Employee power is on the rise.
The pandemic saw employees seeking flexible or hybrid work models.
According to Forrester’s research, EX programs will consume more than 20% of HR budgets in 2022. The bulk of this spending will be used in creating a smooth digital experience for employees using HR automation.
As the pandemic subsides, there is a steep rise in the hiring demand across industry verticals. Enterprises are grappling with attrition. Because of this, employee experience (EX) is increasingly becoming a focus.
Read on to understand how cloud HR systems are outshining legacy systems and capturing the market.
What is HR Business Process Automation?
It entails using software to automate and streamline repetitive tasks for the HR function. It includes automating HR business processes and the corresponding reporting and analytics.
HR Automation Trends
In the early 2000s, enterprise systems got implemented for recording and tracking HR transactions on a single platform. Today, HR automation aims to improve employee productivity using an ecosystem of apps.
The focus has shifted from form automation and ease of use to integrating apps tightly into end-to-end HR workflows. It has moved from talent and people management to employee experience management.
HR Automation Statistics
The market for core HR platforms providing automation is more than $8 billion in size and growing. Cloud-based HR automation tools continue to capture the market from legacy HR systems as vendors like Oracle HCM Cloud and Workday grow at 20%+ rates.
HR analytics is the fastest-growing subdomain of the HR profession, with 25% of companies hiring for this role.
HR Automation Use Cases
HR automation creates a positive employee experience and directly impacts employee productivity and efficiency.
KPMG research says organisations can automate almost all HR functions across the employee lifecycle, fully or partially.
Below is the complete list of use cases where HR automation can add value.
#1 Recruitment Automation
Recruitment is a process that needs to complete within tight deadlines.
Automation enhances the efficiency of recruitment by
- Automating workflows for raising and approving recruitment requests
- Defining customisable job description templates
- Auto-selecting recruiters based on workload and profile alignment
- Auto-filling candidate profile data based on resumes
- Integrating career portals and social media for publishing job openings
- Filtering candidates based on parameters like source, experience
- Monitoring TAT at each stage of the candidate’s journey to avoid delays
- Auto-scheduling of interviews and recording of recruiter feedback
#2 Field Workforce Automation
For businesses that heavily rely on field agents working remotely for sales and service, automation using mobile devices helps increase productivity.
Field workforce automation includes
- Dynamic planning of routes for field workforce based on task priority
- Automating workflows for creating, managing and closing work orders
- Tracking employee-wise time spent and expenses incurred in the field
- Integrating with asset management to keep track of inventory used in the field, and its replenishment
#3 Performance Management Automation
Performance management automation is the chief component in designing a superior employee experience. It helps HR identify employee competencies and skill gaps and support employee progress.
It includes
- Defining goal cycles, setting KRAs and KPIs specific to employee roles
- Configuring goal sheet templates and automatically sending them as per goal cycles for tracking performance
- Automating workflows for gathering 360-degree feedback from managers, clients and team members for appraisals
- Tracking new hire quality, identifying the top and poor performers with visual dashboards
#4 Talent Acquisition Automation
Recruitment automation helps fulfil job vacancies efficiently. In contrast, talent acquisition is more strategic. It involves building a talent pipeline for leadership and specialist positions in your organisation.
Automation can help this by
- Setting up email campaigns to engage and nurture prospective hires
- Maintaining a record of referrals, high-performance contractors and archived applicants who were not interviewed
- Automating notifications alerting about a change in a candidate’s status on LinkedIn and other job portals
#5 Payroll Automation
Payroll automation includes
- Auto-assigning salary structures to new joiners
- Calculating and verifying salaries for errors
- Auto-deduction as per statutory PF and pension laws, TDS
- Calculation of income tax and professional tax liabilities
- Scheduling timely transfer of salaries to employees
- Auto-generation of payslips and tax forms
Employees tend to lose trust and feel demotivated if there are errors in payroll processing. It may also result in statutory penalties. Hence, it is one of the high-priority modules for HR automation projects.
#6 Attendance Automation
The pandemic has forced organisations to adopt a hybrid work model with flexible working hours.
Attendance automation helps HR to keep accurate track of employee efforts by
- Integrating biometric attendance software and access system
- Auto-calculating number of paydays, overtime, comp-offs
- Configuring holiday calendars with restricted/ floating holidays
- Providing real-time visibility of employee availability and location
Attendance automation data with leave and time management data provides the complete picture.
