AI Changing the HR Game

Many fear that the evolution of Artificial Intelligence will lead to machines and robots replacing human workers. However, Arjun Pratap, founder of EdGE Networks, a nextgen HR technology startup, explains, though automation is a game changer, it won’t ultimately take over the need to interact with humans. Exploring the several benefits beyond cost and time reduction, he emphasises automation has the potential to make employees happier

"AI is a force that will drive the new employment economy. From talent acquisition and workforce optimization to workforce transformation, AI will act as a strategic enabler to HR and get them a seat at the strategy table"

What exactly is HR’s role in today’s organization?

Traditionally, the HR function supported transactional business requirements to evaluate, hire, and train talent coming into the business and facilitated the processes associated with each of these areas. The role and scope of HR have evolved dramatically in today’s competitive landscape, and HR is now a strategic partner to the business to enable and ensure its success and growth.

Today, with most companies embarking on or embracing digital transformation, HR occupies a central role. In fact, digital disruption has already redefined the role of HR professionals, they’ve gone from handling payroll and holiday queries to looking at analytics and strategy. HR is uniquely placed to create new digital ecosystems that bring together people, technology and processes. Companies have realized that change is about people and HR is in the best position to ensure the success of a digital transformation.

But studies indicate that most businesses are still focused on basic process automation such as online payroll, record-keeping, learning management, resume capture, interview and hiring, appraisals, compensation, and so on.

While that may be true in part, we also know businesses are adopting AI in a big way not only because it is helping them become smarter and efficient but also largely because it is helping their workforce become more productive. A recent TCS Global Trend Study says that 68% of companies use AI for IT Functions, but 70% believe AI’s greatest impact by 2020 will be in functions outside of IT such as Marketing, Customer Service, Finance, and HR.

The benefit of the technology (AI, Robotics), is that it can learn the workers’ capability, help them understand best practice and help workers do higher-skilled jobs with higher quality, higher productivity, more effectively and efficiently.

AI will not only complement high-skill workers at the workplace but also allow, low-skilled employees to leverage its benefits and up their game in order to perform better. High-skill workers can further leverage AI to extend their abilities and will not have to worry about a machine replacing the work they do. Thereby, AI will increase overall workforce productivity.

Many believe that AI will reduce human contact in HR. Would you agree?

Artificial Intelligence is poised to be a game changer when it comes to solving workflow problems. In the not-too-distant future we can expect to see tools and softwares that handle processes such as interview scheduling, employee on boarding, and even the answering of basic HR questions. This will free up HR practitioners’ time and help them focus on more strategic and impactful areas. It will also ensure the human touch comes back as automation will never be able to provide what a human interaction can.

AI-powered technologies combined with human experience and judgment will definitely set successful companies apart. AI has the power to help organizations become even more people-centric, creating happier employees, reducing bias, enabling more valuable programmes, and allowing more time to focus on talent development. In other words, AI will help companies embrace the ‘Future of Work.’

What are the main issues facing the recruiting market?

Large organizations with sizeable workforces often struggle with recruitment challenges, as they require a wide spectrum of skills to be successful. The war for talent and the inability to find qualified professionals is one of the most pressing areas of concern and for many companies the biggest challenge facing businesses in 2019. This makes talent acquisition/recruitment demanding, difficult, time-consuming and costly for companies of all sizes. Common challenges include filtering CVs, low quality resumes, low ROI from job portals, managing timelines, offer dropouts, tighter hiring budgets all contributing to recruitment woes. Thus, there is a great need to solve these pressing issues faced by companies.

And where do HR tech startups offer their expertise?

Using the latest technology like AI and analytics, innovative HR tech startups today are in a unique position to build a range of products and solutions to make HR processes (such as talent acquisition) more efficient and cost-effective, smarter and faster. Some of these disruptive products and solutions are showing dramatic results and helping companies match the right job to the right candidate with great accuracy and speed thus impacting the revenue growth of a company.

"The benefit of the technology (AI, Robotics), is that it can learn the workers’ capability, help them understand best practice and help workers do higher-skilled jobs with higher quality, higher productivity, more effectively and efficiently"

What drew you to next-gen HR technology?

After completing my schooling and undergraduate studies in Bengaluru, I went on to pursue a post graduate degree in Information Systems and International Business from The University of Sydney, Australia. I worked at a startup there and then returned to India to follow my passion.

Prior to founding EdGE Networks, I worked with organizations such as SpeedERA Networks and Akamai Technologies, where I was responsible for building their India and international businesses. I also headed the sales function at Dexler Information Solutions to provide strategic direction in building the company.

My first venture was a digital learning platform to aid in creating industry ready and employable youngsters as I always felt that I have a social responsibility and must return significant value back to society. Though I failed at my maiden venture due to operational issues, I also realized there was tremendous need and scope for next-gen HR technology solutions that could help organizations build future-ready workforces. Looking at the rapid pace of change taking place in India and the world, it became clear to me that HR technology powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI), Data Science and Machine Learning would be the best route to enable workforce management and transformation.

AI coupled with analytics was gaining ground within the HR domain and the time was ripe to build HR solutions for large enterprises looking to take their workforce to the next level. From talent acquisition and workforce optimization to workforce transformation, AI can act as a strategic enabler for HR.

In short, the C-suite had begun to take notice and was asking HR to explore and evaluate HR technology seriously. Thus, what we decided to build and offer was the intelligence to power companies who are focused on the future. And we soon found this to be a very exciting space and without a doubt the future.

So that is how your entrepreneurial venture - edge networks private Limited was born?

Ours is an HR tech startup called EdGE Networks which I founded in 2012. We are a nextgen HR technology solutions provider, offering solutions to large organizations for their most pressing HR challenges. Our strength is in harnessing Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Data Science to solve the toughest talent acquisition, talent management, workforce optimization and talent transformation challenges faced by organizations.

