Combine research, planning, needs assessments, and practicality for chatbots that work for everyone.
Balancing high-tech with high-touch can be a challenge for HR professionals, for whom face-to-face and personal engagements have always been a professional hallmark. However, technologies such as chatbots have become essential to attracting and retaining employees. Fortunately, there are ways HR can use high-tech chatbots to communicate with potential and existing employees on a personal, individualized basis.
Research before you jump on the bot bandwagon. Examine the opportunities, challenges, and deficiencies in your current HR functions to determine where and how a bot might help. Have a clear understanding of the marketplace to determine what automation technology is most likely to meet your needs. Evaluate vendors based on their expertise and ability to provide necessary updates, training, and support. Look for certain capabilities in a platform, such as ease of artificial intelligence integration, natural language process and machine learning, and ease of use and maintenance.
Clearly outline the scope of services your chatbots will and won’t deliver. Involve your HR team and organizational thought leaders to identify ways bots can best serve workers and job candidates. While chatbots are designed to provide accurate and prompt information, make sure that users have a way to seek and receive additional information that the bot can’t deliver.
You can use your bots to offer job candidates the chance real-time quick chats to address questions they have about the job, such as details not included in the position description. Be sure to provide a way for candidates to leave a message when no one is around to talk; but also ensure that someone follows up on those contact requests promptly. Consistency is key, so it’s best to have the candidate interact with the same person every time.
Make chatbots interactive. Establish a way to reach out with reminders or prompts to increase engagement. For instance, use chatbot to remind job candidates of upcoming interviews or to highlight an article about the company they might find interesting. At the same time, you can use pop-ups type features to remind existing employees about upcoming training programs, meetings, or other company events.
Don’t forget to attend to privacy and security related to chatbots. They must be compliant with industry-, federal-, and state-specific policies and regulations. By ensuring due diligence before you employee any HR chatbot technology, you are more likely to have a system that maximizes communication and engagement, instead of limiting or disrupting it.
