6 good reasons to adopt AI for your HR, with Lucas Picot (Alan)

While AI promises very significant productivity gains for the HR function, only 38% of managers have so far considered it (Opinion Way study - May 2024). It’s not such a straightforward transformation, then, and there are many reasons for that, varying from one HR activity and organisation to the next.

To move forward with confidence and talk concretely about how artificial intelligence can be applied in human resources, we asked Lucas Picot, Head of HR Data at Alan, to reveal a few of the practices that allow his company to optimise its HR processes with AI.

The aim is not to replace people but to augment them – by improving certain processes and supporting your teams more effectively, giving them better tools to work with.

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Reason no.1: to find your information, easily

The first application of AI – one of the simplest – is to make it easier to access your information and documents. Thanks to an AI assistant built for this purpose on Dust, you can ask it: "When was the last time I mentioned such-and-such a topic?  Find me the document about X?" The assistant will search out the information you need by trawling through all of your internal databases: Notion, GitHub, Google Drive or even Slack messages.

This feature is particularly useful for new "Alaners" looking to speed up their onboarding. They can query the Dust assistant directly to avoid tedious searches through Google Drive or the folders. The AI brings them the information and the links to the right documents.

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Reason no.2: to get your thoughts in order

Another application is to break complex discussions down into simpler parts, so you can think them through and tackle problems piece by piece.

This is especially handy when you’re getting to grips with a new subject, or when you need to recall the content of a discussion that has stretched over several weeks or contains a lot of detail. You can then paste all the content into Dust and ask it: "Can you break this content down into several points and give the main arguments of each contributor?"

This lets you recall everything and start again from a clear footing, rather than trying to piece it all back together in your head and risk getting muddled.

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Reason no.3: to help teams frame their feedback better

At Alan, we’ve also set up a Dust assistant that turns raw comments into constructive feedback that follows the principles of non-violent communication.

In practice, each person quickly records a voice memo listing the areas for improvement in a colleague’s work as well as their strengths. Once the audio has been transcribed (via Gladia, for example), the script is shared with the @feedback assistant, which rephrases these comments in a clear and structured way, using the principles of non-violent communication.

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Reason no.4: to answer Alaners’ questions

Day to day, an HR department has to answer a huge number of questions from employees. At Alan, each of the 11 people in the HR team devotes an “on-call” day to this roughly every two weeks, a day on which they’ll be “Oncall”.

To make this Oncall day easier, an AI assistant has been plugged into Slack (the internal messaging service) and answers employees’ questions directly. 

How does it work? After reading the question an Alaner has put to @people_oncall, the assistant trawls the internal database to suggest an answer. Meanwhile, the on-call HR person – who has also received the notification – reads through the question and steps in if needed. 

If details are missing, if the answer given isn’t clear (or is even incorrect) or requires a manual action, the on-call Alaner replies directly in the conversation thread.

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Reason no.5: to improve recruitment

On the recruitment side, there has been a great deal of thought about the added value of AI. 

At Alan, two applications are currently being tested, each of them based on the consent of the interviewed candidates, whose interviews are recorded.

The first application lets us improve both the notes taken during an interview  and the quality of the feedback given to the candidate. On the same principle as point no.3, the idea is to obtain a transcript of the conversation with the candidate and then feed it to an AI assistant on Dust. 

Drawing on this material, the interviewer can ask their assistant for a detailed summary, comprehensively highlighting the candidate’s strengths during the interview and their areas for improvement. This approach helps to identify details that might have slipped past us, and also to raise the quality of our feedback.

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Reason no.6: to make internal "coaching" sessions easier

Every two weeks, each Alaner benefits from a 30- to 45-minute coaching session delivered by another "Alaner". 

Coaching is the main engine for helping Alaners become the best version of themselves at work, focusing on engagement and growth. These internal sessions can feel a little like a therapy session centred on your work goals: What have we learned over the last two weeks? What didn’t I enjoy? How do we want to grow? What has caused us problems recently? What’s really great? What has filled me with energy?

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To improve these sessions, AI can lend a hand on several fronts, both before and after each one.

A day or two before the session, the "coachee" sends their coach the list of points they’d like to cover. The coach can then prepare some guidance by asking the AI for a few ideas and pointers to share during the session. AI can be very strong on this, especially when it’s backed by a good prompt and internal documentation. 

After the session, the coach can also  retrieve the script of the exchange to ask the assistant for fresh guidance for the next session, as well as ways to improve as a coach. 

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Anything is possible with well-documented material and a well-built assistant.

Want to find out more? The Morning team invites you to a round table on Tuesday 17 September, from 9:00 to 10:30, at Morning Concorde - 4 rue Royale, Paris. The event will bring together Pauline Pham (Head of Operations at Dust), Lucas Picot (AI Expert within the HR team at Alan) and Marie Barbier (HR Director, Morning).

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