Chatbots: An Internal Knowledge Source for Employees

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Whether you’ve adopted them or not, the use of chatbots by customer service teams is projected to grow by 136% in the coming months. The news isn’t surprising, considering 68% of service professionals at organizations using AI chatbots say their teams have seen reduced call and email volume.

Applied to the HR landscape, chatbots can be very effective at engaging and converting candidates on your career site due to their convenience and ease of use. In fact, among Phenom customers, 40% of job seekers who have interacted with our chatbot have become leads.

The best recruiting chatbots can seamlessly handle many types of interactions, like searching for jobs, initiating the apply process, screening candidates, scheduling interviews, and answering frequently asked questions (FAQs). And companies are doing more than taking notice. Nearly two-thirds of respondents to a Korn Ferry survey say AI has changed the way recruiting is done at their organization—and 69% claim using AI as a sourcing tool garners higher-quality candidates.

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Read more about the evolution of recruiting chatbots

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But have you thought about how to use a chatbot internally to better serve your employees?

Employers may fear the impact of a non-human touchpoint between their HR department and their employees. But they shouldn’t. Regardless of whose experience they’re being used to enhance, chatbots are meant to work alongside people, alleviating transactional duties so workers can dedicate more time to complex skills and areas like employee evolution.

Here are three reasons why you should consider an internal chatbot to support your employee experience and drive internal mobility goals. Internal chatbots can:

1. Provide quick answers to common employee questions

Distributed information is the bane of most organizations. From healthcare benefits to product pricing, employees often waste significant amounts of time searching for answers to a variety of commonly asked questions. This is a drain on the efficiency of an organization, especially as more people get involved in the search and recovery process.

A chatbot can eliminate duplicated efforts and serve as the go-to source of information for employees when they need it. Whether embedded in an internal employee portal or also integrated directly into existing messaging channels—think Slack, Google Hangouts, Microsoft Teams, etc.— a chatbot can provide a wealth of knowledge in one central location. Once a luxury, teams are now used to chat apps that help streamline company communication, and a chatbot can level up the organization of that information with speed and convenience.

Directing your employees to use a chatbot to get answers to their questions also gives the added benefit of identifying existing knowledge gaps. Since chatbot adoption depends on how well the chatbot answers employees’ questions, you should monitor the questions coming in to see if there is information employees are seeking but unable to find. Then you can easily create new content to answer those questions, establishing a feedback loop that allows you to stay in touch with what your employees care about most.

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How can you monitor employee questions? Find out how in this blog post

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2. Simplify and streamline employee referrals

Your employees are a great source of talent, and their networks can be extremely valuable when searching for best-fit candidates. Unfortunately, most employees don’t know how to make referrals to open positions within their company. In fact, many are unaware of available internal job opportunities, period.

A chatbot is a convenient way for employees to refer colleagues or friends, and it allows them to do so in a few simple steps. Traditionalists may ask, “Why can’t I just use a form to collect referrals?” The reality is that forms take longer to find, fill out, and secure in the right person’s hands.

The 24/7 availability of chatbots makes employees more likely to use them for tasks like referrals, which people often like to complete on their own time. Again, integrating the chatbot within an existing company-wide messaging channel makes the process even more seamless, driving engagement and user adoption.

3. Increase employee engagement and loyalty

In addition to facilitating referrals, chatbots can help existing employees find new jobs for themselves. With more companies prioritizing internal mobility, chatbots are another tool companies can leverage to automate as much of the process as possible.

Whether employees are interested in changing departments or seeking a promotion, a chatbot can enable them to search specific positions or project-based work within the company and even recommend jobs that fit their background. Being able to passively or actively research internal opportunities without first involving management encourages employees to spread their wings rather than fear potential fall-outs with bosses and co-workers.

If an employee chooses to move forward with a new position, the chatbot can offer automated screening and scheduling, enabling the talent acquisition team to spend more time on the tasks that require a human touch, such as strategic assessments, ethics management, personal interviews, negotiations, and employee evolution. These are the soft skills that, when refined, can really make a difference at companies who prioritize strong core values and an inspiring work culture.

When used appropriately, chatbots can go a long way toward improving the employee experience by increasing productivity and engagement and creating a deeper connection with your organization.

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Interested in learning how a chatbot can improve your employee experience? Request a demo today!