Given the rise of remote work and the Great Resignation, digital transformation is not an option for HR departments. According to the 2022 PwC Pulse survey, among 94 HR leaders from Fortune 1000 and private companies, 68% of participants plan to invest in digital transformation initiatives in 2022, and 47% plan to increase their use of automation for certain jobs.
And for good reason. Paper-based tasks and tedious, complex processes cost HR departments time and money resulting in a hands-off approach to HR. By automating their processes, HR teams can return their focus to what really matters: the people.
What are the Top Benefits of HR Automation?
1. Save Money
HR automation is highly cost-effective. A 2021 report from Deloitte found that HR teams could uncover valuable savings across various HR processes using automation. The report revealed valuable automation savings in the following tasks have the biggest opportunity for impact on average:
- Time management tasks completed 10 times a week average 27 minutes each, with potential annual automation savings of about $24,000
- Payroll and tax tasks completed seven times a week average 43 minutes each, with potential annual automation savings of about $24,500
- Communications and engagement tasks completed six times a week average 58 minutes each, with potential annual automation savings of about $23,000
By automating all 3 of these processes, you could save $71,500.00 annually.
2. Accelerate and Improve the Audit Process
Audits under manual processing can be painfully slow and tedious, often lacking visibility into employee documents. And the more time you put into an audit, the higher it costs you. HR automation makes the audit process faster and easier, as you can trust that all the documents you need are complete, secure, and in the correct place. In addition, with a content services platform, you can reduce or eliminate pre-audit preparation tasks and set secure, time-based limited access for an auditor. These measures raise security standards while reducing the number of steps involved to make for a faster, better experience.
3. Protect Sensitive Information with High Security
A breach of confidential employee information is an absolute nightmare. However, when you implement the right content services platform, you can rest assured that all your employee documents are secure. Content services platforms are highly granular when it comes to user access. This measure ensures that only those with the correct rights and privileges can access documents.
To go a step further, these systems only grant users access to the critical content they need to do their jobs. Plus, every document has a complete audit trail associated with it. You can use these audit trails to learn who accesses each document, what they do with it, and precisely when they interact with it. When data is at rest, in transit, or in use, the system encrypts it, giving you even more peace of mind.
“It’s priceless having security in place. I can see where forms are in the process at any time. I know they started in OnBase and the information will go to the correct folder – while ensuring everything is secure.” -Bonnie Wagner, Senior Corporate Recruiting Manager at Foremost Farms
Foremost Farms Case Study
Learn more about how these benefits and more have played out in real-time for Naviant Customer, Foremost Farms, when they automated their HR processes with OnBase.
4. Streamline the Hiring Process
An overly complex recruitment process isn’t just a headache for HR staff, but it can lead to missed opportunities to hire top talent. If an application gets too long or complicated, applicants will get burnt out and quit partway. HR automation can help avoid this pitfall by simplifying the application process. This technology allows you to set up workflows to collect the necessary information. Then, applicants only need to fill out online forms with auto-populated fields, making for a much smoother experience and a positive first impression. As soon as they hit submit, your team is notified that there’s a new application ready for review.
HR automation also keeps all pertinent forms, documents, and signatures involved readily available. This capability not only modernizes the hiring process, but can assist in the training, performance management, and employee departure processes. Scheduled notifications are another perk of automation to accelerate the steps involved with these processes.
5. Better Consistency and Accuracy
Human error is an inherent consequence of manual processing, no matter who’s performing the task. And as the volume of manual tasks increases, so does the instance of errors, which require a massive amount of rework to fix, costing you time and money. HR automation can complete repetitive tasks like tax forms, PTO requests, enrollment, and other paperwork with impeccable accuracy and consistency. This benefit makes HR automation an even more valuable add to your team.
6. Free Up HR Staff’s Time
HR departments are heavy with document-driven processes. Too often, this looks like chasing down coworkers for signatures, printing and scanning documents, fixing manual errors, faxing information back and forth, and filling out the same documents repeatedly. However, HR automation can take over many of these unnecessary, tedious steps, saving your staff considerable work hours.
With fewer manual steps, your team’s roles and duties can grow and evolve. Additionally, they can unlock more time to tend to more value-added tasks, like fostering relationships with current employees or connecting with prospective hires.
7. Centralize All Your Information
With so many document-driven processes, a common obstacle in HR is missing papers, forms, and other important information. When you digitize your HR department with HR automation, all your documents, forms, and legally binding eSignatures unite in one location. Instead of wasting time searching for files or manually entering data, staff can quickly find what they’re looking for in a few clicks. And when you automate your HR processes, the chances of a document getting lost along the way are significantly slashed. This enhanced organization and centralization can also enable better collaboration and communication between your HR team and other departments.
Workday Integration
To take this benefit even further, Hyland was recently named a winner of the 2022 Workday Partner Innovation Awards in the Office of Human Resources Category for its Content Services for Workday HCM solution. This solution is a one-stop-shop for document capture, storage, and governance capabilities for employee data-related content, like:
- Benefits documents
- I-9 forms
- Incident reports
- Employment agreements
- Completed performance reviews
- Resumes
With all this content and capabilities in one unified solution, Workday HCM helps organizations make faster decisions, prepare for future talent shifts, build effective teams, and gain full operational visibility.
7 Reasons Your HR Department Needs a Content Services Platform
It’s time to end your reliance on paper and manual processes in your HR department. Learn more about how HR automation can help you tackle your HR challenges.
Embracing automation in your HR strategy won’t just cut costs and make your immediate HR staff’s lives easier, but it will provide your employees and customers the personal, smooth experiences they expect.
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