AI for human resources: concrete uses

In human resources the question that separates a quiet use of AI from a regulated one is not about technology: it is about whether the system decides something about a person, or simply respond and organize. On the one hand there is a large territory made up of recurring questions, documents to be prepared, procedures to be found. On the other an area where the norm asks for precise guarantees before it even begins.

The two areas do not weigh equally in an SME. The first one has value almost everywhere, because the staff office is often one person who also does other things. The second makes sense only with volumes that today most Italian companies do not.

The questions that the staff office always feels the same

In every company there are a small number of questions that go back to infinity, and that today interrupt those who deal with staff several times a day.

• "How many vacation days do I have?", "how do I ask for a permit?", "what is the procedure for..."
• Drafts of letters, internal communications, service notes to be prepared quickly
• Search in contracts, regulations and procedures scattered between different files
• Summary of a circular or legislation, with what it changes in practice
• Materials for inserting those who enter for the first time

The first point is the one with the fastest return. The recurring questions are a few dozen and come back all the time: an assistant connected to the company regulations absorbs almost all of them, with the mechanism described in RAG: what is it. The condition for it to work is that the regulation exists in writing and up-to-date, which is not yet true in many SMEs.

Where the rule asks for guarantees before leaving

Here the picture changes sharply. Annex III of Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, the AI Act, classifies as high risk AI systems for employment and management of workers: those used to hire or select people, and those that affect conditions of the relationship, promotion, termination, assignment of tasks on behavior or personal traits, or surveillance and performance assessment.

The last line deserves a different attention from the other three: it is not just additional obligations, but a border that in some cases cannot be crossed. Before evaluating software that promises to read people's climate or mood, you need to understand exactly what that promise is based on.

There is then an obligation that applies regardless of the level of risk: when an automated system affects the assignment of tasks, the management or termination of the relationship, the Art. 1-bis of Legislative Decree 152/1997 requires to inform the person before the start of the activity, explaining logic and data used. And if the system comes to a decision based solely on automated processing with significant effects on a person, the Art. 22 of the GDPR: the person has the right to human intervention, to express his position and to contest the decision.

What changes below and above fifty employees

The right column begins to make economic sense over fifty or a hundred people, depending on the sector and how many cases it treats each year. Below that threshold, the cost of the project and the fulfillments it brings with it does not pay off, and you end up managing with the structure of the high risk a number of cases that you could follow by hand in an afternoon.

The reason is not just technical: criteria to be written before starting, human review to be organized, periodic checks to be carried out are a fixed cost, which exists even if the cases to be dealt with are few. It is the same reason why a small studio does not install a video surveillance system with automatic analysis to control two gates: the compliance requirement weighs the same, the benefit does not.

Two companies, two different HR projects

An associated study with forty people among partners and collaborators. An internal assistant linked to the regulation and procedures absorbs most of the recurring applications that come to the administration today. Minimal risk, no particular obligation other than clear disclosure: it is the HR project that I would recommend first to almost anyone, regardless of the sector.

A manufacturing group with multiple plants and frequent seasonal hiring. The volume of applications justifies a tool to support selection, but here we enter the high risk for all purposes: we need written criteria before we start, human review on a real share of the applications, information to the candidates, periodic verification of who passes the screening compared to who is applying. The theme is deepened in AI for Recruiting and Selection.

A professional studio with ten people. No structured project: volumes do not exist either by selection or by formal evaluations. It makes maximum sense to subscribe to a generic tool to prepare communications and documents, without building anything dedicated.

The project that almost every SME should do first

If I were to indicate only one for an Italian company under a hundred people, she would be the assistant on internal procedures. It is not the most ambitious, but it is the one with the most favorable relationship between required work and obtained benefit.

The reason is simple: recurring questions about holidays, permits, refunds and procedures exist in every company and no one measures them, because they are short interruptions dispersed throughout the day. Add up, they are often worth more than an activity that is carefully monitored just because it is more visible.

1. Collect the applications received in a short period: they will be a few dozen, very repetitive.
2. Check which ones already have a written, up-to-date response.
3. Write the ones that are missing: it is the most useful part of the project, regardless of the software.
4. It links the assistant only to that material, not to the entire corporate archive.
5. You expect me to say "I'll get you in touch with the office on this" when he doesn't have a definite answer.

The fourth point is the one that you underestimate the most. Opening the assistant to the entire company archive worsens responses instead of improving them, because it increases the likelihood of fishing for an old or irrelevant document, and can bring out confidential information to those who should not see them.

One change that manually maintained procedures often fail to follow promptly is renewal of the applicable collective agreement: when leave entitlements, pay increments or allowances change, the assistant keeps answering from the old version until someone updates the source text. Assign someone responsibility for checking which assistant answers need revision after every renewal, rather than discovering it through a question the system answers incorrectly with confidence.

How to announce it without worrying anyone

In the area that deals with people, the way you introduce an instrument weighs as much as the instrument itself. An assistant answering questions is well received, because it removes friction. A system that evaluates or filters is looked at with suspicion, and it is a legitimate suspicion, because it concerns decisions about someone's professional life.

The sequence that works is to declare what you introduce before someone notices for themselves, explicitly explain what the system does not do, and always leave the channel active with a person for those who prefer to keep asking a colleague. The same principle, applied to an entire internal regulation on the use of AI, is in corporate policy on the use of AI.

A final practical aspect: if the questions asked to the assistant are preserved, it must be said who can read them and why. An employee who fears that their questions will end up in an evaluation stops asking them, and at that point the instrument loses much of its value.

A project that intersects with two others

The assistant on internal procedures shares the work base with two other projects that are often treated as separate for no reason. The internal training of those who enter recently is technically the same facility: it changes the audience and the selection of content, not the structure. Building them at different times without keeping it in mind means paying twice the same writing job as the procedures.

The management of requests for permission also touches on the same data and often the same people as Staff shifts: those who approve a shift change are frequently those who also manage permits. If you plan both projects, drawing them together saves work even if you then carry them out at different times, because the collection of company rules is the slowest step of both, and it should only be done once with the same person who knows them by heart today.

Before introducing any system that touches selection, evaluation or monitoring, it is worth moving on from the method described in How to Assess the Risks of an AI System: it helps to understand in advance if the project you have in mind is the quiet one or the one that asks for structure. If you want to start from the territory at minimal risk without building anything from scratch, an evaluation with Giallo Studio can help you choose which procedures to put first in front of an internal assistant.