How AI Can Put the “Human” Back into Human Resources

Since the rise of SaaS capabilities, enterprise organizations have been focused on HR transformation, which has ultimately also been a technology transformation. This transformation started as organizations began large-scale adoption of ERPs. For many, this meant implementing a robust HRIS alongside service management software to automate and scale what are considered transactional or administrative HR tasks and requests.

These typical requests include questions like “What’s this deduction on my paycheck?” or “How do I add a dependent to my health insurance?” While employees find these extremely important, for most HR professionals they become another “to-do.” The typical HR-to-employee ratio can be something like 1:500 or 1,000+ employees. So, it made a lot of sense to democratize and create self-service capabilities for these types of questions and administrative tasks.

In addition, as mergers and acquisitions became the primary growth strategy over the past three decades, they enabled top-line revenue growth while reducing bottom-line expenses. In other words, maximize EBITDA.

The flip side to automation and self-service is that HR’s value to the organization becomes increasingly tied to its skilled professionals—those who know how to navigate complex human relationships and the legal landscape of employee relations. Avoiding costly lawsuits and keeping the workforce engaged requires consistent human interaction and regular coaching conversations across all management levels. Unfortunately, the byproduct of technology automation is less human interaction. Post-HR transformations, most managers and employees find it almost impossible to have a human conversation with an HR professional—and many don’t even know a human to contact. Most are told to put in a ticket for any type of support, even complex employee relations issues—YIKES!

So how would yet another layer of technology like AI brings the human back into the workplace?

Upwork published an article in January 2024 titled “120 Jobs That AI Won’t Replace.” Additionally, in Josh Bersin’s 2022 article, “We Are Becoming a Power Skills Economy,” he argued that the hardest jobs to automate or augment with AI are those that rely on social and communication skills. Both articles reinforce what we’re currently seeing in the labor market: knowledge worker jobs are experiencing layoffs, while service- and sales-oriented jobs in retail, hospitality, and healthcare remain in demand.

Now, more than ever, is an opportunity for HR to prioritize reskilling and upskilling the workforce in human-centric skills. These skills, unsurprisingly, include:

• Verbal Communication

• Empathy

• Active Listening

• Negotiation

• Influence

• Agility

The good news for HR professionals is that these skills are our bread and butter. This is what led many of us into the profession—a knack for navigating tough conversations, negotiating salaries and offers, and influencing people at all levels of the organization.

The promise of AI—and the capabilities it offers to automate the right types of HR tasks—can allow us to spend more time creating customized, value-added solutions for managers and employees. Instead of building cookie-cutter processes that, while scalable, don’t always meet the needs of diverse audiences, HR can focus on people.

Remember, HR exists in the gray—it never was, and never will be, a black-and-white function. Humans are neither binary nor predictable.

Some examples of how AI could help HR professionals bring more human touches into their work:

Most organizations run annual (or bi-annual) engagement surveys. Often, results are shared with managers—who are then left to figure out how to improve engagement within their teams. Ironically, in many cases, it’s the manager who is contributing to the lack of engagement in the first place.

And let’s face it—people are survey fatigued (no more surveys, please). Those who do respond may feel pressured to participate or use it as a venue to express resentment. Rarely does an engagement survey offer a truly balanced view of employee sentiment.

What’s more, HR professionals often lack the time to dig into results and hold follow-up focus groups to understand the nuances. My team once tackled a critical turnover issue in our networking department. Initially, we presumed it was due to low pay during the war for technical talent. But after conducting multiple focus groups, we discovered that the dissatisfaction stemmed from a cultural clash between full-time employees and subcontracted vendor staff. The conflict was rooted in differing work standards and expectations.

After uncovering this, we were no longer seen as the “evil HR ladies.” Instead, we were invited to attend team meetings to help solve other human issues. In the era of AI, perhaps my team could have optimized its time by using sentiment analysis to identify the root cause much faster.

Unless you’re a facilitator or trainer, many L&D roles—like instructional designers or learning system administrators—tend to operate internally, with little interaction with the broader workforce.

L&D is often one of the first budgets cut in tough economic times. CFOs often struggle to quantify the value of these roles to the organization—especially during downturns.

Leadership development programs usually focus on high-potential employees, with access to 360 assessments, executive coaching, or specialized training. Meanwhile, average employees must often pursue growth on their own time and dime.

Yet research shows that when employees are trained in key skills, productivity and business outcomes improve. There’s also a strong correlation between engagement, retention, and the ability to grow a career (and income) internally.

Advancements in AI open a world of opportunities for L&D professionals to shift from content creators to employee and leader coaches. Imagine an L&D expert focusing their time on helping people apply newly acquired skills on the job through coaching and mentoring. In healthcare, newly hired nurses have a clinical mentor (preceptor) for their first year. What if newly promoted managers had their own preceptor for their first year in the role? AI can scale leadership development so every employee—not just the high potentials—has the chance to learn and grow.

Let’s face it—no one enjoys this process. Even the HR administrator tasked with chasing down reviews dreads it. In regulated industries, it’s often a compliance exercise. For managers, it’s a legal safeguard when making tough employment decisions.

But very few organizations use performance management strategically—to execute business plans and support development.

A few years ago, the pendulum swung toward eliminating performance reviews. But employees didn’t like that either. It removed one of the only structured opportunities to have a formal career conversation with their manager. It turns out managers aren’t great at giving regular feedback—no matter how often we train or remind them.

AI is already helping accelerate performance review writing, which is great. The real value, after all, is in the conversation—not the form. Just make sure AI isn’t over-embellished or biased, and that a human reviews the output to ensure fairness and accuracy.

But what employees and managers want most is a fair, consistent, and strategic process. One that lets them contribute to organizational direction, set shared goals, and create mutual accountability. Imagine if HR stopped running a process—and started delivering an experience. As an HR business partner, you could meet regularly with managers to review goals, identify blockers, celebrate wins, and coach them to unlock their team’s potential.

Here’s the thing about goals: if people don’t believe they can achieve them, they won’t. Monetary incentives can drive short-term behavioral change, but even a large carrot can’t compensate for a lack of skills or self-belief.

In summary, the gift that AI gives all of us is time. At first, we may not know what to do with it—we’ve been so heads-down doing the “thing” that we haven’t stopped to ask how we’d want to spend our time if we had more of it.

More time means more presence—with colleagues, with employees, with family. And more presence is what brings the “human” back to human resources.

Try this exercise: take 5–10 minutes and jot down how you’d change your role at work if you had more time. What would you start doing? What would you stop? What would you focus on that actually feeds your purpose?

Ready to leverage AI to get time back for more meaningful and strategic work?
Download our eBook, “How HR Leaders Can Translate AI’s Promise into Results,” to explore actionable strategies that connect AI innovation with measurable HR impact.