ChatGPT and HR: Talent experts predict a “formidable partnership”

One major challenge it may pose for HR in terms of talent acquisition, assessment and evaluation is its inability to understand the context and the potential for bias in the model's predictions and decisions, said Charu Kunwar, group head of HR at global investment firm Lighthouse Canton.

AI or artificial intelligence will transform the way human resources (HR) departments currently work, but will not replace humans: This was the first take of various talent experts when ChatGPT, the chatbot developed by OpneAI, the San Francisco, US-based company that is making waves globally, came into play. HR leaders say the job of recruiters is more than just shortlisting and interviewing candidates, more so when a pandemic has highlighted the importance of the employee experience.

“There is always an underlying fear that machines and technology may replace HR. But that is far from true, machines and technology will not eradicate HR jobs but will only enhance HR jobs,” Ruchi Ahluwalia, CHRO of business services major Quess Corp told Moneycontrol.

For instance, Quess recently used a chatbot to understand employee sentiment, manage early warning signals and enhance employee experience. While the chatbot did the initial work of an HR business partner (HRBP), also known as the face of HR for employees, to connect with an employee and threw open analytics providing unmatched insights, the on-ground work of acting on these insights taking preventive corrective action on feedback and, hence, enhancing the employee experience was done by the HR folks.

This way Ahluwalia foresees a “formidable partnership” between machines and humans to address issues promptly and swiftly.

Where it lacks

Talent experts feel ChatGPT technology can help streamline HR processes by automating repetitive tasks and allowing HR professionals to focus on strategic, high-value activities.

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Ritesh Kumar, country lead for research and education firm Wiley India, is already seeing opportunities to leverage ChatGPT in HR. “Platforms like Workday offer a ‘Workday Assistant’ capability that we are using to simplify and improve the experience for employees,” he said.

Besides, talent teams also leverage this type of technology to channel initial screenings of job applicants.

However, he added, the ChatGPT tool is still in its early stages, and it will take time for individuals and organisations to fully understand its capabilities and implement it in their day-to-day operations. “Additionally, there are concerns about data privacy risks that need to be addressed,” he said.

One major challenge it may pose for HR in terms of talent acquisition, assessment and evaluation is its inability to understand the context and the potential for bias in the model's predictions and decisions, said Charu Kunwar, group head of HR at global investment firm Lighthouse Canton.

For example, she said if a language model is trained on a dataset that contains a disproportionate number of resumes from a certain demographic group, it may be more likely to recommend candidates from that group for job openings. “This could lead to lack of diversity in the candidate pool and ultimately in the workforce,” she pointed out.

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Also, if the users are not careful about the data going into ChatGPT, Kunwar warned, “It could generate a discriminatory job description. This may, in turn, inhibit certain groups from applying for the role and, therefore, make it harder to hire good talent.”

Can never replace the human touch

Since ChatGPT and HR are at a nascent stage of the conversation, Shalini Sharma, AVP of HR at Codleo Consulting, feels there is no substitute for the human touch, intuition and verbal and non-verbal signals/inputs.

“These cannot be replaced by a chatbot which may only have a limited role in the initial stages. HR is always about the intangibles in every aspect from A to Z—acquisition to relieving,” she said.

Expanding on this, Quess Corp’s Ahluwalia said when an employee poses a query to an HRBP in a conventional manner, the HRBP delves further to get more details and then provides the response.

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“When an employee asks the same query to ChatGPT, there are chances the probing part might get missed, which might result in ChatGPT providing answers only based on the initial question and this might lead to the employee getting wrong information,” she added.