AI in HR: The benefits, risks, and rules for HR leaders

AI is increasingly becoming an inevitable part of the workplace environment, offering employers and HR teams new ways to operate, manage information, and work at a more efficient pace.

In a recent episode of The Legal Brief, Jerome Doraisamy was joined by Kingston Reid partner Michael Stutley to talk about the growing roles of AI in workplace decision making, investigations, and people management.

Stutley noted how organisations can make the most of AI without handing over the human judgement that remains critical to workplace decisions.

Spanning internal inquiries and general protection matters to automated bias, privacy considerations, and confidential staff data, the discussion highlighted where artificial intelligence provides value and where prudence remains essential.

Stutley also identified the practical, “golden rules” for ethical use, protecting source documents, de-identifying information and creating clear governance around approved AI systems.

AI at work: Getting the correct balance

As AI becomes more common in the workplace, the key challenge for HR is discovering the middle ground between embracing its benefits and keeping humans in the loop.

“There shouldn’t be a fear of engaging with AI. AI can provide enormous benefits to HR practitioners or any professionals, really. But where we need to be cautious is this shift ... to outsourcing entirely your judgement,” Stutley said.

“There should be a human in the loop at every stage when you’re using AI.

“And the reason you need a human in the loop is because you need to be able to withstand external scrutiny later on.”

Ultimately, Stutley recognised that AI should complement human expertise, rather than replace it.

“AI is here to stay, we can engage with it responsibly and it can be a very effective tool, but that’s it, it’s a tool,” he said.

“Use it as a tool or as a colleague to assist you in that process, but don’t completely outsource your role in terms of making findings.

“It’s not going to replace human judgement.”

The risk behind AI

Along with the numerous opportunities, AI does bring an abundance of significant risks, especially regarding trusting its answers and dealing with sensitive workplace information, Stutley alluded.

“It’s really new versions of old risks rather than entirely new legal risks. And it’s a lot of things that existed,” Stutley said.

“The problem with that is that if you rely on it as being the truth without verifying ... then the problem is you’re going to misplace your trust.

“The one question that I always ask is not what did the AI tell you?

“What information did you give the AI? Because that’s the critical distinction here.”

To mitigate these exposure points, organisations must establish explicit guidelines governing acceptable AI usage and the boundaries of data sharing.

“You really need to have established governance rules; there needs to be an understanding, a policy across an organisation about what is the acceptable use of AI,” Stutley said.

“It doesn’t need to be detailed, but it does need to be an understanding, a policy across an organisation about what is the acceptable use of AI, what are the approved systems that we are going to use?”

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