Technology – Page 3

August 4, 2023

How LLMs Are Supercharging AI-Powered Talent Intelligence

It’s no surprise that some five years after talent intelligence platforms broke onto the HR scene, AI is transforming these systems in ways that promise to revolutionize the recruitment industry. Leading companies in the field, including SeekOut and Eightfold AI, have recently announced that they have integrated new generative AI large language models (LLMs) into their systems to help both job candidates and recruiters work more efficiently.

“Efficiency” in this world means primarily one thing: speed. Ben Eubanks, chief research officer for Lighthouse Research and Advisory and author of Artificial Intelligence for HR (Kogan Page, 2018) tells the story of a competition that pitted recruiters against an algorithm on a task of matching candidates to jobs. Contestants—including the computer—were presented with a couple thousand real resumes and three genuine job descriptions with the goal of figuring out which candidates were actually chosen. A human won the competition, but that person took 30 hours to wade through all the information. Meanwhile, the algorithm came in third after parsing the data for a mere five seconds.

The way LLMs are transforming talent intelligence platforms relies on similar logic: AI’s blinding speed can make such a big difference in recruiters’ workflows that perfection of output is optional.

Take for example SeekOut’s SeekOut Assist, which the company calls “ChatGPT for recruiters.” SeekOut maintains a database of a billion people based on publicly available data and has a very powerful search function to dig through it. Before SeekOut Assist, recruiters would need to manually write Boolean strings to conduct these searches, using their human judgment to incorporate skills, requirements and qualifications for a given job.

With the new AI-enabled tool, they can simply paste the job description into a box and click “create search” to prompt the system to automatically pull relevant job titles, build complex Boolean strings out of those titles, identify preferred skills and qualifications, and exclude job seekers without the minimum requirements.

“This isn’t going to be a perfect search,” said John Tippett, SeekOut’s head of product, “but the idea is to go from the job description to a B+ search within 20 seconds. Then, the recruiter goes in manually to apply their expertise.”

Eightfold AI’s new tools—Employee Copilot and Recruiter Copilot—similarly use LLMs’ ability to understand language to help recruiters and job candidates alike. Job seekers can use the tool to generate cover letters and resumes. Recruiters can input a need, such as a candidate with a certain skill or in a certain location, and have the system automatically turn it into a query.

“Instead of interacting with buttons and checkboxes, you can type in what you’re looking for,” said Sachit Kamat, Eightfold AI’s chief product officer. “That’s a pretty big advancement.”

In the case of these tools and others that are changing recruiting, AI-enabled functionality is not meant to replace the expertise and sensibility of human recruiters. Their role in the hiring process is essential, not only to ensure accurate and helpful search results but also to provide something a machine never can: a human connection.

“We have the ability right now to fully automate the hiring process,” Eubanks said. “But what makes a good recruiter isn’t just writing search strings. A really great recruiter is always experimenting to find a deeper way to connect with someone.”

Janet Clarey, principal research director for HR research and advisory services at McLean & Company, agreed. “The next logical steps for HR in using AI LLMs is understanding how to maintain human connections to help workers feel like more than just a transaction,” she said.

This is especially true because most organizations that are using these types of tools are highly matrixed, large, global organizations, Clarey said. Such complex companies may find the efficiencies and cost savings of AI-led recruiting attractive. However, not only is lack of a human connection problematic for hiring, but also, leaning too heavily on computing can introduce problems like bias.

“There are some really interesting things that the technology can do,” Eubanks said. “But at the end of the day, it’s the leaders who have to be accountable.”

And HR leaders’ best interest is served by making their teams more efficient and successful to ensure the recruiting function gets better. Allowing AI to replace human ingenuity and social sense is a sure recipe for the opposite.

“In the end, hiring is about opportunity and people’s desires—and the way the recruiter and the candidate interact,” Tippett said. “I don’t think AI is going to change any of it. These tools hold the possibility for people to be much better at their jobs and focus on the stuff they’re really good at. For me, this is about getting to a great candidate and a great outcome for a company faster.”

Katherine Gustafson is a freelance writer based in Portland, Ore.

August 2, 2023

SHRM Joins White House to Help Build Cyber Workforce

SHRM aims to provide free training to HR professionals to help advance the goal of recruiting, developing and retaining critical cyber talent in the United States.

It is expected that at least 15,000 HR professionals will take advantage of the toolkit and contribute to the hiring of up to 75,000 cyber professionals by the end of fiscal year 2024.

Developed in conjunction with the SANS Institute, which specializes in information security and cybersecurity training, the SHRM toolkit will show HR practitioners how to assess and recruit skilled applicants for cyber workforce jobs as well as develop career paths and retain these vital workers.

The effort is one component of the White House National Cyber Workforce and Education Strategy focused on addressing the country’s cyber workforce needs. “Filling the hundreds of thousands of cyber job vacancies across our nation is a national security imperative, and the administration is making generational investments to prepare our country to lead in the digital economy,” the White House said.

“Improving national cybersecurity demands a bigger, better cyber workforce, and we want to make sure human resource professionals are well equipped to contribute to this urgent national priority,” said Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., SHRM-SCP, president and chief executive officer of SHRM. “We are proud to make this employment resource available as part of HR’s ongoing commitment to developing top cyber talent.”

The toolkit arrives at an important juncture to help fill key gaps in the cybersecurity workforce. According to SHRM research, only 59 percent of HR executives feel they are “well/somewhat prepared” to deal with cybersecurity risks.

The Biden administration has announced that it intends to make foundational cyber skills learning opportunities available to all; promote cyber careers; improve cyber education; expand a skills-based approach to recruitment and development; improve career pathways in the federal cyber workforce; and invest in human resource capabilities for this sector.

July 20, 2023

How the Great Resignation Impacted the Tech Workforce

There’s a reason 2021 earned the tagline, “The Great Resignation.” According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 100 million people quit their jobs during 2021 and 2022.

“The Great Resignation was a wake-up call to leaders that we must prioritize a greater connection between work and mission, provide clear career trajectories and opportunities for upward mobility to ensure our workers have the skills needed to sustain challenges, and move into the future,” said Michael E. Hansen, CEO of the Cengage Group, an education technology company in Boston. “Losing sight of these employee priorities can have an impact on culture and the bottom line.”

