Chatbots will be key for 1 in 4 digital professionals by 2021

This article was written and published in Spanish and has been translated into English via Google Translate. Click here to read the original article.

Conversational technologies have begun to stop being a tool of the future to occupy a prominent place in some key processes such as recruitment, given the growing difficulty that organizations claim to find when filling certain vacancies due to the gap of talent that exists in the current labor market.

Only in 2018, nearly 70% of the companies had difficulties in filling a job. In fact, a study carried out by ManpowerGroup revealed that 45% of the 39,195 executives from 43 countries surveyed said they could not find the skills they need. A percentage that rose in the case of large companies (over 250 employees) to stand at 67%.

The figures released by the professional services company, endorse the complex moment for which passes the recruitment at present, which must face not only the existing talent gap, but the high competitiveness that has arisen at the time to attract those profiles that will be key to responding to the challenges that the digital age brings.

However, technological development has also allowed incorporating some advantages to those organizations that have invested in new systems and tools. This is the case of chatbots or digital assistants, whose application in human resources improved the attention that applicants receive during a recruitment process.

At a time when 43% of professionals would prefer to be rejected before not receiving any information about their candidacy for a job, according to data from Potentialpark, which also sets the dropout rate at 80% and the average time that professionals take to fill out a form in 40 minutes, the use of conversational technologies has facilitated the resolution of those doubts.

This advance in the contact that is automatically established between the employer and talent has become key now, according to Adecco, 65% of candidates follow brands on social networks to keep abreast of their job offers, and given that 37% confirm that they would recommend looking for a job in that company that provides a good candidate experience, according to Career Builder.

But the use of virtual conversational assistants goes further and, in fact, Gartner's forecasts suggest that by 2021, 25% of digital workers (one in four) will use chatbots in their daily performance. In addition, the consultancy highlights the role that artificial intelligence will play in the expansion of the use of these tools and calculates that by 2023, 25% of employees' interactions with applications will be carried out through voice, compared to the scant 3% of this type of interactions expected for 2019.

These forecasts are also supported by Oracle, which sees digital assistants as "the next step in the employee experience." This is confirmed by the commercial director of HCM for Oracle Iberia, Eduardo Martínez, who besides saving time and costs, highlights other benefits linked to its use, such as increasing the commitment of candidates, employees, HR professionals and the company in its set.

"Conventional robots, which are used to manage data and offer customized solutions, are allowing voice to become an instrument for managing employees' experience," he says.

Despite this, a study published by AI in the Workplace and Future Workplace indicated that while more than 90% of professionals said they would trust the orders of a robot at work, only 6% of human resources professionals are deploying AI in your organization. In addition, Martinez warns that 86% of companies do not yet have analytical capabilities in their HR applications, according to data from various consultants, offered by Oracle during the HR Analytics event, held in Madrid, with the collaboration HR Certification Institute and 2mProgress. A problem to be solved given that the volume of data will be multiplied by 50 in this area until the year 2020.

In this sense, Martinez defends the bet that companies must make for predictive analytics, in order to "create models for the retention and development of talent", thus allowing "organizations to be Data Driven, that is, to put the data at the center of its strategy, also in the area of ​​Human Resources."

According to figures released on the day, a Data Driven organization in Human Resources improves the quality of candidates for a selection process by more than 10% and saves costs significantly. At the same time there are other benefits such as reducing unwanted turnover and absenteeism. Thus, having a technological tool that allows to generate, in an agile way, updated reports on the situation of corporate talent can, for example, reduce turnover, which can fall to 48% from 84% or decrease the rate of absenteeism of employees from 9% to 4%, according to the models presented.

This article was written and published in Spanish and has been translated into English via Google Translate. Click here to read the original article.

Join us in Miami Beach, June 5-7 for the Global Online Marketplaces Summit.