Welcome to the Retorio Blog

When it comes to business activities, figuring out which AI software serves exactly which purpose can be a bit murky. From companies advertising AI in recruiting to AI in healthcare, it’s a Wild West of ideas and applications. But what’s the biggest takeaway for a CEO or business owner? 

Artificial intelligence is heralded to be the singular, defining technology of the century. It impacts a wide-range of industries, organizations, and systems. From military uses, AI in recruiting, to healthcare, AI will underpin various processes within a few decades. Exploring attitudes of what the general public perceives or want from AI is essential. 

Artificial intelligence (AI) is pretty mainstream. It's about everything---to Netflix movie suggestions to digital pre-employment assessment. 

The COVID-19 pandemic is reshaping or accelerating trends within the human resources industry. For example, HR teams already face challenges from Generation Y’s new attitudes to work, fewer full-time employees, and the pressure to deliver quick solutions in an increasingly fast-paced and unpredictable business environment. With the pandemic, these and other pressures will lead organizations to focus on “first things” first.

In a world of AI in recruiting, a digital-first pre-employment assessment, and people analytics, it’s easy to forget the origins of understanding people. Psychology, a social science, gained ground when two psychiatrists pioneered major ideas about human psychology and development, Sigmeund Freud and Carl Jung. Although his theories are discussed to a lesser extent than Freud's psychodynamic approach, Carl Jung's ideas carry an influence whose effects can still be felt today. 

The promise is one of humankind’s most primitive psychological mechanisms that fosters trust, cooperation, and partnership formation. Creating healthy employee relations involves building trust between management and team. A AI-powered pre-employment assessment (cough) may assist in team building, but employee relations play an important role in creating cooperative agreements. You could say employee relations is a promise in action: acknowledging and making the vowed effort to deliver. 

Mitigating risk, a strong employer brand, and gaining top-notch talent are the dreams of hiring managers. But not a single thing can address all of these desires, right? Well, the research shows green recruiting carries some serious benefits. The aforementioned are the by-products of organizations doing the right thing---and integrating those initiatives into their hiring and recruitment process. AI in recruiting may be the new kid in town, but green recruiting is how the town is won over. 

According to a working paper series by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, motherhood may be an indicator that a person may be particularly productive at the workplace. Mothers around the world will likely won’t be surprised to hear this. Between child rearing at home, leaning into their own personal development in private, being a competent team member at work, and other roles, mothers are in a constant balancing act. The St. Louis study analyzed the productivity habits of both female and male academic economists. Thus far, their conclusion: “unconditional effect of motherhood is zero”.

Renowned shame researcher at the University of Houston and five-time New York Times bestseller, Dr. Brene Brown has spent decades studying shame and empathy. Brown teaches Fortune 500 companies, school districts, and organizations across the globe about the values of vulnerability and courage. Her TEDx talk on the power of vulnerability is one of the most-viewed talks of all-time.

Capturing candidate attention as a hiring manager is one of the toughest challenges. If you’re a small to medium-sized company or startup, your job is a bit tougher. After all, you compete against more established companies that have more resources. What’s an organization supposed to do when it comes to candidate experience, best recruiting practices, and AI recruiting? There’s so much to learn and so many bigger companies to compete with for quality talent! You may have shaped up your candidate talent funnel with interesting social media posts and LinkedIn ads. 

One HR trend is the emerging world of digitization. From digital meeting spaces like Zoom to digital team organization. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, digital onboarding is one aspect of talent management that has taken off within recent months. Onboarding refers to the process of acquiring and ensuring new customers or new employees have access to all the services and products they need to excel.  In organizations, onboarding expands from a pre-employment assessment and in-person meetings to taking these processes online.

What is job speed dating?

With the COVID-19 pandemic stopping the economic and social life of entire countries, researchers wanted to know which leaders made a difference in delivering a (more) positive outcome. From hiring, pre employment assessments, to travel, the results may affect how organizations attribute leadership in times of crisis. The University of Liverpool conducted a statistical analysis of 194 countries. Their conclusions: countries with women leaders performed better. Their countries suffered half as many COVID-related deaths.

Facial recognition search and software is becoming integrated within hiring and recruitment efforts. Not only are private companies interested in the technology’s capabilities, it’s also being used by the public. For example, in the US,  forty-three states have used some form of facial recognition technology as a way to reduce identity and driver’s license fraud. Seven of those 43 states have adopted the system for driver’s licenses within the last three years. However even with its utility, facial recognition may be one of the most misunderstood technologies at the moment. 

An application tracking system (ATS) could be likened to two types of friends: the first is the kind of friendship where you meet for coffee every few months and happily gab for an hour and at the end say, “we should meet more often”, but it never happens. Or an ATS could be the other type of friend: the one who showed up to your pet’s funeral or books you a hotel when your credit card isn’t working. 

What’s the big deal in attaching a CV photo? 

In case you haven’t noticed, the world is changing. Working from home is normalized. Interviews don’t mean a suit and an in-person, pre-employment assessment. So, businesses becoming health care centers? Not too much of a stretch.

Understanding greater racial equity begins with acknowledging a racial wealth gap.

Let’s talk about bullying in the workplace. With the recent news of Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez calling out the bullying behavior of fellow Congressman Ted Yosho, it’s time to talk about bullying in the workplace.

One may argue that nearly everything has been made gender-specific. Electric cars, invented in the early 20th century, were originally marketed to women. Grills and trucks are commonly marketed to men. Even razors are marketed to women and men separately---despite being the exact product. However the society (and the workforce) is evolving to more gender-neutral products, language, and company cultures. A pre-employment assessment can’t be used to help employers become gender neutral...or can they?