Artificial intelligence is unlocking new productivity in human resources, including in translation. Learn the value of tapping into the “AI + human” formula.
Some people are excited about artificial intelligence (AI). In human resources, proponents talk about a “new era” of higher-quality outcomes, tools for innovation, and enhanced employee and jobseeker experiences. Some claim that AI-powered HR chatboxes empower employees with fast answers and self-service support. Is it all true?
There are success stories
Google’s Project Oxygen used AI to identify the characteristics of effective managers within the organization so that specific training programs and feedback mechanisms could be developed to promote those characteristics among their other managers. Google’s size no doubt made this more feasible.
AI is extensively used in recruitment. Johnson & Johnson had it identify unconscious bias in their job listings and scored a 9% uptick in female applicants by eliminating language that showed a masculine tilt. Many companies also use AI to screen résumés, boosting productivity.
And there are not-so-successful stories
In a survey of more than 2,250 business leaders in the US, UK, and Germany by Harvard Business School professor Joe Fuller, 88% of executives said that they knew their AI recruitment tools were rejecting qualified applicants. Algorithms may weed out candidates because of perfectly explainable gaps on their résumés or because they are missing one or two skills on a needlessly long list.
It’s all about the data
It’s important to remember that AI is data driven. It mines vast databases in search of meaningful patterns it can apply to real-world decision making. That means things can go wrong if the data is not ideal. Amazon trained its résumé screener tool on the résumés of existing staff, who skewed heavily male, only to discover that the tool began downgrading applicants with the word “women” on their résumés, such as “women’s soccer team.” When a fix didn’t work, the tool was discontinued.
Employee privacy is an issue
Another issue is privacy. Much of the data in HR is personal. Before creating or rolling out systems that collect and use such data, it’s important to make sure it’s secure and that you have addressed privacy concerns. You need to let people know what you’re doing and give them a say in how you do it.
While it has drawbacks, AI has great potential. It can turbocharge productivity and accomplish things that were unthinkable only a few short years ago. But it’s a tool, and like any tool, it has to be used with the discernment that only humans can bring to the table.
Tap into the “AI + human” formula
One field where the “AI + human” formula is paying huge dividends is translation, a regular requirement of large HR departments. Before the advent of AI, people tried for years to get machines to translate, with varying degrees of success. Now with large language models and vast computing power, that goal has come into focus. Better yet, there’s no need to wait for theoretical future benefits—they’re already here today.
The best place to start is TRSB, a technology leader and Canada’s largest translation company:
- Our HR neural translation engine is trained on decades of professional HR translations—we’ve been in the business for nearly 40 years!
- We pair this state-of-the-art tool with human HR translation specialists, who edit the machine output line by line.
- The result is faster, lower-cost translations with no compromise to quality.
- As a crucial added benefit, we perform all this work in a highly secure online environment that keeps all your data confidential.
TRSB has a multilingual division whose worldwide network of prevetted linguists translate into all the world’s major languages (more than 100 last year!). It is also the global leader in Canadian French.
