HR workflow signifies the monotonous and continual processes that are included in the day-to-day activities of HR Management. As is the custom, HR processes are time-consuming and repetitive tasks.
Automation in HR refers to the process of digitalizing complex HR workflows with cutting-edge AI HR tools to minimalize human interaction with the vision of providing impeccable deliverance of HR tasks.
The post-pandemic era has altered the entire cosmos of HR Management with the inclusion of HRMS software in the workflow of HR.
Besides, The technological advancement in HR automation has been rapid in recent years. However, in contrast, organizations are dubious about upgrading to automation due to a deficiency in automation insights. Are you on the same page? Don’t worry, we have your back. We will be providing a comprehensive understanding of 14 added benefits that can be availed with automation in HR workflow.
Before detailing the benefits of HR workflow automation, let us take a look at the mundane tasks undertaken by HR management in the traditional approach:
- Resume Shortlisting
- Recruiting Process
- Employee Onboarding Process for new hires
- Documentation
- Company Policy Management
- Managing Employee Information
- Attendance Update
- Timesheet Update
- Processing Salaries
- Employee Leave Requests Evaluation
- Attendance Regularization
- Off-duty Attendance Assessment
- Offboarding Processes
- Employee Exit Documentation
Now that we learned about the different human resources workflows that need automation, let us understand how automated workflows benefit management systems.
Also Read: Employee Reward Systems: 5 Essential Factors for Deployment
Benefits Of HR Workflow Automation To HR Management
1. Efficient Time Management
HR workflow automation reduces the time-consuming, lengthy processes involved in HR workflows. Specifically, when an employee is induced or is leaving the workplace, a lot of paperwork and documentation persists which decelerates the HR workflows.
HR automation software saves time for the HR team by streamlining the HR processes which contribute to investing time in other administrative tasks which need human intervention.
2. Employee Management
May it be a new employee, an existing one, or a former staff, the HR staff has to maintain a detailed datasheet containing the employee records.
HR workflow software eases the process by automatically saving the employee data in cloud-based software, wherein, it can be conveniently evaluated, organized, or retrieved during the time of emergency, making the HR processes management systems easier.
3. Negligible Paper Work
Manual processes of HR had ample paperwork involved wherein HR teams had their maximum time and energy drained in creating and sorting documents.
Automated HR workflow enables HR professionals and HR managers to maintain all employee information such as their general details, designation, salary details, bonds with the company if any, handover documents, and other paperwork electronically. It provides hassle-free processes and frees the human resource management team from unnecessarily getting struck in plenty of filing work.
4. Increased Social Engagement
Apart from safeguarding employee details, the HR department also has an additional responsibility of social engagement wherein, HR management is expected to maintain a cordial relationship with the external public – media, investors, clientele, etc. – to increase the visibility of the company culture and enhancement of the business image.
Besides, HR process workflow also includes employee branding and employee engagement to create a healthy working environment.
HR process automation unchains HR departments from complex paperwork and repeated HR requests to provide an organized database for evaluation. This provides abundant time for the HR team to engage in other important tasks and socially engage both the internal and external stakeholders.
5. Reduce Error with Automated HR Workflows
Manual errors in human intervention tasks are commonplace. HR’s manual tasks include plenty of processes and when there is a huge recruitment drive or occurs at regular intervals, it becomes difficult for the HR management to keep up with workflow and reduce errors.
AI-based HR software not only reduces errors but also lessens them to a negligible mark and restores time.
6. Convenient Onboarding
The onboarding process of a new employee includes a lot of work:
- Collecting employee details
- Sending offer letters and appointment letters to employees
- Conducting a background check
- Mapping the business rules, policies, and procedures according to the employment terms.
- Creating employees’ credentials (official email account, employee portal, etc.)
- Inducing new employees to designated custom workflows.
HR workflow automation eases the process by streamlining the onboarding of employees starting from resume scanning, inducting employees, and mapping the rules and regulations according to employees’ designation.
Automated workflow in onboarding results in the creation of employees’ official email accounts to safeguard official data that are to be handled by the employee in the future.
In addition, it automatically adds the employee details and designation on the organization portal wherein various other departments will get the insights of the new joiner.
Also Read: Applications of ChatGPT in Human Resources
7. Automatic Background Check
Background check of new employees during the onboarding process is a required protocol to check the authenticity of the documents submitted by the new hires.
