Pharmacy Daily | AI boosts Chemist Warehouse HR department

CHEMIST Warehouse has recently adopted artificial intelligence (AI) to help with critical workforce issues in its human resources department, freeing up staff for higher value, more fulfilling work.

With over 500 outlets and 30,000 employees, the discount pharmacy chain's human resources department was struggling to manage the workload - much of which was lower risk, repetitive work around email enquiries - and experienced low engagement and high turnover.

"There was a real need for change," said Melissa Bear, Head of People & Culture Advisory at Chemist Warehouse.

"I wanted to address our work volume, business and employee needs, and create space for the Advisory team to undertake higher value work that would build their skills and increase enjoyment in their role."

Chemist Warehouse collaborated with Microsoft partner Insurgence AI to create AIHRA (pronounced - Ay-RAH and an acronym for AI HR Advisory).

AIHRA analyses a specific range of queries sent to the national HR Advisory inbox and drafts email responses for Chemist Warehouse's HR Advisors, rather than the team writing them from scratch or calling on a library of templates.

The HR Advisors then review the drafts, adjust where necessary and send them, with the system intentionally designed to keep a human in the loop.

Built to answer various low-to-moderate-risk topics, such as leave matters, probation period management, informal performance conversations, and management of inactive casual employees, AIHRA can access third party data sources like employee awards through Fair Work Australia, as well as internal policies and procedures.

Jessi Barberio, Human Resources Business Partner at Chemist Warehouse, estimated that it will save the team about 1,950 hours a year, while she personally estimates saving 40 percent of her time in managing the regular and repetitive queries.

"Within 30 seconds of a request reaching the national inbox, AIHRA is working hard in the background to draft a response," Barberio said.

"The draft waits for an Advisor to review, and any relevant policies or forms are automatically attached," she says.

According to Barberio, response quality has also been maintained or even improved.

"It gives us more time for higher-value-add work or projects, supporting and coaching our leaders or developing and providing educational content - the latter being something we simply didn't have the bandwidth to do previously," she explained.

Bear pointed out that her team has retained every employee since the system went live and believes it incentivises other talented professionals to join.

"In my experience, AI isn't killing off early career development at all - it's making it more interesting for them," she said.

She noted it is important that employees do not develop "an unhealthy reliance" on AI, but instead are freed up to focus on work that builds their skills, capabilities and critical thinking.

"Through thoughtful investment, AIHRA has not only elevated our function, but has created space for meaningful work and to improve our overall service to employees and business leaders," Barberio concluded. KB