IBM’s new AI(Artificial Intelligence) can predict with approx. 95% accuracy, when an employee is about to quit his/her job. According to IBM CEO Ginni Rometty, “Methods used in the traditional human resources model are failing American workers and need assistance from machine learning.”
Today and under Rometty’s leadership, IBM headcount has dropped approximately 25%. There are now less than 350,000 people. How? In part, artificial intelligence. AI, which has replaced 30 percent of IBM’s HR staff, can help employees identify new skills training, education, job promotions and raises and also predict when an employee is to quit his job
Artificial intelligence used at IBM is now able to predict that when an employee is about to leave their job with 95 percent accuracy. The justification for the “predictive attrition program,” as IBM dubbed it on its pending patent, is to determine when employees are poised to quit in order to see if something can be done to stop them. Retention rates, after all, translate into big bucks for businesses. IBM’s chief executive Ginni Rometty estimated the program’s already saved $300 million in her company’s “retention costs”.
Rometty spoke at a CNBC event titled “@WORK TALENT + HR” and said, “Skills were going to become the lifeline of an employee’s relevancy. If you have a skill that is not needed for the future and is abundant in the market and does not fit a strategy my company needs, you are not in a good square to stay inside of,” Rometty said. “I really believe in being transparent about where skills are.”
Being transparent with employees means being honest about the skills that are needed, especially when the workers don’t possess them. IBM managers talk to employees about market skills that are scarce or abundant.