbot than read a manual or interact with a human being who will likely have to search for information as well. Chatbots provide almost a human-like response instantaneously that appeals greatly to millennials.

Also Read: How Chatbots can Transform Recruiting ProcessesOpens a new window

As HR takes on a more strategic role in the business, AI-powered chatbots represent the future of employee experienceOpens a new window . Let’s look at three ways chatbots are transforming the employee experience at the workforce.

3 Ways Chatbots Will Transform the Employee Experience in the Workplace

The rise of social media and messaging apps have changed the way we interact. Chatbots engage us on a conversational and informational way on the very platforms we use for most communication. Brands like Domino’s and Starbucks already use Facebook messenger bots to manage orders and delivery. It is, therefore, imperative for organizations to provide similar experiences at the workplace.   

Also Read: Redefining Recruitment with ChatbotsOpens a new window

Recent researchOpens a new window by cloud-based workplace technology provider ServiceNowOpens a new window , suggests that over 30 percent of employees today, expect a “Google-like” option to access the information they need at work. AI-powered chatbots are the perfect solution to address common workplace concerns like these. Here are three ways AI chatbots can transform the employee experience in 2019:

• Recruitment: Most parts of the recruitment process rely on frequent employer-candidate communication across a range of channels – emails, text messages, social media, and even career sites. AI-enabled recruitment chatbots can mimic human conversational abilities to interact with candidates and provide them with immediate feedback helping strengthen your relationship with candidates throughout the recruitment lifecycle. Chatbots also help screen and match candidates to their job profiles. In addition to candidate screening, assessment, and engagement, AI-powered chatbots can also be a potent tool for diversity recruitment. When trained using appropriate data, chatbots eliminate human-bias from the recruiting process.
   
• HR Service Delivery: Let’s face it – complex processes, policies, and frameworks are an unpleasant but crucial part of the HR function. AI-powered chatbots can help HR teams communicate this information automatically, round the clock, seven days a week. Chatbots essentially make HR more accessible to employees. Common questions about PTO, employee benefits, and scheduling can be routed to chatbots for quick and personalized responses.
  Chatbots for HR service delivery also ensures that HR teams do not spend a huge chunk of their time attending to trivial queries that can easily be found on the intranet or the employee self-service portal. With more time on their hands, HR teams can look to focus on factors that drive competitiveness like employee engagement, career pathing or performance management.
   

Also Read: HR is Leading the Transition to Chatbot 2.0 EraOpens a new window

• Learning and development: In the age of disruption, skills are the most assets for employers. While hiring people with the right skill sets is a business priority, developing employee skills at the workplace is also crucial. Integrating chatbots into the learning and development (L&D) process can improve learning outcomes. Capabilities like natural language processing and machine learning, drive learning engagement. Quizzes and assessments become much easier, and employees get real-time feedback. Advanced AI platforms like IBM’s Watson can also be trained to act as teaching assistants (TA) and handle employees’ subject-matter related queries more efficiently than any human instructor. Finally, in the age of on-demand learning, chatbots are indispensable. Chatbots can deliver the right information as and when needed to employees anywhere. It’s safe to say that chatbots can deliver quantifiable ROI on your L&D investments.
   

There is little doubt that AI-chatbots will be an integral part of HR teams in 2019 and beyond. AI chatbots represent a significant opportunity for HR teams to focus on more strategic value creation in the form of employee experience, engagement, and driving exponential performance improvements.