By Livia Whitermore
In today’s world, identifying and nurturing leaders in an organization necessarily involves artificial intelligence (AI) tools. Clickup.com cites a 2021 study on AI adoption in human resources (HR), explaining that AI tools are not just saving companies time and costs; they are also eliminating HR error and bias and boosting productivity for workers. Here are some of the main AI-powered HR tools that are driving better identification of and nurturing of potential leaders within organizations.
For Analyzing Data and Removing Bias:
Where data collection and analysis are concerned, AI can perform the critically important task of analysing historical performance data and assessing the key competencies of a given employee. Some AI tools, such as Workday, focus on performance metrics, while other tools, such as BambooHR, focus on collecting and collating feedback from supervisors, among other performance indicators. These tools make it easier to deduce who should get a promotion, and remove some of the bias that has heretofore favoured men, white people, and employees of a certain age range, to name a few.
For Analysing Employee Behaviour:
AI can use Natural Language Processing (NLP) to discover trends in written communication, such as emails and reports. With NLP, HR teams can more efficiently understand employees’ communication skills, empathy, and decisiveness, to name a few. This can be important when HR teams are seeking insight into employee behaviour. The way people act at work with peers and superiors influences the way they lead and the type of culture they create.
One NLP-powered tool, Ambit, helps new managers communicate and lead better by providing insight into spoken and written communication with a variety of metrics. It also deploys as a Chatbot on the customer-facing side of business. Similar to tools like Remesh, which can process thousands of responses in moments and deliver insights into company discussions, tools like Ambit deal with vast quantities of data. The processed data leads managers and HR professionals toward better decisions and deliverables.
For Skills and Competencies-Based Assessment:
Many employees improve their skills in specific areas to achieve more at work, but these employees may not know what expertise they lack. For this reason, many HR teams are turning to tools like Cornerstone OnDemandand Cegid before recommending that employees pursue coursework. Cornerstone OnDemand and Cegid, the latter of which acquired TalentSoft, assess gaps in employee competencies. Recently, Coursera for Business came out with a skills assessment tool, too. Employees’ self-directed learning is not always on-point. Businesses and their HR teams are stepping in with ways to direct employees toward specific learning opportunities.
An often-overlooked skill that is relevant to leadership potential is the simple ability to build and maintain positive interpersonal relationships. Tools like Hogan Assessment allow HR teams to assess employees’ personalities to this end. Another tool, Predictive Index, does something similar, and spotlights employee cognitive strengths. Thus, when considering which employees to put into leadership roles, HR teams can look to hard skills assessment tools as well as to more personality-based assessment tools.
Whether monitoring performance and progress, predicting and planning succession, or assisting the up-skilling process for key employees, HR teams need AI tools for their business’ futures. Leadership is nuanced and it requires a human touch to make certain succession decisions, but AI actually helps remove bias and evidence the true potential of those who might otherwise go overlooked. The best results often come from a combination of AI-driven insights and human expertise.