A guide to AI prompting & ChatGPT for HR

AI is transforming HR, and it's no surprise — over 80% of HR leaders use AI at work several times a week (sometimes even daily), and 83% of managers and People leaders report greater efficiency as a result.*

Artificial intelligence now powers critical HR functions, helping teams streamline decision-making and automate tasks. Beyond traditional applications, many HR professionals are turning to generative AI tools like ChatGPT to expedite daily admin tasks — boosting productivity by up to 40%, according to the MIT Sloan School of Management.** 

Chatbot-style AI engines are great resources because they facilitate plain-language insights, much like a conversation with your smartest colleague. However, to make the most of these AI tools, prudent use is essential. In fact, performance can actually drop by 19% if employees rely on generative AI for tasks that are outside of a tool’s capabilities.**

The secret to effective generative AI usage is prompt engineering, or the process of soliciting the best possible response using carefully crafted messages. In this guide, we’ll discuss why prompt engineering is so important, provide examples of HR functions that AI can help with, and list several useful sample prompts for each function.

‍

*Leapsome’s Workplace Trends Report, 2024

**The MIT Sloan School of Management, 2023
‍

📈 Drive HR impact with AI

Leapsome’s AI capabilities turn nebulous data into insights and action, supporting critical HR functions like performance management, retention, and engagement.

👉 Learn more

‍

What is prompt engineering?

Prompt engineering involves crafting, testing, and refining inputs to AI models like ChatGPT to get the best possible results. ‍

By “best possible results,” we mean the most high-quality, accurate, and helpful responses.

Because generative AI chatbots rely on natural language processing (NLP), their responses are fluid and often quite human-like. But learning to leverage AI productively still requires a considered approach — or at the very least, trial and error.

Think of it as creating well-thought-out interview questions; thoughtful prompts enable ChatGPT (and other tools) to better understand your goals, producing more relevant and actionable responses. 
‍

Building effective HR prompts for ChatGPT

In general, the more information you can provide ChatGPT with, the better. Consider the following pointers to impact the quality of your results:

• Purpose — What are you trying to achieve with your prompt? Once you’ve outlined your goals, tailor them to address specific organizational and team needs.
  ‍‍
• Context — ChatGPT has access to lots of data, but that doesn’t mean it’ll immediately understand your business needs. So, provide information about your company’s unique culture, values, and objectives up front. Just remember not to share sensitive employee data with ChatGPT or any other language model.
  ‍‍
• Audience — Who will ultimately read or interact with your ChatGPT output? Provide this information so the language model can make adjustments accordingly. 
  ‍‍
• Format and tone — If you know what format you’d like your output to be in (e.g., bullet points vs. long-form content vs. a table), communicate this expectation. Then, provide some context about the tone you’re expecting. Some situations may call for a formal tone, while others might be more casual. 

When in doubt, rely on the PACT (purpose, audience, context, and tone) framework to contextualize your prompts:

• Purpose — Explain the reason behind your work and make your desired results clear.
• Audience — Specify the target group for the content.
• Context — Provide any context that might help ChatGPT understand the situation or context.
• Tone — Describe the desired tone of the result.

 🤔 Did you know?

Everyone prefers to be treated kindly — even language models! Practice politeness in your messages with ChatGPT by integrating “please” and “thank you” into prompts, and you might receive more favorable and positive results. And this is not just from anecdotal experience: recent research has confirmed that politeness improves AI performance.

‍

7 top use cases for ChatGPT in HR (plus example prompts)

ChatGPT is a powerful tool that can automate repetitive tasks, sift through large amounts of information, and help guide you in the right direction. All of these actions and more can make your work more productive and boost your human resources team’s results over time. 

These are the top ways we’ve seen HR departments use ChatGPT and other generative AI tools so far.
‍

1. Employee onboarding

An effective employee onboarding process sets new hires up for success from day one. But onboarding can also be tedious and repetitive, so devoting ample time and resources to it may prove challenging for some HR teams.

ChatGPT can help by generating welcome messages, compiling relevant information into FAQ documents, and developing interactive onboarding checklists. If you distribute employee surveys after onboarding, you can also plug those results into ChatGPT to learn how to improve for new hires down the line.

