How Microsoft’s AI technology is making HR teams more efficient

AI, or Artificial Intelligence to use its full name, is one of the buzzwords in technology. It’s something that is becoming part and parcel of our everyday lives. Whether it’s asking Alexa to play music or telling Cortana to remind you to book that important appointment, we increasingly use AI to enhance our lives. The same applies to our professional lives too, with AI solutions available to businesses increasing at an exponential rate.

I’m a technology consultant who partners with a lot of HR teams. It strikes me that the HR sector can sometimes feel left out in terms of new technology and developments. However, if you do a little digging, there are a lot of options that are now available, bringing a large number of benefits.

So, what options are available in the HR workspace?

Chatbots

For businesses already benefiting from the Dynamics 365 Human Resources application, there is a Microsoft Teams app, currently in preview. This not only brings the benefit of employees booking annual leave without leaving the  Teams app, they can also do it by talking to a chatbot. A quick conversation with a chatbot to check an annual leave balance or to assist in booking leave could save precious time for employees, old and new. They can quickly check this information without ever having to launch another application or webpage. It speeds up the onboarding process and also means that HR aren’t inundated with endless queries regarding holiday allowances. It’s likely Microsoft will add additional functionality to this soon, making the lives of employees and HR teams simpler.

For customers not yet using the Dynamics 365 Human Resources application, who are still keen to utilise Microsoft technologies, there is a solution named Power Virtual Agents, one of Microsoft’s Power Platform applications. Power Virtual Agents gives you the capability to develop a chatbot that can quickly and easily answer employees’ HR questions. The agent can be pre-loaded with an array of questions and answers to cover all the most common (and perhaps some of the more niche) queries that HR teams receive daily. It’s a fantastic low-code/no-code solution that could be the starting point of your HR department’s journey with AI. This chatbot can then be loaded into your Microsoft Teams site, on your website, or even into an app for your staff,  whichever works best for your organisation.

Quickly gauge sentiment in surveys

Almost every HR team will, at some point in the year, send out  one or several surveys to their employees.

The analysis of these surveys can take time. Whilst there is always going to be a need for human interaction, AI technology can assist greatly.  If the survey is sent out using Microsoft Forms, inbuilt AI technology analyses the answers that your employees give. It interprets whether the sentiment is positive or negative for both individual questions and the overall survey. This helps in getting an early view of employees’ thoughts. It also allows for improvements in survey questioning for the future. Again, there will continue to be more advancements by Microsoft in this area to assist your HR team.

HR teams can focus on strategy not admin

The common them with the items mentioned is to avoid HR teams spending unnecessary time on (boring) admin tasks. Whilst these tasks are important, they are time-consuming and are not the best use of your employees’ time. Taking a technological and AI approach to these  types of task helps your team become more efficient. Also, your HR team will be more motivated if their everyday tasks become less repetitive and laborious. Let’s face it, most people don’t take up a career in human resources because they love admin. They do it because they like the people element of the job. If you are trying to attract the best talent to your business, then the culture of your organisation is going to be key. A HR team fully geared up to spend time shaping this culture, rather than  on admin, will really have a positive effect on this.