Today, our clients are C-suite and HR leaders looking to staff projects with talented people, quickly and without having to rely on inefficient channels of recruitment and allocation. Additionally, our tools help employees and job seekers realize their career goals and aspirations, either within their organizations or outside.

Our unique value proposition to clients is that we use Natural Language Processing (NLP) Algorithms with a Data Science and AI-based approach to analyse job descriptions and profiles/ resumes and provide a scored and stack ranked set of people for the job in question.

This is further bolstered with our ability to do this for an internal workforce and to acquire talent from portals. We do this using advanced technology with minimum human intervention -the disruption we create is the value of time and accuracy, delivered consistently.

What kind of clients does edge networks private Limited cater to?

We work closely with enterprise customers to develop a product thesis that holds the core values of building the career journeys of employees and job seekers with a sense of realism.

Today, we engage deeply with our customers such as Wipro, HCL, NTT Data in the IT/ ITES vertical, Singtel in telecom, and HSBC in the BFSI vertical to understand the convergence across sectors as technology jobs get more pervasive. It has also won us global recognition and prestigious awards for our technology and offerings. In addition, we were selected for Google’s 4th edition of the Launchpad Accelerator Program and currently, we are a part of the Microsoft ScaleUp Program.

In your entrepreneurial journey, what kind of challenges did you face?

Initially, we were competing against the Oracles, Microsofts and LinkedIns of the world to acquire the intelligent hiring and workforce optimization business in one of India’s largest IT companies.

We almost failed as we had no customer reference and not many takers (for good reason). We managed to survive somehow.

Another challenge was investing too early in a sales team and assuming the market was ready for the package we offered. So we realized, the timing of your hiring is critical, cash flow and cash in the bank are critical; these are all valuable lessons we are learning from the challenges we faced.

"In terms of digital and AI skills, India is on par with the world and growing at a fast pace. With policies and the overall ecosystem becoming increasing conducive to enterprises and startups, we could expect accelerated growth in this space. There is significant investment in R&D around AI, SMAC and IoT"

Are Indian businesses open to develop and invest in futuristic technology?

In terms of digital and AI skills, India is on par with the world and growing at a fast pace. With policies and the overall ecosystem becoming increasing conducive to enterprises and startups, we could expect accelerated growth in this space. There is significant investment in R&D around AI, SMAC and IoT.

By virtue of our large population base, we enjoy the advantage of being a great test base for self-learning systems that require large datasets to achieve high levels of accuracy. We need to capitalise on this and leapfrog to the next level to become the AI capital of the world.

What is the percentage adoption of HR technologies by Indian companies?

A recent study by tech giant Microsoft says that AI adoption is expected to help double the rate of industrial innovation, and may result in over two times jump in employee productivity in India by 2021.

In 2018, a Teamlease report stated that tech adoption in core HR (administration, payroll and compliance and HR analytics) is over 75 per cent in 10 out of the 14 sectors surveyed, while, subfunction HR Tech adoption is 75 per cent or more in banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), business process outsourcing (BPO)/information technology enabled services (ITeS), e-commerce and telecommunication sectors.

Is there an increased investment in smarter HR technologies in India?

The HR tech industry is poised to be a $400 dollar industry and the funding activity in this space reflects this assumption. From an adoption perspective, more organizations (specifically the ones which are growing) have a larger appetite to try out newer HR tech solutions to support rapid business growth and efficiencies. It is also rapidly gaining importance in areas such as upskilling/ reskilling, tech-based recruitment and employee management services.

AI is poised to be a game-changer when it comes to solving many problems, including workflow problems. AI-powered technologies combined with human experience and judgment will definitely set successful companies apart. AI has the power to help organizations become even more people-centric — creating happier employees, reducing bias, enabling more valuable programmes, and allowing more time to focus on talent development. In other words, AI will help companies embrace the ‘Future of Work.’

What are your future plans?

We are working on ahead-of-the-curve products and a platform that will enable future-focused organizations to transform their talent and build workforces that are ready to take on the challenges of tomorrow. Looking at the rapid pace of change taking place in India and the world, it is clear to me that talent decisions powered by AI, Data Science and Machine Learning are the best route to enable workforce transformation for enterprises across the globe.

We are also expanding our global footprint and acquiring customers in the US and UK.

As an HR influencer, how do you make HR more appealing to the new generation?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is definitely the future. It is fast becoming the go-to technology across sectors like IT, retail, healthcare, HR, banking and finance, automobile, gaming and more. There is no doubt that the market for AI will flourish. Not only larger corporates but numerous startups too are betting big on AI to scale. Hence, for anyone looking to enter the job market, an understanding or openness to AI will serve as an advantage.

AI is a force that will drive the new employment economy. From talent acquisition and workforce optimization to workforce transformation, AI will act as a strategic enabler to HR and get them a seat at the strategy table.

As AI becomes a mainstream technology, many progressive companies are beginning to make major investments in AI. It will gradually become a key and an integrated component of an organizations success strategy and including a successful workforce strategy.

Do you create new content, to help drive the message of process improvement and talent management?

We create thought leadership content as well as industry-specific content that is available on our website and our social media platforms. I also present it at conferences and industry forums.

What else interests you?

Work-life balance is an important aspect of this journey and there are times when it can be difficult to manage. The goal for me is to maintain a healthy and fulfilling balance between my responsibilities at EdGE and managing my personal life. I used to play golf. However, now I do that once in two months with my buddies. Currently, I prefer to spend most of my free time with my kids and wife.

Is your family an inspiration for you to succeed?

My family has played a central role by always inspiring and encouraging me to take chances to build things that deliver value and impact the future in meaningful ways.