Is AI the Performance Review Partner We’ve Always Wanted?

What do you get when you combine collagen from cowhide and polymers from the cartilage of sharks? Bioengineered artificial skin that has saved the lives of thousands of people around the world. Jointly developed by engineer and physical chemist Ioannis Yannas and physician John F. Burke, who initially partnered in 1969 to create a human skin alternative that could resist rejection and infection to help victims of severe burns, artificial skin was successfully used in human trials as early as the late 1970s. The skin they created, which was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1996 and initially marketed as Integra, mimics the layers of human skin and even helps promote human skin cell growth.With demand for organ donations exceeding availability, artificial skin created a reliable life-saving alternative that the medical community can depend on in dire situations. Artificial alternatives aren’t only useful in emergencies, though. Businesses are finding that artificial intelligence (AI) can enhance employee reviews and boost an organization’s performance and productivity. Employee Responses to AI-Assisted ReviewsA growing number of businesses are turning to AI to help make employee evaluations fairer and more balanced. According to Gartner, 85% of businesses plan to incorporate AI into performance reviews. Surprisingly, employees are receptive to this change, despite ongoing fears that many jobs could be lost to AI. What helps is that AI is being used to supplement managers’ oversight and reviews of employees, not as a replacement. According to the findings of a study from the University of New Hampshire recently published in the Journal of Information Systems, employees who are leery about unfair treatment or bias on the part of managers welcome the inclusion of AI in employee reviews, believing it will add needed objectivity. In fact, the study found that 4.66 out of 7 people who anticipated bias from a supervisor view AI evaluation to be more trustworthy than human reviews. Meanwhile, employees who expect a positive bias from a manager to help them win a more favorable evaluation prefer human evaluations over AI (5.08 out of 7 people). Organizations using AI to assist with evaluations have already seen favorable results. In some instances, organizations have even been able to identify negative trends that have led to important cultural changes within their businesses, such as the realization that female employees were interrupted twice as frequently as their male colleagues. Benefits of AI-Assisted ReviewsThe benefits of AI-assisted evaluations include efficiency, accuracy, and fairness, enabling individuals charged with employee evaluations to more quickly gather pertinent data for reviews. Getting AI involved in the process can also ensure that the information managers use to make decisions represents an employee’s overall performance — both accomplishments and weaknesses — across an entire review period. AI can also help managers with larger teams identify which individuals contribute the most compared to their peers. This ability can help level the playing field for employees who may be less vocal about their achievements. The inclusion of AI in employee reviews can also help managers and employees establish clearer goals and create tangible plans detailing how and where individuals can improve their performance. Instead of the traditional approach where managers are asked to review the performance of individual employees at the end of the year or at set intervals, AI can assist managers in providing ongoing check-ins with employees throughout the year and can establish goals based on people’s individual job descriptions. Using real work data, AI can also prompt managers about potential problems so that suggestions can be made and improvements implemented in real-time. When shifts such as market changes occur, AI can adjust employee goals and expectations accordingly. The Lasting Impact of AI-Assisted Reviews Another study found that the incorporation of AI into performance reviews can result in a 12.9% improvement in employee performance. Factoring AI into employee evaluations can also assist with employee satisfaction rates. Research from Betterworks shows a 90% satisfaction rate among both managers and employees after implementing an AI-assisted performance management system. AI systems can also help identify skill gaps where employees may need additional development or training that may be overlooked by managers, which can help position employees for future advancement and boost job satisfaction. Despite workers’ fears that AI could eventually replace them in their roles, organizations are finding that many employees are open to the inclusion of AI in employee reviews. Incorporating AI into employee evaluations can help eliminate bias on the part of managers, reduce the time needed to pull together information for individual reviews, provide greater clarity about an individual’s strengths and weaknesses, and can even help organizations identify biases they may be unaware of. All of these benefits can transform your employee performance review process enough to boost satisfaction and retention.