Decision Science and AI in HR

Interviewer: First question is : first and last name.

Matt Brady: My name is Matthew Brady, I’m an Instructor at the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

Interviewer: Bloomberg reaches out to you to better understand what Decision Science is, and your professional opinion on whether it can be effectively optimized into software. What is Decision science?

Matt Brady: Decision Science is a technique based on statistics. It’s actually been in the academic field for decades and it’s just now becoming used and common in corporate and other nonprofit types of organizations.

Interviewer: So how can we get it used and optimized in the software and in hiring practices?

Matt Brady: First the predicate of Decision Science is math, and it’s really based on human input and then on statistical analysis. So as I mentioned, it’s been common in academia for many decades and is becoming more prevalent in commercialized software and other platforms. has significant implications in hiring, but has significant implications across a number of important decision making scenario.

Interviewer: What are those implications that are coming in when it comes to hiring?

Matt Brady: So hiring is like any effort involving humans, is both a science and an art. And so things like fit, charisma, interviewing for the role that you might have in mind is a complex decision, and Decision Science and AI can help with that. But my belief and the work that I do at the University of Colorado is to educate future leaders as to how they can use technology to guide decisions instead of making those decisions definitively. So more directional in nature.

Interviewer: Is it really ethical to use a program like this to choose who the next coworker and colleague is gonna be?

Matt Brady: You touch on an important point with ethics and what I like to mention, as well as empathy in decision making when technology is used, whether that be technology of the modern era, with computing and data or even traditional technologies, dating back to a hammer. A hammer can be used to build a home or break a window. And the same can be said about most technology. It needs to be used in a thoughtful manner, and it’s why I emphasize this notion that technology should guide managers decisions and inform them, whether it’s big data sets or AI – which is effectively finding patterns in that data, and then projecting forward to forecast what those patterns might look like in the future. These are great tools to enable organizations to make better decisions, but ultimately it’s the management team, the hiring manager, and the people that will be working with this new hire, who ultimately will determine their success.

Interviewer: Is this breaking the window or building the house?

Matt Brady: I think outside of the outliers of the extreme scenarios, it’s commonly used throughout any organization to drive efficiency and effectiveness. And the work that’s being done seems to fall in line with the broad set of patterns that I see in industry where Decision Science and AI are being used to create those efficiencies, and lead to more effective and better outcomes.

Interviewer: Anything that I missed?

Matt Brady: No, I appreciate the opportunity to talk about this. As I mentioned, these techniques have been in academia for decades, yet Decision Science seems to be an emerging topic. AI is getting a lot of attention, and when put together and wrapped with empathy and ethics, I think there are great outcomes. But as is always true with bringing on someone new to an organization, it’s about the alignment and about the motivations and the way that you communicate with that person to make them and the team successful.