To isolate trends in workforce movement and new opportunities for the tech sector, his company surveyed workers who had resigned in 2021 and found a new job by the following year. The results included:

34 percent of respondents left their job because the company’s mission no longer aligned with their values.
24 percent felt stuck in their role or industry with no growth opportunities.
30 percent said they moved to a company that had a clear path to growth and development.
27 percent said the new company’s mission more aligned with their values.
81 percent have no regrets about quitting.
85 percent are satisfied in their new role.
50 percent switched industries completely.
21 percent of those who changed jobs during the Great Resignation now work in tech, a larger percentage than any other sector.
29 percent of tech workers who resigned did so for better professional development opportunities elsewhere.
Only 14 percent left for more pay.

The Great Retraining

Hansen believes the Great Resignation has given way to the so-called Great Retraining:

77 percent of tech workers who resigned said they took an online training course to give themselves a leg-up in job searches.
89 percent of those who pursued online training believe it positively impacted their job search.
66 percent said access to employer-sponsored training was an important factor in accepting their current job.
89 percent of them plan to take full advantage of employer-paid online training to upskill.
56 percent added that their prior employers didn’t offer those same training opportunities.

“Businesses should be focused on growing and empowering top talent, including creating connections with local education institutions and other partners to further opportunities for current and prospective talent,” Hansen said.

Layoffs Alter the Picture

2021 saw employees gain the upper hand in relationship to their employers. Employees were happy to quit, and many employers struggled to fill positions. But things changed in the early months of 2023. With so many layoffs in tech, some workers who resigned and are now re-employed are voicing concern:

72 percent of tech workers are worried about job security and how a potential recession could impact their employment status. In such a frame of mind, they are unlikely to consider resignations or moving to new roles.
76 percent plan on taking an online training course or certificate program to broaden their skills and make them more marketable to avoid a potential layoff.

There has also been a surge in online searches for tech industry jobs. According to Fasthosts, a web-hosting and cloud solutions company in Gloucester, U.K., job searches rose by 156 percent over the past year for cloud engineering positions and 86 percent for data analyst jobs. Developer roles are also seeing far more searches. Software developer job searches online increased by 50 percent, front-end developer jobs by 46 percent and web developer jobs by 26 percent.

Michelle Stark, sales and marketing director at Fasthosts, believes these increases were influenced by mass layoffs among tech employers.

“It’s important to keep in mind that it’s not just those who lost their jobs due to the layoffs who will be contributing to the higher searches, but also those who still remain,” Stark said. “Many remaining employees may feel a sense of unease about the future of their positions, as we’ve seen recently with Amazon that these cuts are far from being over. It’s only natural that they would be investigating other options that may be more secure.”

Taking Control of Your Career Path

Jeff Pollard, an analyst at Forrester Research, noted that even in the burgeoning cybersecurity sector where employer after employer bemoans a shortage of talent, workforce reductions are taking place. He cited the example of membership platform Patreon, which cut its entire in-house cybersecurity team and gave the business to a managed service provider. He offered tips to tech professionals who have been laid off or are worried about their job security.

“Remember that no one is indispensable,” Pollard said. “No matter how secure you feel in your company or role, this is a great time to start cultivating new skills.”

That might be learning a programming language, mastering a new tool, pursuing a specialized certification, working on your presentation skills or just becoming more of a subject matter expert in your current domain.

“More skills give you more opportunities, and more opportunities lead to better compensation,” Pollard said.

Another tip is to define who you are and what you are good at. For example, it takes a certain skill set to be the interface between tech and business. Not everyone is the person who helps senior executives understand technology and how they can use data to make better business decisions.

“If you can summarize what you do best, it will go a long way to helping you land your next gig and make it an even better fit,” Pollard said.

Drew Robb is a freelance writer in Clearwater, Fla., specializing in IT and business.

July 20, 2023

How to Work Effectively with HR Technology Startups

Maybe you’re looking for the latest generative AI tool to save time when summarizing the results of engagement surveys. Perhaps you’re seeking a cutting-edge sourcing tool to help identify and assess job candidates faster than your competition. Or perhaps you’d like to pilot new features in augmented reality technology to train your customer service staff.

Regardless of your taste in emerging technologies, you’ll likely have to look beyond your incumbent HR technology vendors to satisfy your needs. Most innovation in the market continues to come from startups, and analysts say you might miss out on important opportunities to improve HR’s performance or productivity if you don’t consider adding emerging vendors to your tech stack.

More Feature-Rich, Advanced Options

Experts say HR functions in smaller businesses aren’t the only ones that can benefit from the products created by HR tech startups. Larger enterprises also can reap dividends from the more feature-rich platforms, greater willingness to modify products to meet customer needs and deep knowledge of cutting-edge technologies that many startup vendors bring to the table.

“If you’re looking for innovation in HR technology providers, that innovation happens much faster and there are far more options with startups than with large, established vendors,” said George LaRocque, founder and principal analyst of WorkTech, an HR research and advisory firm in New York City.

The last three years have seen a wave of new HR technology providers enter the market, with these companies attracting billions in venture capital funding as they introduce products designed to support trends including hybrid work, recruiting amid talent shortages, globalization, workforce reskilling, employee well-being, and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

LaRocque added that these providers often are more responsive and flexible than established vendors when it comes to accommodating requests such as adding new features or tweaking designs of original platforms to meet the unique needs of clients.

“You often have more leverage and ability to impact the product road map of startup vendors than you do with incumbent vendors,” he said, referring to the “big fish in a small pond” phenomenon. “Your ability to have a bigger voice, whether it’s on a customer advisory board or just one-on-one with the founders, is something you can get when partnering with startups that you may not with established vendors who typically are dealing with many more customers.”

Mitigating Risk with Startups

Increased innovation can come with increased risk when working with technology startups that are leveraged with venture capital funding, often aren’t yet profitable and have limited track records. LaRocque advises viewing your HR tech stack like an investment portfolio and taking conservative positions with mission-critical technologies while experimenting in areas where the risk of failure has more benign consequences.

That might mean avoiding startups in mission-critical areas such as payroll and benefits and seeking opportunities with emerging providers who offer unique point solutions that supplement or replace systems that are part of larger human capital management suites.

