A NEW legal obligation emerges for every HR professional, under the EU AI Act: transparency. In this article we explore how HR professionals must adapt to stay compliant and protect their employer against severe penalties and reputational loss.
Is AI transparency relevant to HR?
Yes, absolutely. AI features are at the core of how HR professionals and teams work today. But AI-powered efficiency and speed come with new obligations and transparency is one of them.
Why are HR activities under the microscope, you might wonder? Because access to work is a guaranteed fundamental human right. Therefore legislators need to make sure people are fairly treated in the process. With biases and other unresolved technical and societal issues AI systems still have, in this critical field, additional care is required.
Below are some examples of how AI is involved in the recruiting activities.
- placing targeted job posting,
- screening CVs,
- matching candidate profiles with job descriptions,
- scoring, comparing and ranking candidates,
- summarizing cover letters or even
- automatically drafting an acceptance/ rejection justification
- summarizing video interviews and scoring the answers of a candidate
- analyzing biometric data (voice, facial expressions) and predict personality traits or likelihood to succeed in a job
- AI avatars playing the interviewer (something very creepy in my opinion)
Transparency differs for deployer and provider
The deployer is the user of an AI system in the course of a professional activity.
Let’s look at an example. The HR department is using LinkedIn Recruiter to post job openings and contact potential candidates. This makes your company a deployer of an AI system. Furthermore, the AI system is considered high-risk because of the societal context in which it is being used: recruiting.(Annex III AI Act)
To be a provider you must either:
– supply an AI system on the EU market
– supply an AI system to a customer to be used (in the EU) for the first time
– or supply an AI system for own use in the EU (an AI used in-house)
Consider the following scenario. The IT department developed an internal tool to assist the HR department with recruiting. Consequently, your company would now wear two hats. Firstly that of a provider because it developed and put in use the AI system. Secondly that of a deployer because it uses the AI system. Hence, this requires compliance with the obligations of both provider and deployer.
What is AI Act transparency obligation in HR?
As a company using an AI system in HR, that is a deployer, transparency translates to the obligations below.
- You must inform the workers’ representatives and the affected workers that they will be subject to the use of a high-risk AI system.
- You must inform the candidates that they are subject to the use of a high-risk AI system when recruiting. It can be to assists or makes a decision in the process.
How to ensure AI transparency in HR
Transparency in how AI is used within the HR department isn’t achieved overnight. On the contrary, it is something you build gradually through patience, intention and a strong framework. Below are the five key steps that will fundamentally transform how every HR professional works and communicates in the age of AI.
- CONFUSION around AI becomes CLARITY
- FEAR of AI becomes CONFIDENCE
- ISOLATION becomes COLLABORATION
- RELUCTANCE becomes PRO-ACTIVENESS
- SECRECY around AI use becomes TRANSPARENCY
First step towards transparency is AI literacy
Over 90% of Forbes 500 companies admit using AI in the recruiting process.
80% of the candidates would like to be informed when, but most importantly how AI systems contribute to the hiring process.
But HR agencies and recruiters fail the transparency test around AI usage.
Why? Because they lack understanding of the AI technologies they use. It doesn’t come as a surprise that without an understanding of the technology and of how decisions are made, the output of that technology can’t be trusted.
But this is slowly changing.
AI Literacy is Linkedin's hot skill on the rise
HR professionals and not only, are seeing the importance of AI and closing the gap!
Register for our AI Literacy Course and make the first steps to future proof your career.
Link HERE.
Another article which is a great source if you want to read more general information about how the AI Act is impacting HR: CLICK HERE.