Posted in HR Automation

HR Automation pays big dividends

In today’s highly competitive business world, C-suite leaders have come to understand the advantages of a workforce aligned with business outcomes – as a result, HR has become the most important department. There’s increased emphasis on finding and retaining talent, creating world-class onboarding experiences and empowering employees to focus on work that matters so they can respond quickly to changes and drive positive business outcomes.

Unfortunately, most HR departments are still document-driven and paper-intensive. Evolving to a more strategic role necessarily means being more efficient, keeping costs down, quickly responding to company and employee needs, ensuring streamlined transactions, and compliance with policies.

It’s time to enable your HR department for the future. Changes are coming on many fronts but, a key factor, is to embrace “modern automation technology”.

After all, we routinely use automation in our everyday lives – from ATM machines to online travel directions to check-in kiosks at the airport. Why not in the HR department?

Major Disruptions are Driving Change in HR Technology

#1 – Intense competition for talent
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To thrive in the 21st century, you must attract and retain world-class employees. The competition is cutthroat and your organization must differentiate itself to succeed. The last thing you want is your HR department wasting time on error-prone, manual processes when they should be focusing on what’s important – talent.

#2 – Millennials really are different
The millennial workforce is here and it grew up with technology. They expect 24×7 access, real-time feedback, instant approvals, remote work, data accessibility, and mobility. Your HR department is their gateway to the company and a modern onboarding experience is crucial to attracting millennials.

#3 – Empowering employees to focus on work that matters
Businesses need to respond quickly to changing customer needs and to take advantage of new opportunities. They must align employees with business objectives, empower them to take action and, crucially, ensure that they’re not wasting time on work that’s unimportant – 34% of respondents in a recent SilkRoad Survey had concerns.

#4 – Limitations of current HCM technology
According to a Brandon Hall Group Research Report, almost fifty percent of organizations (47%) are not satisfied or are only partly satisfied with the current state of their HCM technology. That’s a problem and an opportunity.

A strategic HR department must move beyond processes …

If the humans stop doing things that the machines can do, they have more time to spend on the things only humans can do.

To be truly strategic, an HR department must focus on experiences, metrics and initiatives that support and drive business goals. However, the stark reality is that most HR employees are so deeply mired in manual, paper-driven, error-prone and time-consuming processes that they cannot invest in strategic initiatives like talent development and the employee experience. At some time, you simply cannot do more with less.

However, business and regulatory needs aren’t going away and robust processes remain critically important. Automation is the answer. 

… making modern automation technology a must

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Technology obviously plays a critical role, given the rapid increase in its capabilities and especially given the affinity millennials have for it. Yet, it’s surprising how few companies currently have automated HR processes.

There’s good news though. Administrative HR processes are particularly ripe for automation because they’re often repetitive, frequent and slow. Modern HR workflow automation software allows you to quickly automate and streamline HR processes like time tracking and employee onboarding without needing expensive and scarce I.T. resources.

Employee Onboarding may be the most strategic HR process …

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According to SHRM’s Foundation Report, in the United States, every year more than 25% of working employees experience transitions. About 500,000 manager take on new roles each year in Fortune 500 companies alone and managers switch jobs after every two to four years. Yes, onboarding is important and it may be the most strategic HR process of all.

Nowadays, successful onboarding is not just related to the first day and related paperwork. In fact, it is a process throughout the employee journey impacting things like employee development, workplace, culture, and contribution to deliver business results.

Companies, having realized the importance of employee onboarding, are taking it seriously by energizing and automating their onboarding process with onboarding workflow software to create a highly engaging and motivating employee experience.

… and Successful Onboarding drives powerful business outcomes …

“69 percent of new hires who take part in a structured onboarding process are likely to remain with a company for longer than 3 years.”
Ganzel (1998). Cited in Fast Company.

onboarding-outcomes.pngSuccessful Onboarding brings several positive long-term outcomes for the organization such as  improved retention rates (52 percent), time to productivity (60 percent) and overall customer satisfaction (53 percent). For employees, long-term outcomes of good onboarding include job satisfaction and organizational commitment (Onboarding New Employees: Maximizing Success)

… yet, too few organizations have even automated onboarding

Clearly, this is crucial low-hanging fruit – if your basic employee onboarding process is manual, we suggest you embark on an automation project todayNot only is it more efficient for the organization in terms of saved time and money, but this automation is highly effective as the above business outcomes show.

With modern automated onboarding software, it’s easy. Visual, low-code platforms [full disclosure: frevvo provides such a platform] let your existing employees drag-and-drop to create the necessary online forms and use visual wizards to implement dynamic behavior without needing programming skills. They can also connect to internal business data and visually design workflows to route the documents to the right person at the right time. The end user experience is fast, slick and mobile-friendly – a must in the millennial era.

There’s no excuse for waiting – automate and free your HR department to focus on what’s important – people.

Conclusion

With the ongoing talent wars showing no signs of abating, HR has become your most important department in the 21st century. You can’t afford to have them waste time on paperwork when they should be focusing on their passion – people.
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Onboarding and improving the overall New Hire Experience has emerged as the most strategic process within HR. Considering the sheer difficulty and high cost of recruiting and retaining new hires, business leaders must understand the effectiveness and efficiency of an automated employee onboarding process.

Where will your HR department be in 18 months? Still spending most of their day worrying about paperwork or focused on attracting the best talent, jump-starting relationships, ensuring alignment of objectives with corporate goals and providing coaching and feedback throughout the employee lifecycle.