“None of the all-in-one technology suites does everything well and you’ll always be in a position where you’re filling gaps, so it’s around the edges of those platforms where you should consider working with startups to access capabilities you need that are unique to your organization,” LaRocque said. “That’s where you can have a higher threshold for risk.”

Late-stage startups specializing in areas such as candidate sourcing, compensation benchmarking tools or analytics software can be good options, he said.

“With analytics or survey tool providers, for example, if you’re comfortable with their data security and privacy practices, the risks to you of their failing is relatively low,” LaRocque said. “While it would be inconvenient, you’d still have your data and could shift to another provider. It wouldn’t threaten your business or even your HR career, like a payroll platform provider not performing or going out of business [would].”

However, HR leaders shouldn’t completely rule out partnering with startups in benefits, payroll or similar areas, LaRocque said. “Some may be profitable and on their way to an initial public offering, for example,” he said. “Every startup you consider isn’t risky, but you do need to give them extra scrutiny.”

That evaluation should start by closely vetting the backgrounds of company founders and conducting financial due diligence far beyond verifying funding levels and the quality of investment partners. “You want to approach it just like an investor,” LaRocque said. “Are they first-time founders? Have they had a successful exit or [initial public offering] before? Do they come from the HR discipline? Do they really know their audience?”

LaRocque said this is an area where it can make sense to tap the expertise of your finance department, and if you’re a smaller HR function with limited internal resources, to consider enlisting the services of an outside financial adviser.

“You’ll also want to ask the founders, depending on what they’ll share and what’s covered by [a nondisclosure agreement], for things like their revenue run rate,” he said. “You want to determine what their burn rate is, or how much money they’re spending on a monthly basis. … Will they need to go out to raise money again, and how much?”

Special Considerations for Partnering with Startups

Some experts believe the unique characteristics of startups also require that HR leaders in larger enterprises adjust their strategies and mindsets when partnering with them.

Thomas Otter, general partner with Acadian Ventures, a venture capital firm based in Madison, Conn., that invests in early-stage HR tech companies, said many larger organizations make the mistake of dealing with startups like they do incumbent vendors.

In a presentation to the virtual HR Technology Conference and Exposition this past spring, Otter said larger enterprises should make the following adjustments when doing business with HR tech startups:

Leave long lists of feature requirements behind. Otter said that using the same lengthy request for proposal (RFP) documents and requirement demands you might with established vendors is the wrong approach with startups.

“Defining requirements is a horrible way of working with startups,” he said. “A startup is trying to solve your problems in a novel way, and what they want first and foremost is to understand the key problems you’re trying to solve. They want to spend time talking with you to figure those out, to understand what’s not working and find opportunities to do something different. If you start the process with a long list of requirements, you essentially close off that discovery process.”

Temper the desire for extensive rewrites of vendor contracts. Large or midsize organizations should be content to use standard contract terms and conditions with startups and avoid rewriting contracts in ways that can run up legal costs, Otter said.

“Today, most software-as-a-service contracts are very standardized and easy to understand, which wasn’t the case 10 years ago,” he said. “Most startups come to the party with those industry-standard contracts around issues like renewal terms, system uptime, data access and the like. Spending hours of an attorney’s time rewriting standard contracts so they’re even more favorable to you might seem appealing, but those legal costs can add up for startups. If the startup is paying for attorneys, it might mean they can’t pay for things like hiring engineers.”

Rethink how you use pilot projects. Otter said HR leaders in larger enterprises tend to use pilot projects with startups to test the viability of the vendors’ platforms without putting much of their own skin in the game.

“You shouldn’t launch a pilot project with a startup without having some kind of contract,” he said. “What I prefer larger companies do is sign a contract for the startup’s product dependent on the successful delivery of a pilot project. Using open-ended pilot projects without any commitment to signing a contract at a certain date puts startups in a difficult spot. They pour time and resources into the pilot but don’t know if they’ll eventually have a contract and can’t predict any future bookings.”

Be open in your communication. Startups aren’t always familiar with how processes and politics work at large enterprise companies. “If you know it might take you six months to get procurement signed on to a contract with a vendor, then tell the startup provider that,” Otter said. “You need to communicate continually and guide them through your processes.”

Dave Zielinski is principal of Skiwood Communications, a business writing and editing company in Minneapolis.

July 19, 2023

New York City Clarifies Who and What Is Covered Under AI Bias Law

New York City’s law regulating employers’ use of automated employment decision tools (AEDTs) in hiring and promotions entered its enforcement phase July 5 after months of delays.

The first-of-its-kind law requiring employers to audit their HR technology systems for bias and publish the results took effect Jan. 1, but enforcement was delayed while clarifications in the regulations were ironed out.

Material changes were made to the law at each rulemaking stage, keeping employers and other interested parties guessing as to what the final result might look like. The New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection released a set of frequently asked questions (FAQs) to accompany the July 5 enforcement date, providing more clarification on some of the law’s provisions.

“Following this law has been a journey, and there will likely be more changes in the future,” said Roy Wang, an artificial intelligence expert and general counsel at Eightfold AI, a talent intelligence platform in Santa Clara, Calif. “The legislation has over time become pretty clear, which is helpful. But it’s the first of other city and state legislation, and I hope that those jurisdictions will look to this New York City law as a model and not reinvent the wheel.”

An inconsistent patchwork of laws is always problematic for employers operating across locales. The New York City law comes amid a nationwide push to regulate increasingly more powerful automaton and AI technology at work. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a handful of states and Washington, D.C., are all weighing their own legislation covering AI bias in hiring.

The New York City law is a powerful sign of government catching up to emerging technology before it wreaks havoc on the workforce, said Jonathan Kestenbaum, managing director of technology strategy and partnerships at AMS, a recruitment solutions provider and advisory firm.

“It’s a significant step forward in the ongoing fight against discrimination and bias in the workplace,” he said. “To be sure, AI has impacted corporate hiring in mostly positive ways. It has facilitated the more mind-numbing aspects of hiring, such as filtering through thousands of resumes, and removed unintended bias from hiring processes. But left unchecked, AI can also perpetuate unintended biases, violating both local and existing federal laws.”

Who and What Is Covered?

The FAQs clarify that the law applies to employers and employment agencies only when the job is located in New York City.

“If you are an employer, then the geographic analysis is simple … and driven by the location of the job, not that of the employer,” said Niloy Ray, an attorney in the Minneapolis office of Littler. “If the job is performed at an office or other corporate location outside NYC, the law does not apply. If the job is performed at an assigned corporate location in NYC, even in a partial or hybrid manner, then the law applies,” Ray clarified in a blog post.

And if the job is performed remotely, “then the law does not apply unless the person is attached to an NYC location of the employer,” Ray said.

Ray said that the provision covering employment agencies is less clear. “The FAQs suggest that the law applies to all jobs—even jobs performed fully outside NYC—if the hiring is done by an employment agency located in NYC,” he said. “We expect that such is not the intent of the agency and that the agency intends to regulate agency-based hiring only where the positions being hired for are at least partially located in NYC or are fully remote but attached to an NYC brick-and-mortar office.”

As for what tech tools are covered, the law defines AEDTs as “any computational process, derived from machine learning, statistical modeling, data analytics, or artificial intelligence, that issues simplified output, including a score, classification, or recommendation” that is used to “substantially assist or replace discretionary decision making for making employment decisions.”

If employers or employment agencies use an AEDT to substantially help them assess or screen candidates at any point in the hiring or promotion process, they must comply with the law’s requirements before using the technology.

AEDTs include tools used for screening, interviewing, assessing and scoring potential hires and employees for promotion. Covered technologies include those that use algorithms to analyze resumes, chatbots that conduct interviews, and assessment platforms that evaluate job seekers on skill sets, traits or aptitude.

Ray noted an important distinction covered in the FAQs—the law only applies when the technology is directed toward actual job seekers or employees, not before someone has applied for a job. That means employers can use unaudited technology to source candidates, scan resume databases and conduct outreach to potential candidates.

“The FAQ establishes that using an AEDT to search through an existing database of nonemployee resumes or other collection of potential-applicant data and/or merely encouraging those identified as prime candidates to apply for the position at hand does not activate the requirements of the law,” he said.

Bias Audits

The law requires that bias audits to assess AI tools’ potential disparate impact on sex, race and ethnicity be conducted by a third party that has no vested financial or other interest in the employer, which has led to the creation of a cottage industry of AI consulting firms and third-party auditors ready to assist New York City employers.

“Over the past six months, we have been receiving an increasing number of requests for audits to ensure compliance with the New York City bias audit law,” said Adriano Koshiyama, co-founder of Holistic AI, an AI risk management and auditing platform based in London. “Without a doubt, this law is an important step towards making tools safer and fairer for prospective and current employees by increasing transparency and accountability. With the increasing usage of AI in employment, this law also plays an important role as a major safeguard to New York City residents.”

The FAQs state that compliance responsibility rests with employers, not vendors. An AEDT vendor is not responsible for conducting a bias audit of its tool. Employers must ensure that a bias audit was performed on the AEDT within one year of using it.

Ray pointed out a few aspects of the audit process that were confirmed in the FAQs.

The law stops short of requiring corporate analysis and response to the bias audit. “The bias audit results are not intended to spur any specific subsequent actions on the part of the business,” he said.
A bias audit need not be specific to a job or job class—rather, a bias audit spanning multiple types of positions would suffice.
If there is a gap or insufficiency in demographic data for candidates, businesses may be able to rely on test data instead.

Wang said that Eightfold AI did a lot of internal work as an AEDT vendor as the law moved through its various stages, including interviewing independent auditing firms to partner with. Two auditors were selected, and multiple audits were conducted, including the latest one in June. “We published the audit so the public can see it and hopefully it can help our customers,” Wang said.

Employers and employment agencies must publish a summary of the results of the most recent bias audit along with the date the technology was first used.

The summary of results must include:

The date of the most recent bias audit of the AEDT.
The source and explanation of the data used to conduct the bias audit.
The number of individuals the AEDT assessed that fall within an unknown category.
The number of applicants or candidates, the selection or scoring rates, as applicable, and the impact ratios for all categories.

Employers and employment agencies can only rely on a bias audit for one year from the date it was conducted before a new audit is required.

Providing Notice

Employers and employment agencies must notify employees and job candidates who are residents of New York City that they are using an AEDT and the job qualifications or characteristics the AEDT will assess 10 business days before using the tool.

As an alternative, notice to job seekers can be posted on the employment section of an organization’s website and notice to employees can be included in a written policy.

Ray said that as the recent history of the New York City law illustrated, “regulating AI-driven employment activity is neither straightforward nor easily done in the abstract. Instead, much of the nuance to this and other similar legislative efforts will be teased out only as businesses begin efforts to comply.”

And positively for employers, the New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection “declared firmly its intent to collaborate with, rather than penalize, businesses working in good faith to meet the requirements of the law,” Ray said.

July 15, 2023

HR Technology Takeaways from the SHRM23 Expo

In “Making HR Tech Easy,” work tech expert Tim Sackett, SHRM-SCP, makes complex HR technology understandable for all HR professionals, because having a high competency in HR technology is critical to moving your HR career forward.

The SHRM Annual Conference & Expo 2023 (SHRM23) once again had a giant Expo Hall filled with every kind of HR technology you can imagine. If you can do it in HR, a technology vendor is out there attempting to sell you a solution to help you do it better and faster. There are probably dozens of vendors out there trying to sell you something.

The average large company HR tech stack has 15-35 different pieces of technology. Even small employers carry 5-12 different technologies across their HR tech stack. It’s rare in today’s world where any company would only use one technology.

That’s why it’s critical for every HR professional to take an interest in HR technology, especially in the segments and functions of HR you support. Having a strong competency in HR technology sets HR professionals and leaders apart from their peers, and C-suite executives are taking notice of people leaders who know how to leverage technology to care for the organization’s most valuable resource.

After spending time talking with conferencegoers and vendors, here are my top takeaways from the SHRM23 Expo from an HR technology perspective.

The HR professional is confused as a buyer of HR technology. I spoke to dozens of HR professionals and leaders at the Expo who are all buyers of HR technology, and across the board, they talked about how difficult it is to know which vendor does what. Many told me that all the vendors sound the same because they all say they do everything you need, but that just isn’t true. Vendors are bleeding into one another’s segments and losing their core focus on what they do really well.

