Can AI Rat You Out To Your Boss?

If you’re having a bad day or didn’t get enough sleep last night, you might be able to fly under the radar. However, new machine learning and artificial intelligence tools could be peeking over your shoulder and informing your boss about a subpar performance.

AI is increasingly becoming a part of the modern workplace, from chatbots answering customers’ questions to HR programs that can screen applicants based on previous hiring decisions. There are also systems capable of evaluating worker productivity that an HR department would otherwise keep track of across tens of spreadsheets and emails. These nascent AI systems can track human productivity very closely and they will only get more insightful as they become more advanced.

Nintex Hawkeye is a process automation program that’s been with us for at least a decade. However, this technology has become a very powerful tool in recent years, giving companies a most incisive view into their staffers’ productivity. The platform assesses information on company operations by types, users, jobs and departments to find out who’s doing what and how long it takes for them to do it. Through Hawkeye, management can track and evaluate its metrics in real time.

On-boarding is one common process where Hawkeye can provide particularly useful insight. A basic HR platform can comb through data on every new hire being on-boarded to ascertain how long that operation took, how long it took to approve the hire and where the best applicants can be found. Hawkeye can offer more insight on the process by considering more detailed metrics, such as the staffing personnel behind a hire and the characteristics of a good worker at the 30-day mark.

AI still has significant limits

While its clear AI is getting good at spotting subpar performances, you shouldn’t worry about submitting to your robot overlords just yet.

Hawking and programs like it are valuable when it comes to spotting connections that human managers might overlook or not have the time to uncover. Where these programs fall short is when it comes to considering context and other human factors. For instance, if a worker recently experienced the death of a loved one, their productivity at work may slip, but only the most callous supervisor would call them out in their time of mourning.

Also, relying too much on an all-seeing, automated program may not sit well with workers, who may feel their employer doesn’t trust them to do their job. Workers would be right to point out that an AI program can’t know every single detail and factor that goes into doing their job.

Currently, AI programs like Hawkeye are best used to spot patterns and have more informed conversations.

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