How HR Can Build A More Empathetic Workforce With AI And Blockchain Technology

Creating a more efficient, diverse, and empathetic workforce

By Sony Sung-Chu, Businessolver

Today, many organizations have permanently adopted remote or hybrid workplace models. Once thought of as a temporary solution to help navigate the challenges brought about by the pandemic in 2020, many employers have realized the long-term value of dispersed workforces: fewer dollars spent on overhead, higher employee satisfaction, and increased opportunity for diversity.

But with those benefits came additional challenges: HR’s workload grew as they navigated multi-state compliance, employee wellbeing, virtual culture, administering benefits, and more. We’re seeing the use of technology, specifically artificial intelligence and blockchain, as an aid to transform the HR landscape by streamlining processes, building empathetic culture, reducing bias, and better-engaging employees in meaningful ways. In the coming years, this use of automation will only continue to refine the landscape.

The past few years have also emphasized how critical empathy is for the health of an organization, from the bottom line to the people. Empathy and AI might sound contradictory to some, but we’re seeing the opposite play out: empathetic technology is helping to streamline organizational processes and effectiveness, freeing up HR to be more present for their people and amplifying employee feedback back up to leadership.

Machine learning and AI are the vehicles for the work that HR and employees can do through a tech-enabled, empathetic approach.

Building Empathy at Work Through AI

Empathy is critical to the health of all organizations, across all levels. Businessolver’s data highlights the impact of empathy (or lack thereof) on a business’s effectiveness, from retention to employee engagement to profit margins. In the coming years, we’ll likely see organizations leverage AI to help co-pilot empathy across their workforce—in fact, 38% of HR professionals are using AI and automation to help support their teams and power organizational effectiveness.

To level set, HR teams aren’t using AI to replace workers or avoid work. Rather, they’re leveraging AI to communicate with and better understand their workforce.

HR departments can leverage language and statistical learning algorithms to analyze employee data and identify key characteristics that drive job satisfaction, productivity, and happiness across the organization. These algorithms can integrate data from various sources, such as performance reviews, feedback surveys, emails, and more, to identify patterns and symptoms associated with employee well-being, including stress, burnout, or job satisfaction. Using this data, AI-powered coaching programs can offer employees a more empathetic and personalized experience in the workplace, providing tips and strategies to improve their well-being and productivity. In fact, AI-powered coaching has resulted in a 24% increase in productivity and a 28% reduction in stress.

To help drive an empathetic workplace culture, AI-powered HR systems can use machine learning algorithms to recognize key insights in ways that are meaningful to HR—all while reducing administrative workload and protecting employees’ privacy.

Breaking Down Biases with Data

Today’s talent market is competitive. With many organizations adopting remote and hybrid workplace models, their potential talent pools have also become much more diverse, which is incredibly beneficial for both the employer and the employees.

Therefore, the data used to train AI models for recruitment and retention efforts must be representative of these diverse populations. This ensures that AI systems, such as those used in hiring, don’t perpetuate biases or discriminate against certain groups. In protecting the diversity of data and mitigating biases, AI can help create a more inclusive and equitable workplace.

Leveraging AI-powered recruitment tools can help eliminate human subjectivity. Large Language Models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, use reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) to create applications that can identify and address bias in the hiring process, help identify best-fit candidates, and increase diversity. This can be achieved by consolidating and summarizing feedback from candidates and minimizing the influence of interviewer biases, such as confirmation bias or affinity bias.

With the help of these AI-driven applications, organizations can ensure that candidates are evaluated fairly based on their qualifications and reduce the impact of the different types of biases that can lead to a lack of diversity in the workplace.

Engaging Blockchain for Smarter Workplace Insights

As more employers lean into their data and look to new and innovative ways to surface insights from and about their employees, they must also consider the risks associated with good-faith data governance, especially around privacy, utilization, and secure storage. Blockchain technology can play a crucial role in HR management, especially as a way for employers to safeguard their data alongside their efforts to personalize the employee experience.

Blockchain technology gained its reputation in cryptocurrency, but its value and purpose span far beyond that. Essentially, blockchain is a way of storing data on a ledger, but instead of each line of data living in the same ledger book, that data is fragmented in such a way that a human would find it nearly impossible to decipher on their own. Blockchain provides an added layer of security and risk management for HR teams that are already burdened with a long list of compliance to-dos.

By integrating blockchain technology, HR professionals can securely store and manage employee data such as performance evaluations, training records, and payroll information while also reducing the risk of data breaches. The use of blockchains is a way to address concerns about privacy and the use of data to understand employees and personalize their experiences. Today, 31% of organizations are using blockchain to store and manage their HR data.

As AI and machine-learning technologies continue to evolve and become more accessible, it is important for companies to explore their potential benefits and incorporate them into their HR strategies to create a more efficient, diverse, and empathetic workforce. The potential benefits of AI and blockchain in HR management are intriguing and worth exploring. By using these technologies, companies can create more inclusive and productive workplaces while reducing errors and increasing efficiency.

Sony Sung-Chu is SVP, Head of Science & Innovation, at Businessolver

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