Most still don’t really understand artificial intelligence or its impact. While vendors want to market their AI-based products, most HR professionals are still fairly early in their education about this technology. Vendors tend to be three steps ahead in their marketing and language and talk over the heads of their buyers. With AI, it would behoove them to slow down and continue to educate. The HR buyer becomes a nonbuyer if they don’t understand the risks and rewards. HR vendors are selling all the rewards but few of the risks. “Don’t worry about it” is not a successful buyer strategy.

Most early AI products are automation-based efficiencies. While we worry we are going to lose our jobs to robots, that’s just not where HR technology is today. Most AI-based HR products will come across to users as digital assistants. These features will be built into the systems we are already using and help us be more efficient in the work we do daily: Helping us craft communications we edit and approve. Helping us create better data representations to share within the organization. Nudging and reminding employees to complete HR tasks that need to be done, but that employees tend to forget to do.

Payroll technology has been purposely moving into the core HCM space. The payroll technology space is one of the two most competitive technology segments in HR. Background-check providers is the other. Why? Because most of the time, payroll services have been considered a commodity. Payroll is payroll, just don’t screw it up. But today, the major payroll technologies are becoming full-blown midenterprise HCM suites. Of course, they’ll give you great payroll technology, but you’ll also get core HCM, onboarding, talent acquisition, learning, etc. Payroll technology has discovered how to make itself “sticky.” The more modules you use, the more difficult it is to jump from one provider to the next. I suspect we’ll see some consolidation in this space, as it makes more sense to have a few major brands instead of the half-dozen we see today.

The startup community is finding the SHRM audience. More than 21,000 SHRM23 attendees make a compelling buying event for HR technology startups. SHRMLabs is building a community of HR technology startups interested in getting in front of that audience. SHRM has turned a corner with HR technology. Across the organization, you hear the leaders talking about it and espousing its importance. HR leaders need to increase their competency in HR technology, and SHRM is working to be at the forefront of that competency need. In the past, SHRM members put up with HR tech. Currently, we are leveraging HR tech. In the near future, the membership will drive workplace tech like no other time in HR’s history.

Many enterprise HR, talent acquisition and learning vendors were absent. Big enterprise HR vendors such as Oracle, SAP and Workday apparently don’t believe their core buyers and users are at SHRM conferences. I think they miscalculate this from a brand perspective. I spoke to some enterprise buyers and a bunch of users of the core big three HCM suites. At the very least, I think they should be at SHRM conferences to support those users who come to SHRM but not user conferences. Also, you see a ton of HR leaders who are leveling up to larger companies and taking the big payroll providers (Paycom, Paycor, Paylocity, Paychex, ADP, etc.,) upstream as their core HCM.

I did see some enterprise players, including Ceridian, Cornerstone, iCIMS, Paradox, Qualtrics and UKG, with a presence at the SHRM Expo.

Tim Sackett, SHRM-SCP, is the CEO of HRUTech.com, the author of The Talent Fix (SHRM, 2018) and a popular speaker at HR conferences. You can read his daily newsletter at timsackett.com.

July 12, 2023

The Potential and Peril of Using Generative AI for People Analytics

Many HR leaders continue to struggle with analytics, as it tends not to be their typical area of expertise.

The good news: Generative AI, or GenAI, can help if it’s used wisely. Many use cases are just beginning to be explored. However, there’s also some cautionary news: Generative AI is not yet at a place where it can be 100 percent trusted to produce accurate, valid and reliable outputs. HR professionals still need to apply their own expertise, insights and critical analysis to this information. Still, generative AI can save a lot of time and offer new solutions to improve virtually every aspect of HR operations.

Numerous Opportunities to Seek Generative AI Insights

Iu Ayala Portella is CEO and founder of Gradient Insight, a data science consultancy, and an AI intelligence expert with nearly a decade of experience in the field. Ayala listed several tasks in which HR professionals can harness the power of generative AI to glean more from their people data.

Talent acquisition. HR leaders, Ayala said, “have used generative AI to analyze job descriptions, identifying bias or gendered language that may deter diverse candidates.”
Employee sentiment analysis. Generative AI can analyze employee feedback from surveys, performance reviews, social media and other sources. “HR leaders can identify potential areas for improvement, gauge employee satisfaction and implement targeted interventions to enhance workplace engagement,” he said.
Skills development and career pathing. “HR leaders can analyze employee skills, interests and past career trajectories to recommend personalized learning paths and identify growth opportunities,” Ayala said.

There’s plenty of chatter about these possibilities. In fact, John Bremen, managing director at consultancy WTW, has been having conversations with clients about the implications of generative AI. He’s seen HR professionals use generative AI data to analyze sourcing and recruiting data and understand employee preferences. But “we’re not seeing any significant trends yet,” he noted. “I think we’re very much in the experimentation stage.”

One useful application is helping HR professionals better serve their business unit customers, said Emily Killham, director of research and insights at people analytics company Perceptyx. Queries for AI chatbots, she said, can be used to give front-line managers direction based on data. An example of such a query, called a prompt, might be: “I manage a team of 10 people. We all work remotely and only see each other in person four times per year. I would like to work on the survey item, ‘My manager treats all employees with respect’ with my team. Can you create an action plan?” Drawing on a wealth of information, generative AI “can reach for that output in a matter of seconds, and that could be a game changer for increased speed-to-action in an organization,” Killham said.

Jed Macosko, a professor of physics at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C., who teaches a class on data and AI, offered some more examples. Generative AI could help HR practitioners “glean operationally defined variables and conclusions from HR datasets that might be less intuitive to human analysts,” he explained. This is because AI is less likely to make the common mistake of confusing correlation with causation. HR professionals could use prompts such as: “What are the causal variables in this dataset?” and “What are the correlational variables in this dataset?”

In addition, Macosko said, generative AI can help HR managers mitigate the risk of personal bias. An effective prompt for this would be: “Please outline the distinct perspectives on the conclusions that can be drawn from this data.”

But while generative AI offers many benefits and efficiencies for HR from a data analysis and people analytics perspective, it’s not a cure-all. HR professionals still need to bring their expertise and insights to bear to get the most out of these tools. And they need to be able to identify when the results they get appear incorrect or misleading.

