HR leaders have a critical role to play in identifying and optimizing the AI tools that will help a business flourish, starting with the hiring process. Mark Dickinson, of DONE! Hospitality Training Solutions, explains the benefits of putting HR in the digital driver’s seat.

As we enter fully into an AI-assisted world, we are privileged to have the greatest tools ever created at our fingertips. Never in the history of management have there been so many possibilities for styling our approach to leading our teams. However, before trying out these tools, it is essential to have the primary pillars of a business in place, meaning the mission, vision and values, and the strategic path for achieving them.

Aligning HR with business strategy

Teams must be focused on what it is that a business wants to achieve, and in order to do that, they need to be aligned with the organization’s targeted outcome. Ensuring that every person in the business is the right fit for reaching these goals is one of the primary functions of HR. The choice of who is responsible for HR, therefore, is the most important decision that management can take, since this person will be the final filter to guarantee that every person hired has the potential to contribute to the business’s objectives.

HR must be the first ambassador of the strategy. Not only must the team know and understand what the business does, to ensure that every hire is a fit, but they must also be able to develop an HR strategy that creates this alignment. Data, personality testing and predictive analytical tools combine to make this task a lot easier. Yet with more data comes more complexity, meaning it is of prime importance to ensure that HR leadership can identify digital tools that support efforts to make excellent hiring decisions.

Tackling resistance

Whenever a business proposes a new system, there will always be resistance. This stems from the way our brains are wired; we love certainty and the familiar. Our role is to inspire the creativity needed to solve the challenges that new processes and systems bring us and one way of doing this is through mis-direction. A little like a magic trick, mis-direction involves instilling an enthusiasm in people to identify problems themselves and propose the solutions they believe will enable the business to grow, but infusing your suggestions within their process. The outcome is immensely rewarding all round, since the team will generally come up with the solutions that you already have in mind for tackling key issues.

AI’s role in managing operations

Most organizations use a collection of six or seven platforms to manage their business: accounting; point of sales; stock management; reservations management; learning & development; HR; and cash management. These will provide data that AI can then learn from and optimize your business strategy. As tools, they should be used to focus on optimizing task management, reducing paper, tracking performance and producing data insights. When related to HR, the focus should be on the performance of team members, their contribution to revenue growth, identifying the top customer pleasers and most efficient schedules for collecting data about which team members and which work areas deliver optimal outcomes. AI can automate performance evaluations, goal management and talent retention predictors, as well as succession planning. It can now also produce exceptional learning experiences.

Prioritize AI research

HR teams must devote time to research what tools are available and have an allocated budget for testing different types of AI that can serve the organization. Senior management should focus on providing the time and resources to HR to allow them the opportunity to discover what possibilities are available. This takes foresight and awareness of the leaps in technology that can directly improve the bottom line.