In the nonprofit sector, every dollar and every second counts. We are forced to act quickly in response to external threats to our missions and communities. We are often operating on shoestring budgets and must make tough decisions about how and where to spend money. It makes complete sense that the rise and accessibility of AI platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot have strong appeal for nonprofit leaders and administrators to manage HR functions—
they’re instantaneous and they’re free. Need an employment policy drafted? Boom, GPT’s got you. Need an outline for staff training? Yep, it can do that too.
But when I read this study from Resume Builder that more than half of surveyed managers are using AI to make critical HR and personnel decisions, my stomach turned over. These managers are using AI to determine raises, promotions, layoffs and even terminations. In my professional opinion…yikes. But what really got to me was that two-thirds of these managers have never received formal training on how to use AI for people management. So not only could an employee be fired because ChatGPT said so, but the person using GPT to make that decision potentially doesn’t know what they’re doing. Is the cost and timesaving of AI really worth the potential impact on employees?
I’m an HR consultant. Have I used AI for work-related purposes? Absolutely. It has saved me tons of time on various tasks and functions that free up my time to strategize, brainstorm, continue my education, and provide higher quality work to my clients. But I’m an HR professional. I don’t take AI-generated responses at face value. I use them as launch pads to expedite my work because I have the expertise and understanding of where AI responses to HR-related topics need some fine tuning, correcting, or deeper processing.
The fact that AI is subject to hallucinations and can potentially produce inaccurate information isn’t even my biggest concern. My concern is managers without HR knowledge using AI without formal training to make significant decisions impacting people. Because as helpful and valuable as AI can be, when it comes to HR it lacks nuance, values alignment, and emotional intelligence. To be cliché, AI removes the human from human resources.
Quality HR requires a skilled application of nuance. Yes, we have policies and procedures that guide how we make personnel decisions. If the policy says you may be terminated for not following the rule, then an employee may be terminated when they don’t follow the rule. But any seasoned HR professional will tell you that it’s never this cut and dry. Suppose you had an employee with multiple absences and your attendance policy states that more than three unexcused absences may result in termination. I posed a situation like this to ChatGPT and received a response that suggested I talk to the employee about the situation, review the policy with them, document the situation, and indicated that I could proceed with termination if that’s the next step in my discipline policy. Honestly, it wasn’t a bad answer from a procedural perspective. But what if I don’t have a standardized discipline policy? What if a manager in a different department had an identical situation but didn’t terminate their employee? What if some of the absences were due to illness and some absences were due to negligence? Managing people means managing nuance and nuance is best handled by humans, and here specifically: human HR experts.
When we talk about values alignment, we’re talking about a nonprofit organization applying the values that drive their mission internally to their employees and workplace practices. It’s a LGBTQ+ advocacy nonprofit offering paid time off for employees undergoing gender affirming care and ensuring that the medical plan benefits cover same sex spouses. It’s a justice system advocacy organization not requiring background checks as a condition of employment due to the systemic inequities and racially discriminatory nature of the US criminal legal system. It’s recognizing that while nonprofits need their people to achieve their mission, their staff need policies, practices, and solutions that are human-centered so they feel valued, heard, and engaged. The AI tools noted as being used by managers for HR decisions are built from traditional HR concepts and are not aligned with the progressive nature of the nonprofit sector. And quite frankly, traditional HR approaches can turn toxic.
At heart, AI lacks emotional intelligence. Organizational leaders can never forget that their employees are humans. Yes, employees have a responsibility to perform the functions they were hired for, they should be held accountable for meeting those expectations, and there may be times where not meeting those expectations will unfortunately result in a termination. But even the lowest performing employee is still human and deserves respect. The HR decisions being referred to in this survey are some of the most meaningful and impactful decisions for a human. Our salaries and employment status affect our livelihood. Beyond the direct impact to the employee, consider also how these decisions indirectly affect other employees. Learning that termination or promotional decision was led by AI could have a significant effect on every other employee’s trust in leadership. Why are we letting something devoid of emotions determine how to navigate emotional situations?
I recognize the data from this survey is just a sampling of AI use in the workplace and does not reflect every organization. I also recognize that some users may be trained in how to craft AI prompts that address these gaps I’ve identified. But I suspect that there are many nonprofit managers and leaders out there who are easily blinded by the appeal of using AI to make HR decisions quickly and at no cost. But at the end of the day, remember that our sector is entirely human-centered. Nonprofits exist to serve humans in need and missions are carried out by hired humans who deserve to be treated and respected as human beings. Is reducing or eliminating human oversight in employee management really the right move?
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