Tread Carefully When Using Generative AI Tools

HR leaders can’t abdicate their participation in the evaluation of analytics to generative AI tools.

Above all, they need to bring to bear their creativity in terms of what the data is telling them, Killham said. She recalled a time when she was working with a customer to study the relationship between clear expectations and the performance of 10 call centers. On the surface, they didn’t find much of a relationship. But when researchers started asking questions about specific centers, new insights emerged.

In one case, a snowstorm closed one center for a full week, which seriously impacted productivity for the quarter. “Once we corrected for that event, we could help the organization see the connection between the two variables,” Killham said. “So while it’s possible to ask GenAI to tell us the statistical differences between two groups on some outcome like retention or productivity when the data are clean and perfect, only a human analyst could see there was an issue with the data and do something to adjust for it.”

It’s also important to remember that generative AI is a tool for data analysis, but it’s not analysis, Killham stressed. “Calculators changed data analysis. Statistical packages like SAS or R changed data analysis. Machine learning changed data analysis,” she said. “Great analysts will learn to use this technology as a tool to make their analysis more efficient. But we really still need those great analysts to formulate good prompts, look for things that look ‘off’ about the findings, and fix them.”

She continued, “My experience with the tech is that it’s good at refining expertise—making it clearer, simpler and easier to understand—but the technology and the information it can access isn’t a substitute for actual knowledge or experience in understanding how messy people data can be.”

People who aren’t analysts can use many of these features, Killham said, but they also need to know what the numbers mean—and how to tell if they’re correct.

Data privacy should also be a primary concern for HR leaders, she stressed—at both the company and employee level. “Having a clear policy in place about trade secrets, personal information and GenAI will be important so that no one inadvertently causes a data privacy issue,” she said. “As we see countries and areas of countries develop laws around the use of GenAI, those policies will need to be adjusted.”

Bremen agreed and added that it’s important to understand what happens with the data you feed into these systems. While you can train generative AI tools with your own data, “many companies don’t want to do that because of security issues,” he explained. It’s important to understand what will happen to your data if you feed it into these systems—will the AI have access to it for other uses? Different tools treat the data in different ways, Bremen said, “so it’s important to understand specifically how the tools you’re using will use that information.”

Best Practices for Prompts and Interpretation

Prompts are a critical determinant of the value of the output generative AI tools will provide. “To achieve the best results and uncover valuable insights, it’s crucial to follow some best practices when generating prompts,” Ayala said. He recommended that HR professionals:

Be clear and specific. Clearly articulate the objectives and desired outcomes you are looking for. For instance, instead of a vague prompt like “Analyze employee engagement,” a more effective prompt would be: “Generate insights on factors impacting employee engagement in the sales department over the past six months.”
Incorporate context and constraints, providing specific time frames, demographics or other variables of interest. For example: “Analyze the attrition rate among female employees aged 25-35 in the engineering department, considering factors such as training opportunities and career progression.”
Repeat and refine. Generating prompts is an iterative process, so it’s important to experiment with different variations to explore multiple angles and rework inquiries. This helps users delve more deeply into desired topics and yields more comprehensive insights.

To evaluate the accuracy and validity of results, Ayala recommended that users:

Cross-validate. Compare generated results with existing data or external benchmarks to assess accuracy and consistency.
Seek input from domain experts within HR or data analytics who understand the nuances of people data analysis.
Test and validate hypotheses based on prompts and then design experiments or further analysis to test these hypotheses again.

“This iterative approach ensures a robust validation process and guards against drawing erroneous conclusions solely from AI-generated outputs,” he said.

The bottom line: Today’s generative AI tools hold promise and potential, but HR professionals should not abdicate their important role in ensuring that data is used, interpreted and applied appropriately and accurately to guide people decisions.

Lin Grensing-Pophal is a freelance writer in Chippewa Falls, Wis.

July 10, 2023

Companies Are Investing in Tech for Employees with Vision and Hearing Loss

?July is Disability Pride Month, in commemoration of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) on July 26, 1990. This month promotes disability awareness and aims to increase the visibility of and prevent discrimination against individuals with disabilities.

While U.S. workplaces have come a long way since 1990, accessibility experts say there is still much more to be done. Today, more employers are investing in accessibility software and other technology for employees who are deaf, hard of hearing, blind or partially sighted, allowing them to be more productive and not face obstacles in their work. This is crucial at a time when 48 million Americans have some degree of hearing loss and 20 million Americans have some level of vision loss.

More HR professionals are learning about accessibility software and other ways to make their workplaces more inclusive for employees with hearing and vision loss. Here is an overview of the technology that companies are utilizing, along with tips for ensuring that workplaces are more accessible so every employee can be productive.

Fusion

Montieth & Company, a global strategic communications PR agency with offices in New York, has 19 employees, one of whom has vision loss. According to Erica Fu, business and operations supervisor, a software product called Fusion is of great help to the employee.

“Given the nature of PR and client work, they require a laptop that is compatible with Fusion, an accessibility software tool for the blind and visually impaired,” Fu said. “We have found that Fusion has flexible, high-quality speech [speech-to-text and text-to-speech], powerful keyboard access, including web navigation, and customization options that fit our employee’s needs.”

Fusion also provides ZoomText and JAWS tools, including AppReader, which reads documents, web pages and emails; visual enhancements and screen magnification for screen viewing; and text reformatting for easier viewing.

The software is only compatible with Windows and Microsoft servers, so Montieth & Company purchased a suitable laptop for the employee. It has a 17-inch touchscreen, making it easier for the employee to use magnification tools and view the screen.

“The value of supporting employees living with a disability goes beyond simply having accessibility functions,” Fu said. “It is about empowering employees and providing tools to help them seamlessly complete client work and meet deadlines.”

SonicCloud

Citi, Sony, PNC and Boeing are just some of the companies that use SonicCloud, a 10-person California company whose namesake software provides personalized sound to users who are hard of hearing. The software takes the user through a personalized hearing assessment and creates a profile based on the results. Users can take their hearing aids out or have them in while using SonicCloud to participate in conference calls, watch videos, listen to music or use the sound on their devices.

Larry Guterman, a former director in Hollywood (“Son of the Mask” and “Cats & Dogs”), co-founded the company after he began to experience hearing loss in his early 20s.

