How Can Tech Replace Your Manager?

Last year, Amazon halted development on a recruiting AI tool after it began teaching itself to prefer male candidates over female. The algorithm was fed ten years worth of resumes to identify patterns in successful hires, but therein lies the issue. As a mostly male-dominated industry, most of these successful hires were men and it wasn’t long before the AI picked up on the bias.

Sure, AI is smart – maybe a little *too* smart. In addition to retail and the service industry, it seems that even some managers may see their jobs take a robotic shift. Managerial positions in payroll and benefits, property and real estate, transportation, and administrative services show up to 96% risk for computerization, but as we can see from Amazon’s “state of the art” project, it isn’t always smooth sailing. Machines can collect data, sort through it, and make suggestions, but it can’t make all the decisions on its own. Instead of seeing AI as a threat to the tasks of human managers, consider it more supplementary.

Screening algorithms and behavioral assessments based on machine learning can help find the best candidates for a position, but it can’t conduct a personal interview. However, working alongside a human manager companion, these kinds of AI change the game for streamlining the hiring process. Today, more than half of small businesses already use tech to help with hiring; FlatPi being one of the most comprehensive programs. FlatPi is a hiring AI platform, ranking applicants, following skill priority guidelines, and even analyzing applicants’ social media to measure emotional intelligence. As most small businesses find hiring to be both difficult and time-consuming, relying on AI to do the leg work means that the right candidates are interviewed for the right positions by hiring managers who can give interviews their full attention.

When the hiring bases are covered, what about the rest of the business operations? Between ordering office supplies to scheduling cleaning, the repeatable and onerous tasks of office managers can get in the way of actually managing the office. When it comes to crunch time, responsibilities can begin to fall through the cracks. AI lends its figurative robotic helping hand by taking over predictable monthly, weekly, daily tasks – and then some. Managed By Q helps keep any size business organized by concentrating invoices into a single system, task management, and sorting vendors. Users of Q enjoy a well-oiled machine and human manager that isn’t distracted with chasing down paperwork.

Around one in five small businesses put off selecting and implementing new tech, believing the hassle isn’t really worth it. Yet, more than four in five businesses think they could benefit from more tech if the price and fit were right for their needs. The simple solution is to choose the right tech – here’s where to start. Take a look at this infographic for a deeper look into management AI tools, how to identify your business’s unique automation needs, and get back to focusing on what matters.