Adam S. Forman, Member of the Firm in the Employment, Labor & Workforce Management practice, in the firm’s Detroit and Chicago offices, was quoted in SHRM, in “How HR Is Using Virtual Chat and Chatbots,” by Lin Grensing-Pophal.
Following is an excerpt:
Chatbots can play a role in augmenting or even replacing person-to-person interactions between employees (or potential employees) and HR staff.
More HR leaders are considering and adopting conversational AI technology. In fact, Gartner has predicted that by 2023, 75 percent of HR inquiries will be initiated through conversational AI platforms.
HR is an area of the company that is well-positioned to benefit from the power of technology to handle administrative types of tasks that can free up their time to focus on more strategic opportunities. AI-enabled data use cases include candidate competency assessments, interview scheduling, candidate engagement, employee self-service tools, virtual assistants, onboarding, employee career planning, candidate sourcing and initial screenings. …
Chatbot Use Cases in HR
Adam Forman is a labor and employment attorney at Epstein Becker Green, based in the firm's Chicago and Detroit offices. He says chatbots can do more than answer basic HR questions.
"Some employers use chatbots to facilitate online artificial intelligence assessments for employment candidates. Other employers use chatbots to identify job openings, submit online applications and schedule in-person interviews. Employers also use chatbots to handle onboarding activities for new hires, such as immigration and tax documentation, company policies, etc." …
A Point of Caution …
Forman agrees and added: "Chatbots that are able to 'red flag' and escalate potentially complicated employment issues for human response work best." In addition, he recommended audits or periodic spot checks "to ensure proper and compliant functionality of the chatbot."
Best Practice Considerations
Forman stressed the importance of understanding exactly how the technology works, including its limitations. "Start with a beta test and analyze before going live enterprisewide. Identify business objectives and take steps to eliminate, or at least reduce potential exposure, to legal compliance issues. To the extent all legal risks cannot be eliminated, make sure the organization is comfortable with the risk it is assuming."
Forman also advised working with the vendor to craft "a master service agreement that will permit the organization to comply with all its legal and regulatory obligations and that addresses the roles and obligations of the parties in the event of litigation."