“We believe that true inclusion is making sure all employees can join the conversation,” he said. “The ongoing changes in flexible work and the increase in video and audio calls means that those who struggle with hearing loss face added challenges.”

For instance, when multiple people are talking at once during a Zoom meeting, it can be difficult for those with hearing loss to understand anything. Some employees have to record meetings and have them transcribed afterwards, which impacts their productivity.

“Companies have a duty to provide their workforce with the necessary tools to do their jobs effectively,” Guterman said. “Communication is a key aspect of any productive and functional organization, but workers can’t participate fully in conversations or collaborate if they can’t hear clearly.”

With hearing-assistance software, employees who are hard of hearing can be more successful. “Employees are happier because they can participate fully and have the confidence to showcase their talents,” Guterman said.

Microsoft 365 Products

At the University of Phoenix, a fully remote online university, all 3,000 employees use Microsoft 365 products, which come with embedded accessibility features.

“Features such as text zoom and read text make it easier for employees with visual impairments,” said Melissa Hernandez, senior HR business partner. “We use software such as speech-to-text to reduce typing fatigue and text zoom for visual impairment.”

Tech company APKCima, which develops APK (Android Package Kit) apps and games, also uses screen readers and magnifiers for employees at its San Francisco headquarters and elsewhere.

“[We had] an employee who was visually impaired and relied on a screen reader,” said CEO and HR Director Johan Alexander, who oversees 500 employees. “They were able to independently access and navigate our company’s intranet portal, review important documents, and participate in online training programs.”

Providing the screen reader and other accessibility tools to employees with disabilities allowed them “to contribute effectively to their team, boosting their confidence and job satisfaction,” Alexander said.

From the HR side, Hernandez said these tools can help her and her team at the University of Phoenix level the playing field.

“It allows us to be more inclusive of the entire talent pool by offering tools that make the job accessible to all qualified candidates,” she said. “[It also] allows us to hire the best candidate.”

Implementing a Plan

When looking for software and other tools for employees with vision and hearing loss, experts advise making sure they qualify as an ADA “reasonable accommodation,” are HR- and IT-compliant, and work with the company’s existing technology. This means communicating with IT on a regular basis to find the best solutions.

“It’s vital for HR professionals to constantly collaborate with IT departments and implement comprehensive accessibility policies and best practices for their organization,” Alexander said.

Employees must be able to read their handbooks and watch training videos, as well as comprehend any other materials that HR provides them, he said.

At the University of Phoenix, all employee training videos include “audio, closed captions [and] compatibility with a screen reader,” Hernandez said. “[We] are careful not to use colors that would be difficult for colorblind persons to read.”

For Fu, giving employees with disabilities what they need to thrive in the workplace is not just a requirement, but a moral obligation as well.

“Companies have the responsibility to make the work experience for employees living with disabilities as seamless as possible,” she said. “It’s also the right thing to do. Working with a colleague who is living with a disability inspires a sense of responsibility in me.”

Kylie Ora Lobell is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles.

July 6, 2023

Women Are Still Underrepresented in STEM Fields

?In the U.S., women make up roughly 28 percent of the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) workforce. Men vastly outnumber women majoring in most STEM fields in college. The gender gap is especially high in computer science and engineering. And according to the National Science Foundation’s Science and Engineering Indicators, women are half as likely to complete college STEM degrees compared to men. Various studies over the years have also discovered that girls’ interest in STEM generally declines as high school progresses.

Figures from the American Association of University Women (AAUW) tell a similar tale.

Women do quite well in biological science and chemistry/materials science, where they make up 46 percent and 40.4 percent of the workforce, respectively. But things drop off sharply in what are traditionally more lucrative fields such as computer and mathematical occupations (25.2 percent) and engineering and architecture (16.5 percent). Only 21 percent of engineering majors and 19 percent of computer science majors are women. Even if they graduate, they might not find work in those sectors: 38 percent of women who major in computers work in that field, and 24 percent of those who majored in engineering work in engineering.

“Only 11 percent of teen girls say they plan to pursue a STEM career, compared to 35 percent of boys—we need to change that,” said AAUW CEO Gloria L. Blackwell.

Solving A Sy-STEM-ic Problem

These numbers aren’t that different from others seen over the last 25 years. So, what is to be done beyond drawing attention to the divergence?

Various groups are working on it. Play Like a Girl, for example, is all about connecting girls to brilliant women in STEM via mentoring programs.

“It’s important that girls view STEM fields as a place where they belong, and mentorship plays a powerful role in changing their perspectives,” said Kimberly Clay, founder and CEO of Play Like a Girl. “If girls are exposed to strong women role models and mentors in STEM, a career in these fields will seem as attractive and attainable as any other.”

She stressed that mentorship increases self-confidence, boosts communication skills and enhances leadership qualities that will benefit girls throughout their careers. More exposure to female scientists, engineers and innovators today allows girls to imagine themselves in similar roles in the future.

Tech Disconnect

Boston Consulting Group predicted that 90 percent of the most attractive jobs in the coming years will reside in tech. However, only 20 percent of U.S. tech students are female, and a study from Accenture found that 50 percent of women who break into tech leave the industry before age 35.

The U.S. approach to this issue has largely been centered around eliminating the gender pay gap. Beqom’s Leveling the Paying Field report found that tech workers were more likely than all other sectors to suspect gender-based and age-based pay gap problems within their organizations. Only 53 percent of tech workers think their employers’ plans to curb pay gaps will be effective.

Such pay gaps discourage both male and female talent: 53 percent of tech workers said they would pursue a job at a different employer with lower pay gaps. Across all sectors, 75 percent of Millennials are more likely to work for an organization that discloses pay gaps. When asked who is most responsible for closing pay gaps in their workplace, 37 percent of tech workers placed the onus on managers to drive equitable compensation, and 26 percent said they believe responsibility lies in the C-suite and boardroom.

“It’s important for all industries, especially IT, to work to increase the number of women in the sector,” said Tanya Jansen, co-founder of Beqom. “Technology employers that take proactive steps to increase internal and external awareness about the need to hire more women at all levels have seen progress.”

Further efforts in the U.S. include Gender Inequality in Tech Cities and groups such as Change Catalyst, Girl Develop It, Girls in Tech, League of Women Coders, TechLadies, TechWomen and Women in STEM. Employers are also increasingly forming employee resource groups to support professional development.

