3 Pros and Cons of HR Chatbots
XOR
Apr 26, 2018 2:07:48 PM
Chatbots are currently hot in the recruiting and talent acquisition space. They help recruiters with their workload by automating repetitive tasks such as screening, interview scheduling, follow-up, and more. Not only that, the candidate experience is consequently enhanced by the use of chatbots too.But did you know chatbots can be just as useful in human resources? The functionality of chatbots can be used for many things to streamline employee engagement, onboarding, and more.
If you’re looking to adopt chatbots as part of your HR technology, you should consider the pros and cons.
Pros of HR Chatbots
Chatbots strengthen team communication
Whether you’re trying to promote a new mission or planning to deploy a pulse survey, AI chatbots can help you do it all. You can easily set up algorithms to check in with employees on a monthly basis to gauge their sentiments about company culture or their performance; this can be done via text messaging or email. With XOR, the metrics received from these surveys can be converted into a report that your team can analyze to improve future performance.
Overall, these initiatives can help strengthen the bond you have with your team without spending a lot of time manually reaching out to each and every employee.
Chatbots can automate onboarding
Congrats on your new hires! After spending time with hundreds of candidates, you’ve finally decided on the most qualified hires. Chatbots can help streamline the onboarding process by reminding new employees what they need to bring for their first day. They can also be configured to answer any onboarding questions or direct new employees to your business location. The automation behind this technology makes it so recruiters and HR employees can focus on more important assignments rather than filling their schedules up with repetitive tasks.
Chatbots can serve as an FAQ hub or directory
Chatbots can easily handle employee FAQ with a simple workflow setup. If anyone has inquiries regarding pay, benefits, holidays, or any other related questions, chatbots can answer these concerns in real-time. HR professionals no longer need to burden themselves with such time-consuming tasks and can now allocate their freed schedule to employee engagement or other important assignments.
Cons of HR Chatbots
While the good outweighs the negative when it comes to HR Chatbots, there are a couple of cons of using them. However, there are solutions to these challenges. Let’s take a look.
It can be difficult to set up without the help of experts
If this is your team’s first time working with chatbots, you might feel like a fish out of water. New technology can pose many challenges, especially to those who aren’t tech-savvy. Without the help of an expert, employees may end up wasting even more time and resources trying to figure out how to set up a chatbot.
To mitigate this potential problem, find a chatbot platform that has a well-equipped customer support team. XOR offers chatbot training and pilot sessions for your HR department, so you feel confident in using these tools to their fullest potential.
Some employees may be resistant to change
While chatbots can improve your organization’s efficiency, some employees may not be completely on board with the implementation of new technology. They could possibly feel threatened or afraid that chatbots might completely replace humans one day.
These are valid concerns, but those assumptions are far from the truth. Chatbots are great at automating repetitive, surface-level tasks to help increase productivity, but they’re not meant to completely take over complex situations. According to studies, 60% of Americans still turn to humans when their issue gets too complicated for artificial intelligence.
Virtual assistants are helpful in many ways but they can never replicate a human-to-human experience that your employees can. To ensure that your employees feel more comfortable about your potential chatbot implementation, prioritize transparency and communication. Let your employees know what features you plan on implementing, and reassure them that they still serve very important, irreplaceable functions within your organization.
Finding the right HR chatbot platform can be difficult
With so many different chatbot platforms out there, it can be hard to find the right one for your team. Thorough research and a good grasp of what features you need are required to find the most suitable platform. On top of that, you’ll need to consider many other factors such as costs.
Takeaway
Chatbots provide a multitude of features that can help your team achieve both your HR and recruiting goals more efficiently. This means less time spent on repetitive tasks and more time to spend building authentic relationships with your employees. While it can be daunting to think about if you’re new to the AI and machine learning space, there’s nothing that thorough research and brainstorming can’t solve.
Here at XOR, we’re passionate about HR and recruitment chatbots and love working on technology to help teams achieve their business goals, faster. To learn about our chatbot solutions, schedule a demo with us.