Even Though One Of The Least Acknowledged Departments Of Every Organisation, HR Is Where All The Real Work Happens.
After all, the word H in HR stands for human and that’s what brings all of us together at the end of the day.
And those days when HR was treated as a solely independent function to be carried out in closed conference rooms are behind us.
Today HR means business and is taken seriously. From recruitment to employee onboarding to performance management, these indices have a direct impact on employee engagement and retention levels, which in turn directly affect the productivity and revenues of a company.
And there is an HR software solution for each of these areas.
79% employers believe that their employees have a significant retention and engagement problem.
Even though the effective and all round functioning of an HR department is important, many companies till today do the bare minimum to ensure smooth operations.
The sad part is that even today a lot of people in HR departments are still stuck with traditional roles of documentation that take away most of their time.
Most of their valuable energy is spent on documentation, collecting labor information and other such administrative tasks.
These mundane tasks take away most of their focus that should otherwise be spent on creating engaging employee experiences.
It is more than necessary to do away with these mundane activities to help HR truly do their work.
We have attempted to list out 5 functions that can make the lives of an HR person easier through automation with HR software:
1. Employee Onboarding
Employee onboarding is critical. From the first day to the next three months, the way a new hire is managed and made to feel impacts organizations deeply.
Detached and poor onboarding techniques will create bad employee experiences.
“69% of employees are more likely to stay with a company for three years if they experienced a great onboarding.”
If the very first day of the employee is all about exhausting him with boring documentation and running around from one corner to the the other, it is sure to create a bad impression of the company, not to mention how frustrating it is for an HR manager.
This needs to be made as smooth and as hassle free as possible by letting new hires take care of paperwork online in advance before their joining date through an HR software.
The first day should be spent on learning about the company, interacting with the team and knowing about roles and responsibilities.
HR managers should spend their time in human interaction, making the new hire feel welcomed and comfortable, rather than acting like a boss who is strict and too stressed about document submissions.
2. Employee Benefits
In every organisation, employees always have tons of questions when it comes to the details of their benefits.
with this, the very nature of benefits also constantly keep changing due to events like open enrolment, new joinees, change in policies etc.
Such employee benefits are not easy to track if done manually.
Instead, they should be managed via an online portal which can reduce the cost of benefit administration, along with the scope of errors.
Such a platform can also include related documents which clearly define and educate the employees about the benefits, allowing them to also make modifications to their plans whenever circumstances change, and most importantly eliminating the headache of managing enrolment for HR managers.
HR software with modern enrolment technology can help HR managers go completely paperless. Besides, such a platform can also guide employees through electronic sign ups and FAQ’s.
3. Payroll
Payroll is one of the most critical functions of any HR department.
Timely and error free disbursement of payroll can have many benefits than one can imagine. It is also one of the most critical and time taking processes which take away a lot of time of the HR and finance department.
Automating a payroll system can help eliminate such a wastage of time and resource as it is quick, systematic, intelligent and error free.
A payroll system takes a couple of clicks as opposed to weeks and can be entirely handled by the finance department if set right.
Accurate calculations, maintenance of payroll records, better time management, prevention of overpaying or underpaying employees can all be handled in a matter of a few minutes, letting HR managers focus on other core aspects that affect businesses.
4. Attendance Management
Proper attendance management is very important for organisations to understand which employees stand out and effective payroll disbursement. However, tracking it manually of even through devices can turn out to be faulty and frustrating on part of the employees.
“According to a study by AffinityLive, employees who fill in their time sheets less than once are only 35% accurate.”
Employees should be allowed to record their time electronically each day which frees a lot of time for HR on maintaining a manual time tracker.
Not everyone’s memory is perfect and a manual method of timekeeping will only increase the risk of wrong numbers.
Let employee presence be enough to count for their attendance through technological solutions. Make attendance a simple automated process that also integrates with payroll directly.
5. Employee Profiles
Welcome to the world of social media, where every person has a personal account for interacting with the virtual world.
Such a system is not only effective, but also engaging for the employee as he/she gets to fill in personal details as well as have access to information related to payroll, benefits and the like that affects his/her employee motivation morale.
Even the whole saga of applying for leaves through emails can stop with a system that allows employees to apply for leaves online, while he/she can also check the leave calendars for colleagues to take informed decisions.
Employees need to have the option to submit requests electronically for faster approval, through a system that lets them look through policies, check their leaves and holidays and also check how much PTO they have available so that they manage their own time judiciously.
Through the right HR software, they can also update their personal information like birthdays, anniversaries and joining dates, which can help HR keep up to date with all crucial employee data rather than run around to gather it.
Automation of tasks that otherwise take away all the time of HR is they key to concentrate on real issues that impact business.
Empower your employees to do more with what they have and give them access to resources than can make otherwise time consuming and manual processes independent and effective.
It’s time for HR to focus on the human element of organizations and make a real impact on culture and engagement through investment in the right HR software.