Article: HR automation: stepping up the EX game

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HR automation: stepping up the EX game

With the ever-growing focus on employee experience scaling new heights in the post-pandemic era, we look at how HR automation can provide HR leaders with the tools to enhance EX.
HR automation: stepping up the EX game

Employees today work in a business environment that is fast finding its way out of the throes of the pandemic. This period for companies was marked by rapid disruptions and a significant rise in tech usage. Digital tools and technologies have become the cornerstone of modern-day organisations, and businesses are queuing to enter the transformation race to ensure they remain competitive. 

Yet while the focus on technologies has remained pivotal to companies facing the challenges of the pandemic, it has been their renewed focus on talent that has helped them grow. Skilled employees are rare, and retaining them is core to business success. How effectively companies can shape their employee experience will go on to define engagement and retention rates in the coming years. Keeping in line, a recent study showed EX programs would consume more than 20% of HR budgets in 2022.

HR automation: the key EX enabler

HR automation is crucial in enhancing the relationship between employees and employers. In the post-pandemic world, where employee experience has become key in ensuring employees remain engaged with their work or leave, HR automation becomes a valuable ally in helping HR leaders tilt the scales towards the former. 

It is not surprising that in a world of hybrid work—where remote and other flexible work options have become the norm—Mckinsey notes a significant rise in the digitalisation and automation of processes. Its most recent report notes that over 67% of organisations have accelerated the implementation of automation in their companies. In the post-pandemic world of hybrid work, HR needs to redesign processes with a fresh look and focus on EX.

While this rise of automation has been analogous to rising productivity, today, HR automation is enabling HR leaders to drive employee experience. Briefly, HR automation provides the following key advantages:

  • Reduced Errors and Streamline processes: HR automation transformed all HR processes, resulting in streamlined processes that produced accurate and reliable results for HR teams. This benefit has spread to creating a positive employee experience and today helps reduce cumbersome HR policy implementation. 
  • Data-driven decisions: With access to accurate, in-time and error-free data, equipping HR leaders to make intelligent and timely decisions on enhancing employee experience and creating the proper decision-making framework.
  • Clear the clutter: With the right automation partner, HR leaders can benefit from automation that helps reduce their workload of transactional work and help them be more strategic in enhancing the employee experience.
  • Paperless processes: HR automation helps win a significant battle in the employee experience by doing away with mundane tasks and driving paperless work. In a hybrid world of work, this provides the necessary means to expand talent pools and engage employees successfully. 
  • Reduce cost and time: HR automation helps improve the employee experience by enabling HR leaders to make cost-effective decisions. Instead of spending significant resources revamping different parts of talent management, HR automation brings a simple, effective, and affordable solution for improving employee experience. 

Automation brings with it a long list of cases it can help HR leaders improve for better EX. Different touchpoints where HR automation helps improve employee engagement and experience through their lifecycle in the company. 

Recruitment

Automation has an essential role in enabling TA heads and Hiring managers to become effective in hiring the right people. By automating routine tasks like highlighting the suitable candidates in a host of applicants and streamlining interview processes, automation helps to hire managers get the time to connect with the candidate and spend more time curating the right experience. 

Onboarding 

With onboarding being the first few months a new employee spends getting accustomed to the company, it's crucial to build a robust EX. To avoid high turnover rates during the first 90 days of an employee, the proper use of automation can provide companies with a streamlined onboarding process that enhances the new hire experience. HR leaders can personalise the experience by allowing managers and employees to connect effortlessly and without cumbersome processes. It also helps facilitate mentorship and can, with the right automation partner, can help take your onboarding process to the next level. 

Establishing Work-Life Balance

Hybrid work environments today have blurred the line between work and personal life. This has led to high rates of burnout, dissatisfaction, and, eventually, attrition. A primary driver during the Great Resignation phase was the sudden dissolution of established work-life balance routines for employees. But with automation, companies can revamp their processes and do away with legacy and obsolete practices to help employees get a better grip on work and plan better. 

Performance management 

Automating performance management helps make the often mundane process of performance management into one that is engaging and error-free. And it's not just employees who are tired of old, mundane performance reviews. According to CEB, 95% of managers are "unhappy" with traditional performance management and feel they could use improvement. Automation helps modernise performance management and, with it, improves EX significantly. In addition, a process that gives employees more value for their time helps improve their performance. 

Payroll and Compensation

One of the most critical roles of HR automation is to digitalise and automate payroll processing which significantly improves EX. As the hybrid world leads to companies looking at different geographies for talent demands, a smooth, automated payroll process plays a significant role in ensuring people are engaged and productive. 

The way ahead

Today employees demand greater purpose and a deeper connection from their work. With automation, companies and HR leaders can build future-ready practices that help them connect with employee demands better and help enhance the experience. 

But to ensure automation is successful in the ever-evolving world of hybrid workplaces, HR leaders require a clear understanding and a purpose-driven approach. HR automation opens up new possibilities for growth and change within the company and helps unlock its human capital by spurring engagement and creating the right experience. It is, however, necessary to keep a tab on changing employee preferences and ensure the right automation partner is along with the journey to help deliver talent and business success. 

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Topics: HR Technology, Strategic HR, #Automation With HROne

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