#7 HR Data Automation
HR needs to maintain a 360-degree view of employees in a central database that can integrate with other enterprise systems.
HR data automation includes
- Configuring unified enterprise-level organisation structures across locations and group companies
- Maintaining a central database of employee profiles, joining documents and career profiles
- Configuring role-wise access to employee data and action rights for HR personnel
- Maintaining audit trails for changes made to HR policy data and employee data
#8 Expense Management Automation
Tracking and approving expenses promptly boosts employee morale and minimises the time spent following up.
Expense management automation helps-
- Automating the workflows for raising expense reports, uploading receipts and approving the same
- Defining multiple expenses and advance policies as per employee grades and designations
- Setting category-wise and location-wise expense limits to avoid overspending.
- Automating the timely transfer of expense payouts and adjustment of advance payouts in the payroll
- Running diagnostic checks to eliminate fraud
#9 Employee Training Automation
Timely vertical-specific training courses and mentoring help employees outperform consistently.
Training automation includes
- Configuring curated learning pathways for employees based on company needs
- Automating workflows for requesting and approving training courses and gathering feedback
- Assigning mentors based on employee grades and learning requirements
- Scheduling live training courses based on trainer and trainee calendars
- Sending automated reminder notifications for training programs and completion deadlines
- Tracking enrollments, training progress and certification status
- Automating test-taking and score analysis to identify skill gaps
#10 Employee Onboarding Automation
A study by the Wynhurst Group found that new hires are 58 per cent more likely to be at the company three years later if they have completed a structured onboarding process.
Automated onboarding helps create a good first impression by
- Automating the workflows for collecting profile data, uploading and approving new hire documentation
- Integrating with identity and access management systems to provide role-based access
- Automatic approvals for providing assets and workstations for new hires
- Providing access to new hires to training modules specific to roles and verticals
#11 Leave Management Automation
Leave management automation is part of HR automation works with time management and attendance management automation to provide a complete picture of the workforce efforts.
It includes
- Configuring leave policies for different types of leaves like earned leaves, casual leaves and sick leaves
- Providing real-time visibility to employees about their leave entitlements and balances
- Enabling leave encashments by integrating with payroll automation apps
- Maintaining a record of employee-wise paid leaves for statutory compliance
Enjoying leave benefits in a hassle-free manner boosts employee productivity.
#12 Interview Scheduling System
Automated interview scheduling can save time and effort for HR executives and reduce the overall hiring time. It also ensures a seamless first experience for the candidates.
Interview scheduling systems help:
- Integrating with interviewer calendars to avoid booking conflicts and back-and-forth emails
- Avoiding human errors in scheduling interviews where recruiters and candidates are in different time zones
- Sending automated reminder notifications to all stakeholders before interviews
- Ensuring correct contact details and online meeting links get sent to all stakeholders on time
#13 Employee Exit Management
A smooth digital exit experience can leave a lasting impact on your employees.
Automated exit management includes
- Configuring separation policies and notice periods as per employee grades
- Calculating, verifying and transferring full and final settlement amounts
- Automating workflows for initiating and scheduling exit interviews and recording feedback
- Configuring customisable exit interview and survey templates
- Ensuring returns of all company assets provided to an employee
- Ensuring all items on the clearance checklist complete before the last day
#14 Employment History Verification
It is critical to perform a thorough background check before hiring recruits. It is also a time-consuming process to verify the employment history manually for each selected candidate.
These processes are often outsourced to certified background verification agencies. Automation helps in
- Integrating workflows with background verification companies to track the status of verification within deadlines
- Automating online workflows for taking consent from applicants for background verification and uploading relevant documents
- Automated templated emails to ex-employer contacts asking for data or scheduling calls if required
#15 Automated Resume Screening
On average, each corporate job opening sees 250 applicants.
Robotic process automation (RPA) can efficiently process repetitive tasks such as resume screening. It entails
- Gathering resumes from multiple job portals, referrals and other sources
- Comparing the resume with job descriptions and filtering the ones matching the job requirements
- Selecting or rejecting applicant profiles based on rules about experience, qualifications or location
- Converting resume data in card format for easy reference by recruiters
- Sending notifications to selected applicants for completing screening tests and scheduling interviews
- Sending templated notifications to candidates who are not selected
#16 Employee Engagement Automation
Employee engagement is one of the most critical best HR automation use cases that directly impact EX.
