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7 benefits, best practices for AI in performance reviews
AI can help save time and bring other advantages to performance reviews, but reviews involve sensitive data, so HR must ensure their company is following best practices.
AI has potential for use with performance reviews, but HR leaders must ensure that their companies are following some best practices, as the technology comes with some potential pitfalls when it comes to a process as personal as an employee review.
Using AI for performance reviews can help managers and employees complete reviews more quickly as well as improve reporting. Some performance management systems have integrated AI, and companies can also purchase third-party AI tools.
Learn more about some of the benefits of using AI for performance reviews as well as necessary best practices.
4 benefits of using AI for performance reviews
AI can help managers refine their language for performance reviews and provide summaries, among other benefits. Learn more.
1. A faster process
Tools that offer autocomplete and autosuggest provide users with suggestions on word choice, spelling corrections and grammar fixes.
Managers and employees who use similar tools while writing their performance reviews can potentially complete their reviews more quickly because of the AI suggestions.
In addition, if a company uses the 360-degree method in which feedback is gathered from peers, AI can summarize peer and other feedback. While a manager can do this manually, reviewing all the feedback can be time-consuming.
2. Better wording
One common challenge of writing performance reviews is finding the right words to convey at-times delicate ideas about an employee's performance and conveying the manager's intent in a clear and consistent manner.
AI can recommend better wording and potentially provide suggestions on how to adjust the feedback to better align with the employee's overall rating. For example, if a manager writes text that the AI perceives as harsh language, but the employee's rating is a five out of five, AI might suggest that the manager change the text to align with the idea that the employee is performing well.
3. Improved reporting
AI can identify trends in performance data and provide a summary of that information. The AI data can help provide insight into overall employee performance. For example, AI can identify that all the employees in one department received positive performance reviews.
However, AI might encounter difficulty identifying trends because of the significant amount of text involved in performance reviews, especially in large organizations.
4. Clearer goals
AI can suggest recommendations for improving a draft of a goal when an employee is working on composing their yearly goals.
Having clear goals helps the employee know what is expected of them and simplifies the review process. Clearly defining employee goals could also help improve employee performance, since they will be more aware of the expectations that they need to meet.
3 best practices for using AI for performance reviews
AI can help save time and bring other advantages to the performance review process, but performance reviews involve very sensitive data, so HR leaders must ensure their company is following certain best practices to safeguard performance review information.
1. Confirm the quality of the AI feedback in the system
HR leaders should review the AI feedback being provided by software when their company is implementing a new performance review system or when the vendor is improving certain features.
Aspects of the feedback to examine include suggested wording, its reporting capabilities, and its highlighting of any trends. This review will help ensure that the AI is providing helpful feedback. For example, AI might determine that an employee's review is negative because it includes the words "not" and "never," but the manager might in fact be speaking positively about the employee's work.
2. Create rules for using AI in performance reviews
HR leaders should create rules for employee use of AI for performance reviews and review the rules with other company leaders.
Documenting specific rules helps avoid confusion and potential privacy issues that arise if a manager puts private employee data into an AI tool.
3. Train employees and managers
In addition to documenting AI usage rules, HR leaders should set up training for employees and managers for how to use AI in performance reviews.
The training can include potential uses for AI in performance reviews and a review of the rules along with the reasoning behind them, so employees and managers are cautious about how they use AI.
Eric St-Jean is an independent consultant with a particular focus on HR technology, project management and Microsoft Excel training and automation. He writes about numerous business and technology areas.
