Canadian HR Reporter

CANADIAN HR REPORTER April 4, 2016 FEATURES 19 TECHNOLOGY Cognitive HR: Wide awake, alert, ready for action Engagement, expertise, cognition can be enhanced through computer systems By Benoit Hardy-Vallée I t was many years ago when former Canadian prime min- ister Pierre Elliot Trudeau spoke these prophetic words: "The many techniques of cy- bernetics, by transforming our control over data and informa- tion, may transform our whole society. With this knowledge we are wide awake, alert, capable of action: No longer are we blind, inert pawns of fate." Full of optimism, Trudeau wrote these lines years before any com- puter system achieved the level of sophistication required to beat a chess grandmaster (1997), a Jeop- ardy champion (2011) or drive a car autonomously (in the 2000s). In this reflection, technology empowers humans to take ac- tion — a welcome contrast to the techno-dystopia common in popular culture. Today, with digital assistants in smartphones and robo-advisors, it is more common to have sys- tems with human-like intelligence helping people to accomplish tasks or make decisions. ese systems — also known as "cognitive" — differ from typical programmable systems that most people use in their professional and daily lives (such as comput- ers and software). A programmable system fol- lows a set of instructions; a cog- nitive system learns, infers and generates hypotheses. It can deal with uncertainty and unstruc- tured data, and it can learn from its environment and its users. ink about when IBM's su- per computer Watson played Jeopardy: It was not looking on- line to find answers to questions asked in natural languages, it was generating different potential an- swers and then selecting the more probable ones, similar to our own thinking when we face new prob- lems and can't rely on simple, rule- based reasoning. The potential for cognitive systems is endless. Many tedious tasks, complex activities and im- possible decisions can be simpli- fied with advanced computing capabilities. A computer such as Watson can help chefs to gener- ate new recipes, based on millions of cookbooks, and help human psychophysics or researchers to develop new cancer treatments, based on thousands of research papers. But how will these capabilities transform the workplace? Here are four directions to consider: Deeper engagement Because they can process large quantities of structured and un- structured data about individu- als, cognitive systems can inter- act with users based on the mode, form and quality each employee prefers. ink about employees' digi- tal footprints and data records — their online activities, system use, internal social media conver- sations, geolocation, transaction history, wearable data, perfor- mance data, psychometric assess- ments and learning history can all be assembled to provide a unique interaction between a system and human. Artificial human resource as- sistants will sense a tone in an in- teraction, a sentiment in an email, an emotional state in an online conversation and be able to bet- ter advise employees and weather their anger or capitalize on their enthusiasm. Talking with a machine will feel much more natural. Scaled, elevated expertise Nowadays, nobody can keep up with the pace of knowledge growth: 1.9 million scientific ar- ticles are published each year, ac- cording to the International Asso- ciation of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publisher. And, every year, close to 600,000 patents are file d with the United States patent office only. ere are now more blogs, books, articles and news- papers accessible than ever before. Employers are also losing ex- pertise as older workers are start- ing to retire, depriving organi- zations of years of accumulated knowledge. To help organizations enhance the employee expertise, cogni- tive computing systems can be- come artificial companions that HR > pg. 20 Think about employees' digital footprints and data records. For more information and to apply, please visit: www.HRPA.ca/2017speakers Share your knowledge and be a part of the next wave of HR trends, best practices, and innovations! Submit your application to join other well respected HR industry leaders and present your work as session speakers at next year's 75th HRPA Annual Conference and Trade Show. 2017 HRPA Annual Conference And Trade Show - Feb 1-3, 2017 CALLING ALL HR THOUGHT LEADERS!

• Cover