An HR department manages employees throughout their entire tenure with the company. HR work is not only one of the cornerstones of any organisation, but also encompasses a wide range of responsibilities. Team members’ foremost priority is helping to resolve the concerns and fulfil the needs of employees and business leaders. HR also ensures that the company satisfies compliance requirements with regard to employee management and hiring.
It’s easy for HR professionals to be pulled in multiple directions at once, given the department’s many tasks and obligations. Streamlining HR procedures can go a long way toward making department operations more efficient and organised. It also helps the department avoid the many pitfalls of inefficient manual workflows, including payroll and benefits errors, compliance problems, and inconsistent reporting.
Here are five things your company’s HR department can do to streamline its processes:
Leverage Cloud-Based Solutions Wherever Possible
Using contemporary technology to streamline workflows and drive greater productivity is one of the surest ways to beef up your HR department. In particular, phasing out manual and paper-based processes and communication methods in favour of digital solutions is immensely helpful for many companies. Adopting a cloud phone system at your company, for example, is a low-cost, secure, user-friendly alternative to traditional business phone systems. Such tools help improve the quality of support your HR professionals can offer to both on-site and remote employees.
Cloud-based data management tools and HR solutions, meanwhile, make it easy for the department to view, analyse, and organise workforce information in real time. These are things you simply can’t do if your HR department is still dependent upon manual encoding and other paper-based processes.
Instead of making team members keep track of hard-copy resumes and individual candidate emails, for instance, you can implement a digital HR system with applicant tracking capabilities. These software systems allow hiring managers to view all candidates for a particular position, their sources, notes on their interviews, and each candidate’s current progress through the hiring process. Having all this information at their fingertips empowers your HR personnel to make more informed, strategic choices.
Review and Revise Incumbent Procedures
It can be challenging to figure out where to begin improving upon your HR department’s existing processes. One effective way to assess department operations and approach improvement strategically is to review each stage in the employee lifecycle. This will allow you to identify and address any efficiency gaps and redundant processes.
Go over your processes in each of the following areas and think about what protocols are working well for the department and which need changing or even eliminating:
- Applicant tracking and hiring;
- Onboarding;
- Training;
- Employee attendance;
- Benefits and payroll;
- Performance assessment; and
- Offboarding.
Automate as Many Basic Processes as Possible
Nowadays, organisations can and should utilise AI automation solutions for basic HR tasks to reduce the amount of manual work the department is required to do overall. Almost any fundamental HR function, from monitoring employee performance to tracking vacation leaves to facilitating onboarding procedures, can now be automated with the right software.
The benefits of wide-scale process automation are near-endless for HR departments everywhere, but some of the most compelling include the following:
Greater Efficiency
Automation speeds up repetitive, time-consuming tasks and executes them cleanly, without the risk of human error. This boosts overall departmental productivity and also helps your HR department reduce operating costs.
Enhanced Experiences for All Employees
Effectively implemented automation strategies will free up your HR department to invest in more strategic communications and more value-adding, employee-centric projects. These might include culture-building efforts, initiatives to reassess benefits schemes and compensation strategies, employee training and enrichment sessions, and much more. With the right technological infrastructure supporting the department’s operations, HR professionals can reimagine themselves as involved guardians of employee welfare rather than simple paper pushers.
Reduced Environmental Footprint
Eliminating paper-based processes isn’t just a win for operational efficiency. It also helps companies meet sustainability targets by reducing the amount of waste they generate daily. Besides helping your company cut back on paper waste, automation also helps minimise the energy costs attached to running printers and photocopying machines.
Introduce Employee Self-Service Functions
Responding to employee requests and queries is a critical function of HR, but there’s no need to waste valuable manpower on answering elementary questions or providing employees with basic forms. Implementing employee self-service grants your company’s employees ready access to any information they might need regarding compensation, benefits and HR policies. HR professionals, meanwhile, will be free to attend to other work instead of being bogged down by rudimentary tasks.
Track Important Workforce Metrics
Tracking key metrics can reveal inefficiencies, areas for further improvement, and cost-cutting opportunities. Some important workforce metrics your HR department should track over time include the turnover rate, payroll expenses, healthcare cost per employee, and time to hire. Monitoring these variables consistently will help the department make more data-driven decisions and devise more ways to improve its productivity over time.
Streamlined workflows improve your HR department’s efficiency and enhance the quality of support that HR professionals can provide to co-workers. Cutting back on manual work, taking advantage of digital solutions, and empowering team members will all help your HR department work at its absolute best.
HR Future Staff Writer
