People do not become human resources professionals just because they want to enforce regulations or administer benefits. After all, the H in HR stands for “human.”
As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded and a new world of work evolved, it became even more apparent that human skills are essential to helping organizations and their people thrive. Regarding both recruiting and retention, employees are craving and demanding meaningful connections, opportunities and positive experiences. HR teams are ready and waiting to deliver.
This is the moment when activating HR professionals’ soft skills and emotional bandwidth is essential. It is time to elevate the people and teams within one’s organization to be all we know they can be. However, connecting and communicating with people takes time and focus. For too many years, organizations have leaned on the HR team to perform perfunctory, albeit crucial, work that makes focusing on people difficult. This is where automation comes in.
While HR managers and professionals are willing and capable of handling all of their job duties, automating a number of tasks can make the department more effective and efficient. Done well, automation reduces the time spent completing labor-intensive, tedious activities and allows the HR team to focus on initiatives that have more significant and positive impacts.
Here are five categories of HR tasks to consider automating. By choosing the right tech solutions, leaders can take the burden off HR teams and let them do what they do best—help people feel and do their best at work.
Onboarding
Automating onboarding is a true win-win. It allows HR professionals to build trust and rapport with new hires and empowers HR team members to become genuine people champions instead of paper-pushers.
Meeting with an HR representative often gives a new hire their first impression of the workplace. Walking through the door to a stack of paperwork and hours of dry explanation is not anyone’s ideal preview of a great job to come. Adopting tools and software to create a seamless onboarding workflow will makes it easier to focus on what truly matters, which is welcoming a new member to the team and setting them up for long-term success.
Technology can also amplify personalization. For example, the HR team can set reminders for the new hire to ensure they stay on schedule during the onboarding process. The new hire can also be given the opportunity to use the onboarding software to set up one-on-one sessions, which will ensure the human element is still present.
Documentation and E-signatures
One of the most critical tasks of onboarding and managing employees is ensuring that all necessary forms are filled out correctly. Equally important are making sure employees receive all the proper documents and that e-signatures are secure. These are also some of the most arduous tasks, and completing them is not the best way to use an HR team member’s passion or people skills.
By automating document management, time and focus can move away from mundane administrative tasks and shift toward vital areas like improving the employee experience, cultivating leadership development and boosting retention.
Benefits Administration
Managing employee benefits will always be a core function of HR, and many HR managers and professionals would not have it any other way. Selecting which benefits to offer takes time, patience and a keen sense of the organization’s culture. And choosing the right offerings is only a first step that must be followed by naming insurance partners, qualifying providers and specifying wellness perks, all while making the most of limited budgets.
However, carefully curating a suitable suite of benefits often means HR teams and employees are dealing with multiple, siloed vendors. A lot of human energy is wasted toggling between tabs, hunting down contacts and covering every possible legal base. Using the right benefits management tools consolidates the entirety of benefits management, which reduces barriers for employees and allows HR professionals to act as empathetic guides to choosing and using benefits.
Time Tracking
Tracking employees’ time is crucial to running a successful organization. Using paid time off, taking holidays, turning in time sheets and earning overtime are just some of what HR must keep track of in order to maintain the organization’s bottom line. Keeping the records is not only tedious and difficult to do well at scale, it is also a poor use of the HR team’s expertise and energy. Automating time tracking liberates HR professionals to focus on what really matters while also increasing accuracy, data security and regulatory compliance.
Compliance
Compliance is another critical HR function where automation just makes sense. While details vary depending on the organization and its location, resolving the complexities that span equal employment opportunity, taxes and benefits administration are monumentally time-consuming. And mistakes can be costly. Automating as many compliance tasks as possible while using a single service or platform will make HR professionals’ days more productive and their nights more restful, undisturbed by nightmares about noncompliance.
Let the Hour of the HR Professional Begin
There is not a single task listed in this article that is not absolutely essential to the success of any organization. Still, as we have seen throughout the pandemic and resulting trends like the Great Resignation, creating and maintaining a positive employee experience is just as necessary. The good news is the vast majority of HR leaders are bursting with passion to build thriving organizational cultures and to help people be their very best.
Automating administrative work empowers HR team members to unleash their strengths while streamlining processes in a cost-effective manner. The possibilities for cultural and human development are endless. All we have to do is let the technology do what it does best so talented HR professionals can do the same. The time freed up by automation allows for culture, strategy and initiatives to come to the forefront as those in HR deploy their people-centric superpowers.
01 April 2022
Category
HR News Article