AI’s dual impact on Singapore’s HR landscape

While many HR leaders are already leveraging on AI, many reserve concerns over the ethical use of AI in their industry.
By: | August 18, 2023
Topics: Digital Transformation | Employee Experience | HR Technology | Leadership | Learning and Development | News | Singapore | Talent Management

The integration of AI in HR is generating both enthusiasm and unease among HR leaders in Singapore.

While 65% of HR leaders in Singapore expressed concern about AI’s ethical use in HR practices, 98% acknowledge their HR systems already leverage AI, with 83% seeing AI as a time-saving tool.

In Employment Hero’s The SuperHuman: AI Adoption, Shaping the Future of HR report, 77% of respondents listed the benefits of AI as including improved employee self-service (35%), better employee performance and productivity (32%), and enhanced HR analytics (27%). AI is also streamlining HR tasks, including trend identification (47%), content creation (40%), task automation (36%), and compliance monitoring (36%).

However, worries persist. Top concerns include employee privacy (37%), lack of transparency (26%), and absence of AI governance principles. Furthermore, 73% of HR leaders surveyed support the notion of temporarily pausing ambitious AI developments within the HR domain.

Kevin Fitzgerald, Managing Director Asia at Employment Hero, said, “While AI serves as an assistant in HR processes, it by no means replaces the human elements of people management. Rather than automating every process, AI should be used to streamline the manual, tedious aspects of HR processing. With more time back in the day, organisations can then focus on the more people-centric aspects of the job, and on other revenue-driving initiatives.”

READ MORE: Employment Hero’s Swag empowers SMEs to win the talent war

Fitzgerald further underlined the importance of balancing the benefits and concerns of AI integration in HR and urged employers to prioritise education and learning initiatives within their workforce to ensure ethical and successful AI use.

“Used successfully, AI can support businesses in many ways, and most importantly, allow employees to spend more time on tasks that still require a human touch, such as people management, recruitment, and company culture,” he concluded.