There is no denying that most of the HR processes require the finesse of the human touch, but HR functions today are being unnecessarily bogged down by tasks that could be automated. On average, HR managers can spend a whopping two days a week on unnecessary paperwork.
Having in mind the challenges faced by HR today, leading companies are working toward redesigning and simplifying almost all processes from recruitment, onboarding, and rewards. HR professionals are breathing a sigh of relief that many of the repetitive and manual tasks can be automated to improve efficiency and workflow.
Here are 5 common HR processes that you can start automating today:
Employee recruitment
Anyone in HR can attest to the long and demanding process of recruitment. There are many time-intensive manual tasks involved, such as creating and posting job adverts on different channels and sifting through lengthy applications – the less time spent on creating and collecting applications, the more time HR has to thoroughly evaluate them, right?
The ability to automate some of the administrative tasks associated with recruitment can allow for an accelerated and streamlined recruitment process. Super-fast turnaround time in today’s market is crucial as you can’t keep candidates waiting around too long or risk losing out on talent.
Employee on boarding
Onboarding new hires involve substantial administrative work such as filling out contracts and related paperwork. Automating the onboarding workflow can create significant efficiencies.
Instead of prospective employees filling out excessive amounts of paper forms and providing physical verification of their personal documents, many of these forms can easily be done online. For example, a police check can be done online by filling in a simple form, attaching their documents and hitting submit.
Expense claims
The painstaking and repetitive task of expense claims is perfect for automation. Traditionally, expense claims involve manually filling in an Excel sheet, attaching related receipts and sending to accounts.
The manual nature of expensing is time intensive and prone to human error, nowadays a wide range of mobile apps can be used to keep track of receipts and can even generate reports. Automating a repetitive task such as expense claims frees up HR professionals to focus on other higher-level tasks.
Employee personal data and records
HR deals with large volumes of personal employee data and as a business grows, managing this information gets more and more difficult. Automating the creation and updating of employee records by using SaaS services reduces manual error and the mishandling of sensitive employee information.
It’s clear HR automation is the way of the future
HR automation is happening now and businesses are fast realizing they are lagging if they don’t keep up. Automation not only saves time and money but adds significant value where technology provides a huge opportunity around how to do things differently. HR automation can allow professionals to spend time doing meaningful work like focusing on the people element, building a high-performance culture and attracting new talent that contributes to the growth of the companies.
Author:
Fiona Crawford is the General Manager of Human Resources at InfoTrack, an Australian software company awarded as one of the best places to work in Australia, she drives the strategic people agenda to keep pace with the growth of the company and its high-performance culture. With over 15 years human resources, training and coaching experience across a range of industries including sport, fitness, finance, hospitality and automotive; to say Fiona Crawford is passionate about HR is an understatement.