It includes
- Configuring reward point programs and automating redemption workflows for employees
- Providing internal social communication platforms for employee interactions
- Enabling peer-to-peer recognition on company platforms using badges
- Setting up virtual notice boards for intra-departmental communications and announcements
- Configuring moodbots to know the pulse of the employees daily
#17 Automated Compliance Management
HR compliance covers all activities related to meeting statutory obligations applicable as per company laws.
The chief automation functions covered under this include
- Setting up a provident fund based on employee categories and auto-generating ECR files
- Filing of tax data and TDS returns on time
- Auto computation of social security scheme benefits such as employee state insurance (ESI)
- Adherence to state-specific professional tax and labour welfare fund deductions
- Maintaining a centralised database of HR contracts and company policies
#18 Employee Offboarding Automation
Employee offboarding automation is in continuation of the employee exit automation use case described above.
Post-exit, offboarding takes care of
- Automatic de-provisioning of employee’s access to email, enterprise systems and networks
- Updating the payroll systems about the employee’s exit
- Auto-updating employee exit status in all enterprise systems to avoid discrepancies
- Setting automatic responders on the employee’s official email ID to keep the team members and clients informed
Automated employee offboarding is essential to address security concerns related to unauthorised data access by ex-employees.
#19 Automated Timekeeping System
Timekeeping using timesheets is essential for billing purposes in service businesses.
Automated timekeeping helps
- Tracking billable and nonbillable hours for employees working at client locations
- Sending pre-scheduled reminder notifications for updating timesheets daily
- Configuring mobile device-friendly timesheet templates that be used readily by employees
- Integrates with the invoicing systems to pass approved billable hours data
Timekeeping data along with attendance and leave management form the basis of measuring workforce productivity.
#20 HR Predictive Analytics
HR analytics help track performance indicators (KPIs) and foresee human capital risks.
HR analytics help in
- Tracking performance metrics such as revenue per employee and task completion rates, and absenteeism
- Tracking recruitment efficiency by calculating offer acceptance rates, time to hire, and time to fill
- Tracking training ROI by measuring training expenses, test scores and performance improvement
- Predicting and reducing attrition by analysing reasons for voluntary and involuntary employee churn
- Predicting future leaders based on qualifications, performance and manager feedback
#21 Automated Asset Tracking
With work-from-home becoming the norm, the HR function needs to track the company assets provided to employees.
Automated asset management includes
- Maintaining a centralised asset and vendor database
- Automating workflows for asset requests, approvals and returns
- Tracking hardware inventory with invoicing and warranty details
- Tracking asset ownership information in real-time
- Defining asset allocation tenures to avoid misplacements
Asset automation is crucial for audits as it maintains a complete history and activity log on each asset.
#22 Automated Workforce Scheduling
Shift scheduling is a complicated exercise for businesses providing round-the-clock services across timezones.
Automated workforce scheduling helps with dynamic staffing needs by
- Leveraging data to predict demand and avoid understaffing
- Configuring rule-based shifts based on employee categories, timezones and availability
- Scheduling shifts based on local labour requirements and standards
- Automating request and approval workflows for time-offs
- Supporting shift shuffling or swapping by management approval
- Providing a visual timeline of live and upcoming shifts to supervisors
#23 Workforce Planning
A dynamic workforce plan is essential for HR to adapt to changing business scenarios.
Workforce planning is a set of data-driven analytics that enable
- Segmenting workers and employees based on productivity ratios, capabilities and other specific parameters
- Identifying opportunities for allocation of unproductive hours and downsizing
- Predicting the hiring needs in alignment with the enterprise growth strategy
- Building a leadership pipeline and contingency plans for unforeseen attrition
- Monitoring and improving diversity in the organisation
The Future of HR Automation In The Workplace
The future of HR is hyperautomation. It means that any HR function that can be automated will be automated.
HR business process automation will not be limited to payroll and recruitment functions. It will encompass end-to-end use cases across the employee lifecycle.
Advanced technologies such as machine learning, artificial intelligence and robotic process automation (RPA) will increasingly find application in HR.
Employee data privacy and cybersecurity will gain focus as distributed workplace models are here to stay.
Final Words
BCG research says 81% of companies still have significant potential to improve the digital maturity of their HR functions.
Companies that have already invested in digital maturity and in which HR facilitates a positive employee experience are 1.3 times more likely to report outperformance.
Understanding and adopting HR automation system can be a competitive advantage for businesses competing for talent. Enterprises that ride the HR automation trend will continue to attract top talent.
Featured Resource
HR Automation Starter Kit
List of Courses, Books and Leaders
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