Canadian HR Reporter is the national journal of human resource management. It features the latest workplace news, HR best practices, employment law commentary and tools and tips for employers to get the most out of their workforce.
Issue link: https://digital.hrreporter.com/i/1212438
N E W S 14 www.hrreporter.com he says. At CIBC, that meant setting up meetings with every pocket of the organization, such as finance or retail banking, to find out where AI could help, says Hickey. "We created a backlog of 160 use cases within our organization to say, 'This is what we're going to do. This becomes the work that we're going to create for the next year or two or three within the organization…' In our first year, we got through about 42." And every one of the use cases should have a business case, he says, thinking about: Am I going to make more money? Is it going to cost me less than to run my business more efficiently? Or is it going to improve my risk profile? And while HR may be familiar with using tech in areas such as payroll software or an HRIS, it could be a challenge picking an appropriate vendor in the AI space. "If you're not developing your own solutions and you're buying a third- party tool or AI solution, how do you know that they've trained it the right way? How do you know that they didn't train it to be biased against women or biased against minorities?" says Hickey. "You actually have to take some incremental steps in testing the solutions to make sure that those biases don't exist because, at the end of the day, your organization is the one that's at risk here, your customers are going to sue you — they don't even know about this third party in the background. So… people need to be careful about who they go to." That means sitting down with vendors, he says, to truly understand who their clients are, how their data is protected and how have they tried to minimize bias within their solution. Developing a talent pipeline Another important action item is developing a new talent pipeline, says Hickey. That means finding out where the workers are going to come from to carry out the AI. "For the most part, a lot of this talent doesn't necessarily exist within your organization. These people are still in school or they're just recently out of school. So [it's about] how can you set up arrangements with universities or colleges to find that talent today, so that they can come into your organization over the next couple of years to help you make a difference. Establish those partnerships." Overall, when it comes to newer AI tools, HR may not be fully ready yet for this role, he says. While there are certain groups within organizations that are more advanced in the adoption of AI, it's usually the more technical people who are going to figure out how it can be deployed. "That's where HR is going to become critical… [to determine]: How do we scale that across the organization?," says Hickey. "We have to rely on HR to help us change job descriptions, we have to rely on HR to convince people that this technology isn't out to get your job. So, I think HR plays a critical role. I don't think that we're there yet. I think that it's probably going to take us another year or two to get to the point where HR is leading the charge to get people ready." CHRR AI BENEFITS APPRECIATED AT WORK Source: The Workforce Institute, Kronos Number of workers who would embrace AI if it… 64% simplified or automated time-consuming internal processes 64% helped better balance their workload 62% increased fairness in subjective decisions 57% ensured managers made better choices affecting employees Shaping the employee experience through psychological safety Mental Health in the Capital Mar 31–Apr 1, 2020 Ottawa Mental health workshops Edmonton | Toronto | Vancouver | Whitehorse | Montréal Save 10% with code HRR10. Secure your spot by calling 1-800-267-0666 or visit conferenceboard.ca/workshop conferenceboard.ca