“To boost the number of women working in IT, there must be greater awareness and interest in pursuing IT careers among young women,” Jansen said. “Once women are hired, employers must continue to support their growth and professional development.”

Glass Ceiling

There may be some high-profile female CEOs in tech. But they are not that common. Women make up less than 20 percent of corporate leadership team members, according to the Global Gender Diversity report published by Altrata. And 52 women for every 100 men receive promotions in the tech industry.

Those that succeed talk about working hard, learning continuously and being open to new things.

“My advice for girls who wish to pursue a career in technology is to enjoy new and different things, as the field is full of opportunities for women,” said KJ Kusch, global field chief technology officer for WalkMe, a digital adoption platform in San Francisco. “Learn relevant tech skills, gain experience and be open to opportunity. You should also ask yourself what success looks like and build a network to help you get there, such as mentors, change agents and life coaches who help you identify why you are unique and what is a priority while helping you build confidence. And lastly, don’t assume you’ll be treated differently.”

Drew Robb is a freelance writer in Clearwater, Fla., specializing in IT and business.

July 5, 2023

Slow Adoption of APIs Plagues HR Technology

?Creating deep integrations between the HR technology systems an organization uses can be the difference between achieving a strong return on investment from those technology investments and being plagued with costly errors caused by manual data entry, poor employee experiences and slow data sharing.

HR and benefits leaders can opt to connect their technology platforms using either application programming interfaces (APIs) or the legacy practice of flat-file data transfers. While the latter method remains viable in some scenarios, technology analysts say using APIs brings a critical level of speed, accuracy and enhanced user experience that’s often sorely needed in an environment that continues to rely on dated platforms and practices.

Research shows HR tech users lag behind other departments in adopting next-generation APIs to connect disparate systems. Experts say many HR leaders also need to better educate themselves about APIs so they can have better-informed discussions with vendors about the technology. Some vendors, for example, wrongly label their integrations as true APIs—either because of misunderstanding or as a marketing ploy.

Weighing APIs vs. Flat-File Integration

Using APIs to connect HR systems rather than using flat-file transfers—the latter is also commonly known as secure file transfer protocol (SFTP) integrations—has a number of benefits that have escalated in importance as HR functions add more specialized platforms and apps to their technology stacks.

In a flat-file transfer, HR files are uploaded onto a server and then downloaded by the recipient on the same server. While this practice can still be the best option for organizations using older, on-premise software to process multiple bulk files, it has increasingly limited applications.

APIs eliminate the need for manual data entry, which is required with flat-file integrations, and reduce the chance of error that comes with copying and pasting data between applications. Another big advantage of APIs is speed. Data is shared instantaneously between systems, and records are updated in real time. APIs are especially important in cases where rapid data movement is essential to security, agility, privacy or the employee experience, said Mark Stelzner, founder and managing principal of IA, an HR advisory firm in Atlanta.

“For example, if an employee logs into the company’s benefits administration system and sees a tile representing their 401(k) balance, it might be confusing if the data presented doesn’t match what they see when logging directly into the 401(k) provider’s mobile app or website,” Stelzner said.

APIs also add critical speed to processes like onboarding, during which a seamless connection between multiple platforms is key to the rapid and orderly completion of new employee orientation tasks. APIs also allow for instant data sharing between HR and other business systems like finance, sales or procurement, connections that have high value for forecasting tasks like headcount planning or setting budgets.

HR Tech Lags in API Use

Despite the advantages of APIs, analysts say HR continues to lag other organizational disciplines in using the technology to connect its burgeoning number of platforms.

“I believe we are easily 10 years away from APIs being ubiquitous in the HR and benefits technology industry,” said Rhonda Marcucci, vice president of innovation for Gallagher, a HR and benefits technology consulting firm in Chicago. “That’s because many of the players are in different places on their digitization journey, and APIs require both the sending and receiving party to have the same set of protocols in place.”

Marcucci said one of the most important things HR and benefits leaders can do regarding APIs is educate themselves in three key areas regarding how their data is transmitted from system to system.

“They should understand the timing of updates, how errors are processed and the security of their data, whether it’s at rest or in transit,” Marcucci said.

Ansel Parikh, co-founder of Finch, a provider of API technology in San Francisco, said HR technology remains generally more complex, closed and fragmented relative to technologies in other disciplines, making it more challenging to implement APIs. But he sees reason for optimism on the horizon.

“Although adoption of APIs has been slower in employment technologies, we’ve seen a growing push from individual employers as well as vendors to improve HR technology through more modern connections between systems,” Parikh said.

Analysts say there are historical challenges to expanding API use within HR technology ecosystems. Because IT and HR have been viewed as cost centers rather than revenue producers, getting resources to update legacy technologies and facilitate API integrations can be difficult, especially in smaller and midsize companies with more limited resources. APIs also require ongoing maintenance and regular updates, another stress on the budgets of smaller organizations.

Buyer Beware: Know Your Vendors’ API Strategy

Experts say it’s increasingly important for HR and benefits leaders to have a good understanding of the API strategies employed by their technology vendor partners. “I think the most important thing for HR leaders to ask and understand is: ‘How does this really work?’ ” Marcucci said. “Much like artificial intelligence, APIs are a buzzword right now. For example, we know folks who tout they are using APIs when in fact they are sending data via flat files, or they’re sending data via an API, but the receiving partner is not processing it that way.”

Stelzner said it’s important to start with the “why” when asking vendors about their API strategies. “Why has the provider elected to invest in APIs or why have they not?” he said. “Why will the strategy bring value to our employees, HR and people leaders?”

Stelzner said it’s also essential to have vendors explain their security standards and the API monitoring that’s in place to ensure sensitive data is protected.

John Kostoulas, a vice president analyst specializing in HR technologies with Gartner, said when HR leaders are considering how best to integrate platforms, they should think first about the weakest link in their technology ecosystems.

“Because of aging platforms or closed architectures, there are usually weak links in a system,” he said. “HR has to look at how the lack of APIs connecting critical systems impacts things like employees’ experience with technology, which plays a role in engagement and retention.”

Dave Zielinski is principal of Skiwood Communications, a business writing and editing company in Minneapolis.