Understanding human touch in the age of AI

Arkosnato (Arko) Neogy leads the Data Science team at Job&Talent. He and his team are responsible for bringing cutting edge AI intelligence to the products and offerings of the company, both in terms of  customer facing front-end features in the app and more under-the-hood improvements that future-proof our infrastructure. In addition to conceiving, developing, testing and deploying AI models, the Data Science team takes an active role in bringing thought leadership around ethical and responsible use of AI in a commercial setting that leads to improved experience of clients, workers and internal stakeholders alike.

With the increasing awareness, popularity, and adoption of generative AI in the past year, many companies today have arrived at AI being a part of their day to day reality, not just a utopian vision for the future. While usage and depth of adoption vary by industry and company maturity, most companies by now have tried using Generative AI in their workflows in at least one way or another. 

The benefits of this are starting to become apparent, including but not limited to increased employee productivity, streamlining of operations, better user experience, and ultimately, improvements to the top and bottom line. In the recruitment and staffing industry, companies have invested significantly in the use of AI especially in workforce hiring, achieving lower costs and better closure time.

How can we introduce AI responsibly? 

A legitimate concern around the rise of AI is the possible decline of human touch in the erstwhile working processes. For staffing players, this mainly manifests itself in two scenarios. At the hiring phase, while the usage of AI tools brings efficiency, the question is around building the feeling of trust and belonging of a new worker joining the rosters - something uniquely human that cannot quite be generated by a robotic user interface. At the post-hiring phase the concern is more from enterprise clients, who now see regular processes (shift planning, worker allocation, timesheets, payroll) increasingly automated at varying levels of sophistication, thereby risking a potential divide in the connection between floor managers and workers. The question at hand is clear - will AI bring efficiency at the cost of human connection?

At Job&Talent, we believe that it is possible to introduce AI in ethical and responsible ways even when it results in automation and standardized procedures. Part of this responsibility lies in using AI to enhance, as opposed to erode, the human factor in our industry and work. Our AI teams work together with product and client-facing teams to educate on how AI can be used to hyper-charge relationships with workers and clients alike.

Take the example of planning automation. Workforce planning for warehouses and shop floors is an age-old practice, and at large complex facilities it can be a significantly time consuming process. Of course, today many software vendors have eased the process by digitalizing instead of working on paper, but oversight is still possible due to last minute changes, absenteeism, special events, etc. AI has brought a new dimension of smart automation to this domain. By consuming updates and information in near real time, AI can update a basic plan and augment it with replacements, substitutes, fallbacks and “just in case” measures that are extremely hard for a human to keep track of and implement. 

Leveraging AI to enhance the human touch

Where does human connection fit into this? We see this happening in two layers. Firstly, AI-based optimizations are usually always run through a human review for the final decision making. This is commonly an Account Manager or a worker or client-facing persona. Instead of seeing AI as a competitor that is trying to do their job, Account Managers today can use AI as an expert second opinion, and an added source of truth. This allows them to bring a more informed perspective and nuanced narrative when sitting down with the client to explain the operations of the upcoming weeks, thereby deepening a sense of trust and belonging between the service provider and the service consumer.

Second, AI is excellent at working with calculations and considerations that would take even the above-average, experienced human hours to do and bring it down to minutes. This is a massive saving in time, and once again instead of seeing this as a replacement, we see this as a huge opportunity in fostering value-add conversations with the client by utilizing time that was previously unavailable, or eaten up by laborious manual work. 

Going back to the concerns mentioned above relating to a decline in human touch, the smart capabilities outlined here indirectly address the problems by fundamentally working as an informed sidekick and efficient workhorse that frees up mindspace for human interaction where it is really critical. For example, in the case of hiring, while much of the logistics and processes of recruitment may be AI driven, it creates objective evidence and information quickly and efficiently from a large pool for a limited number of human recruiters to make fast and effective decisions. This in turn allows them to contact select candidates to have meaningful conversations not about processes, but about nuanced feedback and better familiarization with the role and company. In effect, AI has handled the grunt work of hiring at scale, while allowing the human counterparts to focus on fostering deeper relationships.

AI in support of human relationships 

The new age, AI empowered, client-facing personas in staffing companies are going to be much more tech savvy, and by leveraging this capability they will be able to create far greater value and connection with the clients. 

They can now appear at client meetings ahead of time, with all the plans ready to go. They are prepared to have nuanced conversations about why the plan looks a certain way, why certain modifications were necessary and how it will create more value for the client. The AI interfaces and tools at their disposal allow them to easily incorporate feedback from the client, sometimes in real time, to finalize plans and agree on common operatives. And with all the time saved, they now have the liberty to open conversations about what is expected in the next months, where is the industry headed, and how can we support them better, instead of obsessing over the myopic details of the next week. The implication this has on the trust built between client and service providers is difficult to understate. 

Or of course, they could free up time to catch up with their clients over a drink and build lasting working relationships that extend into friendship. All because back in the office, AI agents are tirelessly working towards fulfilling the robotic part, so they can focus on the human component.