Example prompts

Consider using the following prompts before, during, or after onboarding:

• Suggest five steps that we can streamline in our onboarding journey; our goal is to streamline processes and improve the overall experience.
• List five best practices for onboarding a new employee.
• How can we measure the success of our onboarding process, and what KPIs should we track to monitor progress and outcomes?‍
• ‍Evaluate this feedback from recent new hires. What common challenges and suggestions do they highlight, and how can we address them?‍
• ‍What strategies can we implement to foster a sense of belonging among new hires, particularly in remote or hybrid work environments?‍
• ‍Create ten onboarding evaluation survey questions and include at least one question about manager feedback.
  ‍

2. Learning and development

Sometimes, selecting the right employee development method can be overwhelming. But HR professionals can use generative AI to narrow down their options based on factors like organizational culture and employee values. For example, they might rely on ChatGPT to create template learning paths for different roles.

Again, be careful about the information you plug into ChatGPT. Additional context may improve the quality of the language model’s outputs, but it can also expose sensitive employee data.

If you’re interested in safely exploring advanced AI tools to improve your learning and development (L&D) processes, consider a comprehensive software solution like Leapsome Learning, which can host and parse employee data natively and securely.

 🔑 Don’t just store data — unlock its power

Market leaders use Leapsome’s suite of data analysis and AI tools to boost mission-critical HR processes like L&D and employee engagement.

‍ 👉 Take a product tour

Example prompts

Iterate on your L&D and employee development programs with prompts like:

• How can we evaluate the return on investment (ROI) for our employee training and development initiatives?‍
• ‍What are possible metrics and KPIs to assess the effectiveness of our current L&D programs?‍
• ‍Create a training program for [topic X] that includes five engaging learning modules for beginner, intermediate, and expert levels.‍
• ‍Name strategies to integrate L&D initiatives into talent management and succession planning to ensure alignment with organizational goals.‍
• ‍List ten employee coaching questions for managers during a performance review conversation.
• Outline strategies to foster a culture of continuous learning and development within an organization.
  ‍

3. Performance management

According to our 2024 Workplwace Trends Report, HR leaders cite feedback and performance reviews as their number one use case for AI. ChatGPT can support continuous feedback and evaluations by generating performance summaries and offering constructive insights. HR teams can also design prompts to assist managers in framing review conversations or setting personalized goals.

If you’re seeking more comprehensive performance management assistance, consider options like Leapsome’s Competency Framework feature. With minimal input and the power of AI, it helps you build complete matrices that match your company’s needs, saving days and even weeks of critical time for resource-strapped teams.

Example prompts

The following prompts are great places to start if you want to use ChatGPT to elevate your approach to performance management:

• Name five questions that support individual reflection on performance and future goals.
• List strategies to make performance reviews more meaningful and constructive for employees.‍
• ‍Name strategies and best practices when creating a performance improvement plan (PIP) that’s both supportive and results-oriented.‍
• ‍Analyze all feedback for [person X] and identify the top three development areas.‍
• ‍How can we ensure that individual employee goals align with the overall objectives of the organization?‍
• ‍What steps can we take to ensure that performance management is seen as a positive and supportive process by all employees?
  ‍

4. Workforce planning

In addition to supporting talent acquisition and the recruitment process, strategic workforce planning is essential to build high-performing teams that help organizations achieve their most ambitious goals.

ChatGPT and generative AI are useful here for collecting broad insights into potential talent gaps or overstaffing based on industry trends. This can help your team make informed, data-guided decisions.
‍

Example prompts

Try out the following prompts to identify new opportunities in workforce planning:

• List five strategies for leveraging workforce data to support strategic decision-making.‍
• ‍Outline methods for identifying talent gaps, predicting future staffing needs, and optimizing resource allocation.‍
• ‍Share relevant steps for creating an employee succession plan. Afterwards, design a template.‍
• ‍Name potential pitfalls when creating a succession plan and describe how to avoid them.‍
• ‍What industry trends and technological advancements for [industry X] will impact our future workforce needs?‍
• ‍What key performance indicators (KPIs) can we use to measure the success of our workforce planning strategies?
  ‍

5. Retention and engagement

A positive employee experience is critical for retention — which, in turn, impacts your company’s bottom line. Still, brainstorming new ways to collect and integrate team members’ feedback can be a daunting task. 

