The ability to retain top talent is a top priority for employers, HR professionals, managers and supervisors in all types of companies in all regions.
As they struggle frantically to find reliable solutions that can help them minimize talent loss, possible relief can be provided by a solution they may not have considered: artificial intelligence or AI.
One of the things research shows that it matters a lot to employees is the ability to grow and develop. If they can’t do that within your organization, they will look elsewhere for these opportunities. AI can help you make sure you don’t overlook employees ready to move on to bigger and better responsibilities.
“People will stay longer if they have opportunities for advancement,” said Janet Clary, director of HR research and consulting services at McLean & Company in London, Ontario, Canada.
She said McLean & Company found that “employees who agree or strongly agree that they can progress in their careers in their current organization are 3.4 times more likely to be engaged compared to those who do.” disagree or strongly disagree.”
Organizations can use AI, she said, “to algorithmically match people with internal opportunities such as project and odd jobs, full-time roles, learning experiences and mentorships based on that person’s individual skills, experiences and interests.”
AI technology can also help companies allocate work as effectively and efficiently as possible, by ensuring the right people are working on the right things and increasing the likelihood of them getting involved.
“Automating routine tasks, such as completing timesheets on a large scale, has many benefits in addition to monitoring employee entry and exit times,” said Lakshmi Raj, co-CEO and co-founder of Replicon, based in Redwood City. California. data to find the best fit for projects, improving the quality of output by making the most of their resources.” Doing this can also minimize the risk of burnout, she said.
Prevent burnout
Janelle Owens, SHRM-CP, is the HR Director at Test Prep Insight. She said her company “uses behavioral analysis software to identify burnout among key employees before it happens in an effort to reduce attrition.” Burnout can be a major driver of turnover. Fortunately, she said, “behavioral analytics can provide important insights into employee behavior and help prevent burnout before it hits a breaking point.”
Test Prep Insight has been using AI-powered software since the start of the pandemic. “This software collects and analyzes employee communications across existing channels such as Zoom, email, and Slack,” she says. “It then identifies trends and certain buzzwords in their messages and runs this data through its algorithm to identify at-risk workers.” That’s been especially important in a remote work environment, she said.
“One of the ways to stop employee burnout is to identify resources that are overused and underused,” Raj said. “With AI and machine learning-based automation of professional services and cloud-first time-tracking solutions, enterprises can analyze real-time data to enable more effective resource allocation, ensuring balanced workloads, high corporate morale. employees and less turnover.”
Identify employee flight risk
“By using both internal and external data, AI can be used to build predictive models of workers who may pose a flight risk,” Clary said. Some examples of internal data include job satisfaction, number of positions, engagement score, and years with an employee’s current manager. External data can also be used, for example to benchmark compensation rates per employment.
Omer Usanmaz, CEO and co-founder of Qooper Mentoring and Learning Software, said other data that can be used to identify patterns that may indicate an employee is at risk of leaving include “how often employees log in, how much they work, how engaged they seem in their work and how often they interact with colleagues.”
In addition, Usanmaz said, natural language processing algorithms could be used “to analyze employee communication data — this could include analyzing the content of emails, chat logs and social media posts to identify signs that an employee is considering leaving.” ”
Clary warned against using AI to predict what individuals might do. “There is a great deal of uncertainty in predicting whether a person will leave, but if you apply that prediction to thousands of employees, the accuracy will increase dramatically,” she said. “So, for example, these predictions should be used to inform organizational-level workforce planning, not to prepare to replace a person because the algorithm says they pose a high flight risk.”
There are also some other important caveats that companies should be aware of as they consider AI’s role in helping to retain talent.
Some provisions
One possible concern, Owens said, is the potential for causing anxiety among employees who may be concerned about employer oversight. However, she said she has seen studies showing that “62 percent of employees say they are not concerned that employers are controlling their behavior.” And, she added, “monitoring of workers has kind of become the norm, especially during the pandemic.”
Still, when using this type of technology, it’s important for employers to be candid about why and how they’re using it, and to respond to employee questions or concerns.
In addition, Usanmaz said there is the potential for employees to try to “play the system”. For example, if they are aware that their data is being analyzed in a certain way, they may be able to artificially inflate their engagement or hide their intent to leave.
When it comes to preventing revenue, the bottom line is that “even the best AI in the world will give you an incomplete picture of revenue,” Clary said. “Turnout has an unpredictable, human element that can only be understood by managers and leaders, who, when engaged and engaged with their employees, can predict the unpredictable.” It is, she said, the combination of data and human intuition that leads to successful sales reduction.
Usanmaz pointed out that companies should focus on proactively retaining employees by creating a positive work environment, providing incentives and rewards, and providing opportunities for growth and development. He said it is important “to maintain open communication with employees to ensure that their needs are met and that they feel valued in their role.”
Lin Grensing-Pophal is a freelance writer based in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin.