Capterra – a Gartner company – has recently published a user study on the perception of AI in HR among UK employees of small and medium-sized companies. The study has revealed that a majority of employees see AI as a way to make the HR practice fairer – but only if managed by a human.
According to the findings, 56% of British SMEs say AI could make a positive impact on HR and 49% of respondents think that the use of AI in decision process regarding promotion and salary would make the process fairer.
Both HR and tech industry professionals had a divided opinion, although most respondents considered AI as a step towards making the process fairer for everyone “if programmed correctly”, others have stressed the impossibility to guarantee a perfectly working program:
“Mistakes can be a problem if things are not programmed properly. I would have to solely rely on the AI working 100% all of the time which isn’t a guarantee.”
When it comes to hiring, 26% of respondents showed a positive opinion about AI being involved saying that they’d rather prefer it. 42% showed a neutral opinion saying that they wouldn’t mind, and a third disclosed that they would be concerned.
A combination of AI and human was the most preferred choice for employees in all industries when it comes to decisions relating to salary and defining the training plans, while for promotion decisions they would mostly trust a human.
“Over half of SMEs believe that AI could have a positive impact on HR. It is worth noting that over a third (32%) of them state not being sure about this, which it could mean that they simply don’t have the information to make a decision. Most of the times, it is lack of information that keeps companies away from trying and implementing a new software as they don’t know what benefits could bring to their companies.” says Sonia Navarrete, content analyst at Capterra