Generative AI can help cut through the noise by providing suggestions for employee sentiment analysis, helping HR teams respond to perspectives and concerns more efficiently. Once you’ve gathered all your data, ChatGPT can suggest new opportunities to improve employee engagement.

💡 HR platforms like Leapsome also leverage the power of AI and help People teams with sentiment analysis, data collection, action plan generation, tailored recommendations, and automatic summaries.

Example prompts

Jumpstart your employee retention and engagement strategy with these prompts:

• List ten key HR policies an organization with [X number of] employees in [industry Y] should have.‍
• ‍Name three ideas per stage to improve employee engagement along the employee lifecycle.‍
• ‍Suggest flexible company policies that can promote a healthy work-life balance for employees while ensuring productivity and collaboration.‍
• ‍Suggest wellness initiatives that can support the physical and mental well-being of employees and address common health concerns.‍
• ‍Based on our latest survey results, which top three initiatives would you recommend to improve engagement levels?‍
• ‍What type of analysis can we conduct to identify what motivates different teams and individuals within our organization?
  ‍

6. Compensation and rewards

Great company culture and employee engagement are important for retaining team members, but compensation is another critical element of ongoing recognition and job satisfaction. AI tools like ChatGPT can help out by conducting audits to ensure fair compensation practices or forecasting the necessary budget for certain compensation changes. 

If you’re looking to supercharge your AI strategy, leverage a compensation benchmarking tool to better understand how to compensate top performers based on real-time industry standards.

Example prompts

These prompts can help you use ChatGPT to improve your compensation strategy:

• Describe seven steps HR should follow when creating a compensation strategy.‍
• ‍List ten non-monetary ideas for employee recognition.‍
• ‍Outline strategies and best practices for conducting a comprehensive pay equity analysis within an organization.‍
• ‍Name strategies we can adopt to ensure our compensation practices promote diversity, equity, and inclusion.‍
• ‍Summarize the feedback our employees have provided regarding their compensation and rewards.‍
• ‍Outline strategies for effectively linking compensation with performance to drive desired behaviors and outcomes.
  ‍

7. Feedback and culture

People-centered organizations should nurture a supportive work environment based on a culture of continuous feedback. 

ChatGPT can help by identifying ways to implement feedback and even providing managers with suggestions on how to handle tough conversations with their direct reports. Furthermore, equipped with the right data, language models can provide insights into how equitable, diverse, and inclusive your company is.
‍

Example prompts

The following prompts can help you identify opportunities to improve your organizational feedback culture:

• Provide five tips on how to formulate constructive feedback and how to deal with resistance to feedback.‍
• ‍Suggest virtual team-building activities that are engaging and effective, especially for remote teams.‍
• ‍Name tips and suggestions for mastering a hybrid workplace approach and avoiding typical pitfalls.‍
• ‍Suggest and develop policies that promote diversity and inclusion based on data analysis and best practices.‍
• ‍Suggest ways to foster an inclusive organizational culture and name concrete strategies for promoting DEI in the workplace.‍
• ‍Propose ten tips for managing workplace conflicts.
  ‍

Use ChatGPT & other generative AI tools to boost HR efficiency

Word to the wise: Experimentation and prompt engineering help HR teams maximize ChatGPT’s potential. 

Combining AI with structured tools, such as Leapsome’s AI-powered HRIS and people enablement features, ensures quick, data-informed decisions and enhances processes across all HR functions.

Our software with advanced AI can help you make quick, informed decisions and work more efficiently — empowering your HR processes and boosting your people enablement strategy in one go.

 🤝 Artificial intelligence, meet employee experience

Save time with automation and improve your HR strategy with AI — all in one cohesive, award-winning people enablement platform.
‍
👉 Book a demo