With growing competition globally and increased difficulty in attracting and retaining a workforce, companies across the board are prioritizing the HR department’s transformation into a strategic partner with a seat at the leadership table.
Across the world, existing workforce structures are being disrupted by new technology and business models. In this context, with a rhythm of change exacerbated by the effects of the pandemic, organizations are seeking new ways to remain relevant for their employees and bring digital tools into HR to simplify processes, increase productivity, and, in the end, better care for people.
A KPMG survey from 2019 notes that about two-thirds of HR, executives agree that HR has undergone or is undergoing a digital transformation (KPMG Future of HR survey 2019). The right technology tools can support or, more importantly, consolidate a variety of HR tasks, from data management to payroll, from recruitment to onboarding or performance.
The recruiting process can be tedious, time-consuming and, in fact, very costly, especially in a fast-moving industry like retail. In 2020, it was becoming a growing challenge for the retail company, an employer with a workforce of 18,000 across all regions and with constant plans for expanding its footprint. For in-store jobs, recruiting was part of the job description of store managers, taking time away from activities with more value-added, like spending time in the frontline with customers and teams.
Moreover, the lockdown in the early months of 2020 heavily impacted the recruiting environment: unemployment grew, the turnover rate decreased, and the number of candidates was increasing for all positions. All the while, store employees became, in effect, essential workers, meaning any time spent away from the frontline became even more expensive.
In the period following the lockdown, when the retail store personnel were drained, physically and mentally, the ability to give them back time was of immediate importance. The fastest and most efficient solution was to automate the recruitment process with the help of EMA, a smart virtual assistant. EMA is a complex digital ecosystem automating human resources processes meant to assist, initially, with recruitment. Integrated within the Careers page of the website, the tool offers streamlined guidance for potential candidates to select the best jobs available, by type and location, through a personalized and intuitive conversation. Thanks to EMA’s integration with the retailer’s existing SAP platform, once the application is submitted, the candidate’s profile is sent directly to the recruiting manager. At the same time, the interview is instantly confirmed, and both candidate and manager are kept informed about the recruitment process with the help of SMS messages.
Concomitantly, the DRUID assistant is fully integrated within the internal app ecosystem and is easily accessible from any device with an Internet connection. By automatically detecting the authenticated user in the organization and their position, it can then display two different interfaces. The first such interface represents an extension of the external facing recruitment functionalities of the virtual assistant and is available strictly for recruitment managers and the HR team. The second interface that EMA provides internally is visible to any employee. It helps, through intuitive conversation, provide answers to the most frequently asked questions related to HR admin (certificates, holidays, health insurance, or other information related to the compensation and benefits package, mobility, policies, and various human resources processes). This functionality continues to develop in time – EMA constantly learns from the questions it receives to offer more detailed, personalized answers.
As we enter a new decade, with growing business challenges and a changing workforce, HR departments must keep up with the times. Using conversational technology to digitize HR processes can increase efficiency and offer a better experience for internal and external audiences, with a clear impact on the bottom line.
The power of the next generation of HR lies in assuming a more driven role in supporting the business objectives of any company and creating a holistic approach to supporting the workforce of the future. Conversational technology is one of the tools that will help and speed up this process.