In traditional HR workflows, background checking is a frantic affair as verifying the documents of each staff member is not only time-consuming but also contributes to burdening the workload for HR management. As a result, few organizations’ HR department skips the process of verification.
Automated HR workflows do the job swiftly, eliminating inefficiencies and avoidance to perform authenticity tests on the new hire employees.
8. Organized Documentation
An organization comprises numerous employees and storing the on-paper documents of the entire workforce manually is hectic. Documentation is the most tedious task for HR managers and during times of urgency, it becomes challenging to retrieve the required data.
Automated HR workflows save all the details of employees such as name, designation, ID, etc., on cloud-based software in organized ways which creates a backup of the data and can be easily retrieved in future.
9. Effortless Payroll Processing
Processing Payroll of employees includes a lot of steps like:
- Gathering staff details
- Aligning organization procedures to payroll policies
- Evaluating payroll
- Computing taxes
- Payment of reimbursement, allowances, and provident funds
- Evaluating Deductions
- Providing Payslips
- Maintaining compliance
HR workflow automation software streamlines and smoothens payroll processing, making it hustle-free, and saving time.
10. Transparent HR Processes
Workflow automation enables transparency within the organization. The staff member gets a detail of the manager ( for tasks, appraisal, and approval), while the manager gets clear insights into the day-to-day working hours of their subordinates.
This brings forward the hardworking and dedicated workers to their notice and results in fair evaluation at times of appraisal.
11. Convenience in Attendance Regularization & Leave Evaluation
HR workflow automation software provides highly customizable biometric attendance which enables selfie attendance, so staff can log in through their device irrespective of location. For example, post-pandemic work culture has altered the working procedure and most people opt to work from home.
AI-based attendance serves as a perfect solution for remotely located staff so that they can punch their attendance from the work location without any hindrance.
The employees’ leave appeals get streamlined as HR workflow automation provides a platform for applying leave requests on the app and the designated managers get automated notifications on their devices to accept or reject the requests.
Staff can also utilize the ready-to-use templates available on the software to directly send notifications of leave requests to their reporting managers which help save time.
12. Performance Reviews with HR Automation
Streamlining HR processes enhances transparency between the staff and management. During the time of appraisal, management can review the performance appraisals from the software by evaluating attendance frequency, leaves applications, ratings, remarks, etc.
The managers can also set goals with custom parameters to check if the workflow of staff aligns with the business needs or not.
13. Offboarding Rationalization
Offboarding staff is one of the most tedious jobs for HR management. It includes:
- Collecting official data and credentials from the staff
- Informing other departments, specifically accounts, IT, and administration regarding the departure date.
- Inform the staff’s team about the departure so other processes won’t get hampered due to his exit.
- Signing of documents
- Conducting exit interviews
HR workflow automation smoothens the F&F processes with automated employee offboarding software.
The exit staff file passes through the hierarchy for approval and ultimately consumes a lot of time due to the hectic schedule of management. Automation provides customized mandatory approvals in which, management gets a notification to either approve or reject the same.
Automation software also sends notifications about the staff exit date to other departments thereby eliminating the system of e-mailing every department individually.
The asset-tracking feature of the exit staff during their departure also validates the recovery of documents, data, and gadgets provided during onboarding.
Also Read: 7 Benefits of Offboarding Automation in Workplace
14. Benevolent Company Image
when the offboarding and onboarding go effortless, it improves the employee experience, thereby creating a benevolent image or sense of goodwill in the staff.
This gradually spreads around to a larger population dealing with the same profession and builds up a good reputation for the company.
15. Employee Self-Service Portal
Managing Human resources workflow is not only lengthy but also complex and when the company size is mid or huge it becomes heavy going.
The software provides an ESS Portal consisting of interactive dashboards and chatbots to instantly connect with the management.
It enables complete visibility of staff’s performances and data. It also enables the tracking and evaluation of the workflow of staff during the times of appraisal.
Conclusion
Management of Human resources includes a lot of repetitive tasks which exhaust the workflow of HR department. Automation not only streamlines the tasks of human resources but also aligns the workflows with business processes.
Technological advancements in the software of HR also reduce the buffer time involved in onboarding and offboarding procedures. It simplifies tedious monotonous tasks of HR as well as enhances their engagement in other administrative tasks.
