Gone are the days when just being part of a company for a long enough period of time inevitably led to promotion. “Been here over five years? Then, please, take the next step up the career ladder.”

That just doesn’t happen anymore. Promotions are carefully considered entities now, with added interviews, appraisals, and stages that each candidate has to go through to prove their worth.

And it’s not just humans who make those decisions about who gets promoted or not. With artificial intelligence (AI) an ever-increasingly influential tool within the business world, it’s reshaping how organisations make these crucial workforce decisions – from hiring and performance management to succession planning and promotions.

But it can be a minefield, with an overload of information for HR and business leaders to digest, along with challenges that cover legal, ethical, and cultural issues.

So let’s cut to the chase with this article that lays out the benefits and risks of taking promotion decisions with AI and how companies can adopt AI responsibly within UK employment law, as well as best practice and what the future holds.

First of all, let’s take a look at how AI tools work in a HR context.

They can help with:

• Succession planning – which includes promotions, by highlighting potential successors or talent pipelines for particular roles.
• Performance analyses – collating performance ratings, comprehensive feedback, productivity data, and peer reviews, which help with coming to decisions with regards to promotions.
• Mapping skills and competency models – swiftly identifying skills gaps and using career frameworks to match staff to upcoming roles.
• Forecasting – capitalising on analytics to predict which members of staff are the most likely to shine in future roles based on behavioural data and past performance.

These systems will only work to support consistent staff reviews and reduce bias if they are used in a transparent and ethical manner. HR departments should be trained in order to do this, but with a third of HR professionals lacking formal AI guidelines, this is a barrier that needs to be overcome quickly, so the UK can stay abreast of changes and keep up with other countries.

As with all things there are pros and cons, so let’s take a look at both the benefits and risks of using AI for promotional decisions.

There is a range of benefits that AI can offer UK businesses, especially for those with large numbers of staff or reams of statistics and data, where people alone would slow the process down or lead to inconsistency.

1. Improved speed and efficiency

It’s not a massive surprise to learn that using AI in HR can speed up the process of analysing performance data, as opposed to having people spending hours trawling through it. So while AI is processing and analysing, this frees up time for the HR department to get on with more strategic work, instead of manually compiling reports.

Already, HR departments in the UK are adept at streamlining talent reviews and supporting decision-making by experimenting with AI-enhanced dashboards and analytic tools. It reduces the administrative burden, thus freeing up the time for them to concentrate on holistic career development.

2. Consistent and objective

However well-intentioned a person is, they can be influenced by unconscious bias and be inconsistent. That’s just human nature. An AI tool doesn’t have those problems, as it applies the same analytical criteria to each member of staff. This ensures a consistent baseline of performance indicators, and potentially reveals candidates that might have otherwise been overlooked if a person was reviewing the data.

3. Identifying development needs early on

AI is expert at identifying patterns in data, such as training needs or skill gaps, that might not at first be obvious. Having these pointed out means that companies can get the heads up on tailoring any development plans for candidates ripe for promotion miles before any review meetings.

4. Support diversity

UK businesses should be committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion when hiring and promoting staff. AI systems help to spot discrepancies in an organisation’s recruitment process, by, for example, flagging up that ethnic minority employees or women are under-represented or under-promoted relative to their performances. This can steer HR into action to dig deeper and change processes in order to support fairer outcomes.

Do the benefits outweigh the risks of using AI talent management and when arriving at promotion decisions? Here in the UK, employment law is there to uphold non-discrimination and fairness in the workplace, so let’s have a more detailed look.

1. Algorithmic historical bias

This can be confusing as one of the benefits to making promotion decisions with AI is doing away with any bias. The UK’s Equality Act 2010 states that employers cannot directly or indirectly discriminate against employees on the grounds of their gender, age, religion, race, disability, or sexual preference. Yet AI systems fed historical data can reproduce or amplify existing inequalities unintentionally, which can lead to outcomes that could disadvantage certain sections of society.

For example, if decisions with regards to promotions at a company have favoured men in the past, and an AI system learns this with no correction for bias, then the system will repeat this pattern while “thinking” it’s being objective. This could potentially lead to unlawful indirect discrimination.

2. Privacy and data protection issues

When using AI in the workplace for promotion purposes, the systems will need to access sensitive employee information such as personal data, performance reviews, and behavioural evaluations. The Data Protection Act 2018 states that business owners must make sure that this data is processed securely, lawfully, and transparently, embedded with clear legal guidelines and safeguards. If this is not carried out correctly, it could result in regulatory action and privacy violations by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

3. Exclusion and accessibility risks

It is often assumed that all candidates have access to digital platforms and can provide digital information easily. This is not always the case. When recruiting or promoting, there is a risk that hiring managers will favour younger workers over older applicants as they may think they possess more knowledge of AI systems. It’s the same with AI, as more mature workers are perceived as not being as tech-savvy or may not have access to technology in the same way as those who are younger.

