Workforce optimization can be characterized by the people, processes and technologies that are strategically placed to achieve business performance goals. Employee training and coaching sit at the intersection of these three bases. Such training has typically been handled manually, in a traditional classroom setting, but new artificial intelligence-based digitized training platforms are revolutionizing human capital management. Here are five key pillars to building a successful AI-based program.

Pillar 1: Identifying the right talent

There’s no question that the COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on the U.S. labor market. Employees have become more willing to leave their current employers for new jobs or, in many cases, to exit the workforce.

Over the last year, the rate of job quitting in the U.S. has reached highs not seen since the start of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey program in December 2000. This recent phenomenon has been called the “Great Resignation.”

Recruitment, in the current job environment, is a challenge – to say the least. Using traditional recruitment methodologies, and even including social media outlets, is proving a less than effective approach in the fiercely competitive talent environment. Companies, therefore, are turning to new technologies to digitize the recruiting process. Specifically, they are relying on AI-based automation for the recruiting and training aspects of human resource management.

Companies typically do a good job finding and screening candidates for a job. They’re good at testing aptitude, and assessing an individual’s skills, focus, drive and knowledge for the role. What they struggle with, though, is how to gauge how an applicant will perform once hired. Companies typically don’t find this out until a person is hired and at work for several months.

Dan McCann, chief executive officer and chief learning officer of SymTrain, an AI-based training provider, explains that AI-based automation can solve this and other dilemmas. In the screening process, prospective employers can have candidates run through work scenario simulations repeatedly until both are satisfied. The platform scores performance, indicating where strengths and weaknesses may lie. This helps the business make a more informed hiring decision.

Running through these simulation exercises also gives candidates a much clearer understanding of the job’s duties and requirements. They can better assess whether the job is right for them. The result is a better match for both parties — a match that’s more likely to prosper.

Pillar 2: Preparing employees to succeed

Everyone wants to succeed in a job. No one takes a new position thinking they want to see how fast they can fail. But employees don’t succeed on their own.

It’s the employer’s responsibility to prepare employees to succeed. Companies of all stripes are guilty of dropping new hires in place with insufficient training, which guarantees that an individual will struggle, shut down or, worst case, fail or quit. This common situation is exacerbated by the fact that more people are working remotely, from home, making it difficult to ensure that they consistently receive the training, tools and coaching they need to perform well.

Hunter Bell, senior account executive of Lean Solutions, a nearshore/offshore outsourcing provider of business services, explains that AI-based training platforms accelerate the company’s rigorous onboarding process and improve their ability to serve clients. New hires can build confidence while they develop their skills. Using the simulation exercises, workers perform their myriad job tasks and receive performance scores from the system. These scores note where the employee performed well and where they could use some improvement. The employee can repeat an exercise as often as they wish, enabling them to cement the learnings and coachings into their capabilities.

When an individual feels better prepared to handle the responsibilities required of them, they gain confidence in their position within the company. This confidence lays the foundation for their success.

Employees like this scenario-based approach, viewing it as a safe way to learn and improve without the risk of failing on the actual job, with a customer or their supervisor. The digital scoring is neutral, objective and consistent across all employees. It provides a safe way to learn — to fail without consequences and learn from doing so.

Plus, it reduces the number of internal resources that traditional classroom or one-on-one training consume, making it highly cost-effective and efficient.

Pillar 3: Retaining employees

Retaining employees isn’t just about money, according to Bell. It’s about understanding an individual’s career goals and coaching them to realize these goals.

Especially in this era of the “Great Resignation,” people want a job in which they can learn and grow, and at the same time be competitively compensated. They want to know what potential career paths are available to them and want the wherewithal to map various paths, choose their preference, then design a roadmap for getting where they want to go. Automation enables workers to more effectively upskill and reskill by creating their own individualized training programs, programs that consider current knowledge and skills, areas of improvement, and mapping out exactly what skills and knowledge they’ll need at each level of their career journey.

Using the digital platform, employees can create profiles detailing the skills they have and those they wish to acquire. The system matches them to the appropriate training materials. This ability to clarify and personalize their career path increases employee morale, motivation and productivity. And with the potential for career advancement clear, this technology encourages internal mobility, dissipating the notion that career development is only possible by company hopping. The bottom line: Businesses can train and retain their best talent.
As one HR consultant observes, employees then become a partner with their company in designing and controlling their destiny. Providing support resources in an easily digestible digital platform makes employees feel “cared for” by the company, an important perk for them.
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Pillar 4: Developing employees

AI-based training tools are explicitly designed to cultivate better on-the-job performance and facilitate employee development. Employees now expect support and look for companies that deliver it. Further, according to a study by HR Dive, 91% of employees want training that’s personalized and relevant.

This automated development roadmap permits firms to create highly targeted, accurate development plans individualized by person. The platforms then allow the employee to tap into the training and coaching knowledge library, as they wish and at their own pace.

Workers can break up their training into discrete tasks. This way, notes McCann, they can “dip in and out” of their custom training program, instead of having to set aside large chunks of time to complete whole units in one sitting. The training process is far more flexible, easier to manage and less overwhelming.

“Bite-sizing” training also helps knowledge retention and repeatability. An employee can repeat a training exercise or module as often as needed, again bolstering retention.

Overall, AI-based training allows the company to significantly shrink a new employee’s learning curve by providing expertly curated learning. It also helps eliminate the one to three months of new-job anxiety that employees typically experience. They can feel “part of the company” sooner and perform more effectively as a result.

The business benefits from shorter learning lead times, and a talent pool that’s constantly evolving toward better performance achieved at a faster rate. This translates to a direct positive impact on customer service, corporate capability and cost control.

Pillar 5: Optimizing the company through AI-based training

In the semiconductor industry, Moore’s Law stipulates that every two years, chips will be two times faster and half the size. According to McCann, AI-based digital training platforms enable a similar revolution in human resource management – long the most manual of all corporate functions. This is an innovation whose time has come. Employees are, after all, a business’s most valuable and expensive asset.

AI-based training can drastically reduce training time and costs. Studies show that by deploying AI-based training, companies have been able to reduce individual training time by as much as 50%, and trim resource costs by up to 33%. Not a bad return on investment.

Digitized training offloads time-consuming lower-value responsibilities from trainers, freeing them up to focus on providing higher-value personalized attention to workers. This optimizes the organization, utilizing talent where and how it’s most effective. Companies, therefore, get a greater return on their labor investment. And, being able to provide better, smarter service, they can deliver higher customer satisfaction. New business follows. 

Resource Links: Lean Solutions Group, https://www.leangroup.com/ Symtrain, https://symtrain.com/