Automaton has been proven to be a huge business time-saver, especially in HR, where many tasks get repeated regularly and automating these processes can help make the tasks more efficient. Automaton also has the potential to help businesses save quite a bit of money. The employee experience experts at Randstad note that automation, “as it not only frees human resources from doing manual repetitive tasks on a day-to-day basis, but automation also increases accuracy and speed, eliminating the cost of having to deal with errors and process delays. Yet, despite the advances…businesses are missing about 50% of all automation opportunities on average. RPA in HR can specifically provide up to one-third cost reduction by automating recruitments, screening, assessments, payroll, learning, and many other HR jobs and processes.”
A more affordable HR planning process with automation
Here’s how to incorporate automaton in your HR planning process to realize every money-saving opportunity.
- Prioritize planning: One of the critical components of any part of the business is to be proactive instead of reactive. That’s why it’s important to position your HR planning process as a priority. The planning process helps to predict the decisions that will need to be made and help businesses stay on track towards their and even anticipate potential problems.
- Look at the data: In addition to the importance of HR planning as an HR priority, it’s key to make sure that you’re laying out plans supported by the best information. One of the biggest benefits of automation is how it allows for data to be gathered and stored in a central location. Automated recruitment programs, for instance, not only screen resumes to ensure that the most qualified candidates are in line for an interview, they allow employers to store all resumes in a database for later use. Automated self-service employee benefit portals can help HR professionals more easily analyze which benefits programs are getting enrollment and prep for the next year’s plan. Using this data can help you analyze and improve your HR plans and make sure you’re not investing your time or business money in the wrong things.
- Ask the right questions: If you aren’t already using automation, are there parts of your process you can identify as currently being too time-consuming or expensive? Is your resume screening process well over your projected or ideal timelines, for instance? If you are already employing automation, use those solutions to ask if you could be doing more with them. A lot of HR planning helps to support labor predictions and staffing needs. Scrambling to fill positions to ensure business productivity is stressful and unnecessary. Dig into time tracker and payroll automaton data, for instance, and see if there are any trends to help you understand when you may see an increase in overtime due to an upswing in business. Can you plan for this likely uptick in staffing and scheduling ahead of time?
- Ask for feedback: Your employees can be your greatest teachers. If there’s a part of the HR process that they’re struggling with or that feels too disconnected, chances are it’s costing your business money, in either employee productivity, turnover, or time spent troubleshooting a repeating issue. If you’re noticing trends in employee feedback that points to one part of your processes – like onboarding or benefits administration – it might be time to take a look at that part of the HR planning process and see if automation can provide a fix. HR planning can, and should, sometimes include planning on how to improve HR tasks and processes.
Automaton is the future of HR. Using automation to assist in your HR planning process can help strengthen your business position while helping to provide not only a better employee and employer experience but also helping to create savings that can be re-invested into the business and into the very people that HR works to support.