4. Lack of transparency and explanation

There is a lack of transparency and explanation from a lot of AI models; it often cannot be explained why a model arrived at a particular recommendation. The level of clarity can be an issue, especially from legal and ethical standpoints. For one thing, workers have the right to know how the decisions that affect their career are made, while employers should be able to justify any decisions on promotions should they lead to a dispute or grievance. 

Under the UK’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), people have rights that relate to automated decision-making, including safeguards when decisions lead to having significant effects on livelihood and future career prospects. UK common law also emphasises the mutual trust and confidence within employer and employee relationships. The risk of grievances, disputes, or claims can increase if decisions are seen as opaque or unfair, which undermines trust.

It’s all about responsibility and accountability for HR leaders, who are at the forefront of this new technology. That means harnessing the benefits while mitigating the risks of AI promotion tools. This approach should be based on fairness, transparency, and, most importantly of all, human oversight.

• Keep it human

It can’t be reiterated enough that AI should be in place to support, not replace, human judgement. No one wants to be promoted or dismissed by a machine! Any decisions surrounding promotions are too vital to be left to an algorithm. Having a human look over and review all the evidence guarantees accountability, ethical judgement, and an understanding within the context.

•  Carry out equality impact assessments and bias audits

Prior to using any AI tools for promotions, it’s worth identifying potential disparate impacts on vulnerable sections of society by conducting equality impact assessments, along with checking for bias, and intervening if unfair patterns come to light.

• Be transparent

Workers should have a clear idea of how AI is contributing towards any promotion decisions, so business leaders and HR need to fully explain how it all works. Clear documentation means decisions can be understood and justified, which in turn reduces any legal risks and strengthens workplace trust.

• Embed AI governance and policies

It’s essential to have a comprehensive AI governance framework that includes policies on fairness, data use, privacy, and human oversight. They need to align with existing HR policies while being supported through training for HR and managers.

• Train managers and leaders

It’s vital that managers are trained on how to interpret AI insights and how to clarify them, as AI tools are only as good as the people interpreting their outputs.

• Engage legal and compliance guidance

This is best done early on in the process, ensuring that the AI tools being used tally with data protection requirements, UK employment law, and organisational values.

• Champion employee feedback

There should be mechanisms put in place where employees feel comfortable with asking questions and challenging any decisions they feel aren’t justified. Feedback can enhance transparency while detecting issues early on.

AI can’t “think” as humans can, so ultimate decisions on who gets promoted within a company should come down to the HR department and business leaders. AI simply identifies patterns and probabilities within the data it’s fed, to come up with potential candidates.

Here is a breakdown of how most AI-supported promotion tools operate.

AI systems analyse data from employees who have previously been promoted, seeking out patterns such as consistently high performance, completion of leadership programmes, cross-functional project experience, and feedback scores. From these, AI can build a profile of what “successful promotion” looks like.

AI tools pull data from numerous platforms, including performance management, learning and development records, skill frameworks, succession planning tools, and mobility platforms. All of this means that broader performance patterns are taken into account, rather than relying heavily on one manager’s recommendation.

Algorithms assess which employees match the success profile most closely, predict the likelihood of succeeding in a higher role, flag up leadership potential indicators, and illustrate mobility readiness, which normally culminates in a score.

In the UK, AI is not used to automatically promote employees, but instead to produce candidate shortlists, succession maps, and risk indicators, which inform talent review discussions – but crucially don’t replace them.

This leads into the importance and critical nature of having oversight from humans, along with legal safeguards. HR and managers should review everything that AI brings to their attention, and consider team dynamics, behavioural competencies, diversity, organisational values, and cultural fit. 

As mentioned previously, under the Equality Act 2010 and UK GDPR, employers are legally responsible for ensuring that promotion decisions are transparent, fair, and non-discriminatory.

Across all industries and ways of life, AI is forever evolving. It’s the same with promotion decisions. While there are no AI-specific employment laws in the UK yet, employers need to keep in mind:

• Regulatory attention, with emerging guidance from regulators, such as the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). The UK Government is also focusing on responsible AI deployment.
• An increase in staff expectations, with workers becoming more and more aware of the role of AI within the recruitment process. They will be asking for more fairness and transparency.
• The release of more AI governance standards, with UK and international frameworks on AI assurance becoming standard HR practice.
• Innovative AI tools, so clear and bias-free AI solutions align with ethical and legal requirements.

There is so much potential to transform how organisations in the UK make decisions on promotions, with efficiency, insights, and fairness going far beyond what manual processes can achieve.

But it is the human element that must remain at the heart of all of this. It’s people who get promoted, so it should be people who ultimately make those decisions about who takes the next step on the career ladder.

If your organisation needs some guidance on outplacement services and career framework matters, do contact us at the earliest opportunity to find out more.