Transforming HR Departments with Copilot for Microsoft 365

In the dynamic landscape of human resources (HR), staying ahead of the curve is essential. Incremental usage of Copilot through departmental adoption rather than a company-wide overhaul allows teams to learn, adapt, and refine AI solutions before scaling up. This minimises disruption and reduces risk.

Benefits for HR Departments Using Copilot for Microsoft 365

Research shows that nearly all HR professionals (98%) say they feel burned out. 94% have felt overwhelmed over the past six months, while 88% dreaded the prospects of going to work at all. Adopting Copilot for 365 can help HR professionals to streamline Recruitment, optimise the onboarding process and enhance employee engagement.

7 Top Use Cases for HR Departments

Craft Job Descriptions

Approximately 65% of the HR professionals indicated that it took them 2 hours or more to write a job description from scratch. With respect to writing job descriptions, the expectation is that the technology will be able to produce higher-quality descriptions in a shorter amount of time, making the overall process more efficient and yielding better hires.

Copilot can also leverage natural language processing to craft engaging job posting language to help attract more qualified candidates, stand out from other similar roles, and increase the volume and quality of applicants.

Example prompt: Write a job description for [job role] at [company name] with a focus on [experience]

Automate CV Screening

By leveraging Copilot HR departments can efficiently sift through a large volume of CVs, identifying relevant candidates swiftly through data-driven analysis and using AI to screen for consistency and fairness.

Copilot can also be fine-tuned to match specific job roles and industry requirements by modifying simple prompts.

Leveraging Copilot can also help with scalability and speed, the process of using Copilot means eliminating human error whether it’s handling 100 or 1000 CVs, HR teams can save time and focus on strategic tasks.

Example prompt: Create a report that compares the attached resumes to the requirements for a [job role] in the attached job description file and rank the candidates from most qualified to least qualified.

Analyse Employee Feedback

Engaged employees outperform unengaged employees by a staggering 147%, hence why monitoring and improving employee engagement plays a vital role in the success of any organisation. An engaged employee is likely to be more productive, positive, and committed to their work and go above and beyond their job description.

Natural language processing (NLP) helps decipher sentiments, identify trends, and highlight areas for improvement. HR can proactively address concerns and boost employee satisfaction.

Using employee engagement survey results, ask Copilot to analyse the sentiment of the text to understand the positivity of an employees’ views on a topic. This enables people to see patterns and trends in the results with ease.

Example prompt: Using /[filename] analyse the text for the sentiment of each employee response.

Create Better Onboarding Experiences

Onboarding employees is an important part of the hiring process. With an effective onboarding strategy in place, you can acclimate new hires into your culture and provide them with the knowledge and resources they need to succeed. It’s essential if you’d like to retain employees, reduce turnover and maximise productivity.

While standardising your onboarding program is essential, a one-size-fits-all approach to delivering onboarding experiences may not benefit all new hires equally. Some employees assimilate information slower, and others may learn better with visual rather than auditory methods. Deploying AI for onboarding will enable you to account for these differences, effectively engage all new hires, and customise your onboarding content to suit everyone’s role, background, learning style, and comprehension pace.

Some use cases include:

New employees can use Copilot as a chatbot to find answers to questions in large employee handbooks
Using Copilot to comb through your employee database to look for team members who share similar backgrounds and interests and match them up with new hires.
Create and send tailored messages to employees at different phases of their onboarding journey to engage or nudge them to complete an onboarding task.
Track continuous improvement through feedback analysis

Example prompt: What is the sick leave policy for work from home employees?

Summarise Policy Changes for Simplified Communication

Policy updates can be overwhelming. Copilot distils complex legal jargon into digestible summaries allowing HR teams to communicate new company policies or changes quickly and more efficiently, ensuring everyone is on the same page.

Example prompt: Using /[filename] draft an email to all employees explaining the policy changes and how they affect employees.

Design More Effective Training Presentations

Copilot in PowerPoint is an AI-powered feature that can help you create, design, and format your slides. You can type in what you intend to convey with your presentation, and Copilot will help you get it done. Copilot can help you move past that initial blank slide and get you moving in the right direction. Training sessions need impact. Copilot collaborates with HR to create visually appealing presentations. Whether it’s compliance training or leadership development, Copilot enhances engagement.

Example prompt: Using /[filename] create a PowerPoint presentation that will be used to train sales employees.

Create Custom Copilots for Frequent HR Questions

Copilot Studio is a cloud-based platform that enables you to create your own Copilots, which are intelligent conversational agents that can handle a variety of tasks and queries for your specific use case. With Copilot Studio, you can customise Copilot for M365, a ready-made Copilot that integrates with Microsoft 365 applications and services or build your own custom Copilots from scratch. You can also leverage the power of generative AI to provide dynamic and relevant answers to your users, based on your own data and logic.

Copilot becomes your virtual HR assistant, answering routine queries, guiding employees, and freeing up HR’s time and eliminating mundane tasks for the team.