Article: Increasing focus on HR automation

Technology

Increasing focus on HR automation

It frees up HR professionals for tasks that have direct impact on quantifiable business objectives
Increasing focus on HR automation
 

Companies are waking up to the fact that they need technology solutions which can address their demands and allows change management

 

The increasing demand for HR automation is a clear sign that HR technology in India is on the growth path. There was a time when an HR professional was a people person with soft skills and was required to look into employee transactions and handle administrative duties. That time is long gone. The clamour that HR should become a strategic partner has been growing. The focus has shifted from mundane tasks like payroll to more important aspects such as succession planning, employee engagement, efficient recruitment, employee retention etc.

To create value that has direct impact on the larger business objective, HR professionals have realized to look beyond traditional ways of working. Clearly, the awareness is there. The focus on automation has increased. The demand for products that make the entire system more efficient and services, which cater to these requirements, will only increase from here.

Enterprises understand the benefits of HR automation. Here are main benefits that an enterprise can achieve by automating its HR processes:

  1. It allows them to liberate HR professionals for tasks that have direct impact on quantifiable business objectives.
  2. Increase in productivity and profit as it is a cost-effective way of speeding up work.
  3. Precision and accuracy is a given, as automation reduces the chances of human error by manual entering of data.
  4. Accessing previous and bulk information is much easier as it promises data security. This can be achieved by having a backup of the entire data.

A smart enterprise resource planning solution enables all of this by empowering users with highly business-critical information and increasing efficiency by speeding up work and processes. Most of advanced software and systems are quite adaptable to the changing needs and can be upgraded with time.

Clearly, the use of HR technology is seeing a leap. Instead of playing with HR systems in bits and pieces, many companies are operating number of HR systems for various functions such as payroll to employee self-service transactions. They are leveraging different platforms and hence, there is an increased demand for platforms, which could be easily integrated to create an end-to-end automated system. There is an awareness that these platforms need to be made available to employees on their mobile phones, tablets etc as well. This shows that the recognition that HR technology can transform the way HR works is there. Apart from the fact that technology needs focus, companies are waking up to the fact that they need technology solutions which can address their demands and allows change management.

The cost factor

Demand for software which could integrate with various other systems and processes and result in complete automation is increasing. However, not many companies see the ROI from the very beginning. Often, it is considered as a cost center. So, for the majority of companies complete automation of HR processes is yet a far-fetched idea. When compared with the scene a few years back, the budget assigned for HR technology has improved drastically.

In terms of reach, there is some difference in the way larger and smaller companies look at this. In any case, automation adds more value in companies with minimum employee strength of 100 people. Start-ups and smaller companies are yet to see a surge in this arena. Middle and large sized companies have evolved a lot. Effective implementation is also something that is being looked into by opting for simple interface that the non-IT staff finds easy to use.

The conversation has moved from ‘Is HR technology beneficial for me?’ to ‘How can I upgrade this software to make it even more useful for my employees?’ There is increased demand for customization which service providers are consistently trying to meet.

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Topics: Technology, Performance Management, #Trends

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