Using Internal Experts with AI - Countering the Shortage of Skilled Workers

Recruiting has changed dramatically in recent years - increased turnover, increased demands, increased competition, not to mention the general and ongoing shortage of skilled workers. One of the most important sources for filling positions is internal recruitment. AI can provide efficient support for internal recruitment efforts.

More and more companies are having difficulty finding suitable skilled workers. This situation is unlikely to change significantly in the near future, assuming the economic situation remains unchanged. One reason for this is the often-cited demographic change. For example, the retirement of the so-called baby boomers.

Therefore, a coordinated approach to the competencies of a company's own employees is becoming a critical success factor, both in the area of personnel selection and in personnel development and deployment. Unfortunately, very few companies have a strategy for this today; however, having a strategy in place can be a key element in countering the skilled worker shortage.

One great difficulty is that information about employees' knowledge is not accessible to everyone. For example, experience from previous employment and any additional qualifications or skills that are not directly related to the current job are only recorded in resumes or personnel documents. This is where artificial intelligence (AI) brings enormous benefits.

Using an insight engine, an ordinary search query will highlight the experts already available in the company on a specific topic quickly and presented in a comprehensive 360-degree view.

Insight Engines Illuminate Information

Insight engines, like Mindbreeze InSpire, can be implemented in companies easily and without a complex IT project. Experience shows that the introduction of the solution is initiated by a specific department, such as HR, and gradually rolled out across the entire company. Connectors are used to link all corporate data sources, such as HR systems, cloud services, intranets, databases, archives, or specialist applications.

Mindbreeze InSpire analyzes the data from various data sources and uses AI to interpret any correlations. Now, if a search is out for a specific qualification, the Insight Engine is able to extract precisely those people who meet the specific requirements. This may be someone who has already been involved in a similar project in the past, an employee who has the relevant knowledge from his or her previous job or training, or colleagues who are currently entering or adapting documents for the required qualifications. Furthermore, the solution provides context-relevant additional information such as certifications or publications. All results are available to users in personalized dashboards (360-degree views) within the scope of individual access rights.

Using Speech Recognition to Understand User Queries

In order for Insight Engines to understand both user queries and document content and then extract the required information from the volume of data, they use innovative technologies from the field of speech recognition. Natural Language Processing (NLP), as well as Natural Language Understanding (NLU), enables the system to understand natural language, interpret it correctly, and respond correctly.

The question "Which employee is familiar with data protection?" will provide the answer directly. Mindbreeze InSpire automatically recognizes the question word that is specifically being searched for (in this case, a person and not an object) and extracts only the information that was actually requested instead of an endless hit list.

Machine Learning, or more precisely, Deep Learning, ensures that the Insight Engine continuously learns from its users. Based on how employees work, their search and click behavior, and previous search queries, Mindbreeze can calculate the relevance of individual hits and create models known as relevance models.

In conclusion, insight engines are the ideal tools for identifying competencies and qualifications quickly and in a targeted manner. Instead of relying on external personnel, vacancies can often be filled with knowledge carriers already available internally. In this way, they reduce the pressure caused by the shortage of skilled workers and are able to (at least partially) cushion personnel shortages.