Benefits of Automating HR and Payroll Processes

If your HR processes are all paper based, using even the most basic of workflow automation software will be an improvement, but it’s important to think longer term. While it could be an improvement today, how will you feel about it in six months? Will basic self-service and the ability to automate emails be enough to support your business case, or will you be looking to change again to something that can better streamline your operations in the near future?

Having a real understanding of some of the key organisational benefits of HR software allows you to build a strong business case, ensure future proofing of the department, and dramatically improve HR and Payroll workflow efficiency and output.

Here’s our complete guide to the important benefits of using HR and Payroll automation.

Increased Security and Compliance

It’s amazing how many organisations are still using paper-based processes for information such as personal details, time-off requests, performance, salary amendments and payroll changes. So, if this is you, you are not alone. But even using email for sensitive information such as bank details can pose some serious security risks. With GDPR in full force, it’s never been more important to ensure your security and compliance is watertight.

That’s why if you want the best security and reduced exposure to liability, HR departments should consider using automation for these tasks. When using digital documents, requests, and highly functional self-service on HR software, you avoid manually handling any personal or sensitive information. This also means that HR departments benefit from the automation software’s audit logs, authorised access and even version control where needed for documentation.

Not only that, real time updates mean there is no delay in HR and Payroll accessing the relevant information, so there’s no risk of lost paperwork or delays in passing data across. Business process automation, therefore, is one of the best things your HR department can implement to improve security, compliance and efficiency in your workflows.

You might be interested in: Building a Business Case for HR and Payroll Software

Reduction in payroll errors

One of the dreaded things that can happen for your people is an error with their payroll. Not only does having multiple systems or a manual process make payroll a tedious and complex task, it is prone to errors of many kinds. When this happens, it isn’t simply the onerous task of finding the route of the problem that Payroll has to deal with, there is the challenge of back-dating errors and resolving the issue entirely.

Automating your payroll processes when you have a single HR and Payroll solution means all of the data needed is already there, ready to press the pay run button. And when you do, the Payroll and HR automation software will give you alerts with any potential issues or changes, meaning that Payroll and HR teams can resolve them prior to the final pay run.

The result? Happy people, who are getting paid with no issues, and a happy CFO who will see a reduction in costly errors thanks to business process automation.

You may be interested in: How esa saw a 100% reduction in payroll errors and 87% faster processing

Improved recruitment and onboarding

With the vast amount of admin and problem solving that HR and Payroll are often burdened with, time-sensitive tasks like recruitment and onboarding sometimes don’t get the attention they deserve. And when they do, it’s common that a lot of time is spent manually sifting through CVs, liaising with colleagues via email, and responding to applicants and new hires.

Sometimes, HR specialists have so much on their plates that its impossible to give applicants the attention they deserve – this is bad for employee experience which begins at recruitment. Even during onboarding, if new hires aren’t given the training, support, and check-ins that they need, it can lead to problems with employee engagement and productivity within the organisation.

So, for the sake of employee experience and wider business processes, it’s important for Human Resources to get recruitment and onboarding right.

Automation can really help not only reduce the burden of doing all of these things for HR teams, but it can also dramatically improve your onboarding processes overall through identifying recruitment needs, reducing bias in the process, providing C-Suite reporting, incorporating AI for an outstanding user experience, and more.

Find out more: How HR technology can improve recruitment processes

Simpler offboarding

Linked to the previous point, offboarding is an important part of employee experience but it can create all sorts of headaches for Human Resources staff.

As the last point of contact between an employee and the organisation, it’s important for both that the offboarding process is completed effectively.

HR automation can help by automating workflow processes such as updating former employees’ information, providing records and data about their performance within the company which is useful for analysis, and helping streamline exit interviews.

As Human Resources experts, you’ll understand that leaving a company is time when emotions can run high for former employees. Therefore, it’s more important than ever to use HR automation so the process runs smoothly, and make sure no important tasks are forgotten.

Consistency across locations

If you have more than one office or store within your organisation, it can be easy for different business processes to be adopted within individual locations. This might make sense initially, but can cause real struggles when it comes to reporting, identifying opportunities and future planning.

Using great HR automation can help create real consistency across all of your locations. Automation ensures tasks are carried out consistently, improving the real-time view globally of all of your offices and providing a clear, fair experience for all of your people, regardless of where they are based.

With an increasingly mobile and remote workforce created by the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s more important than ever to bring consistency across all locations.

Saving time

If your company uses software to automate time-consuming HR processes like data entry and other repetitive tasks, Payroll and HR professionals get more time to focus on high-impact tasks instead. The time-saving benefits of HR automation software for employees’ day-to-day tasks benefits the whole business by boosting productivity and efficiency in human resource management.

Automating expenses can reduce processing time by up to 50%, for example. To learn how this can improve the efficiency of an organisation, check out how xcd helped Christians Against Poverty focus more on changing the lives of people in poverty instead of wasting time with easily-automated business processes.

Reducing cost and fuss of paperwork

Traditionally, HR can be full of paperwork. Job application forms, timesheets, performance appraisal logs, and much more paperwork used to be stored physically. However, in this day and age, there’s simply no reason to be printing and storing paperwork. It’s not cost-effective or useful for business processes.

If your company uses HR and Payroll software for business process automation, it eliminates the need to store, transport, and search through paper records. Digitisation and automation simplify HR processes, meaning all that important information is only one click away. It can be accessed simultaneously by employees in different locations.

With the increase in remote work brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, it no longer makes sense to hold paper records at offices when many staff now often work from home. A cloud-based Human Resource management software means that digital records and processes are accessible anywhere at any time.

Plus, automating business processes is far better for the environment because it cuts down on ecological impact of paper and storage.

You might be interested in: How expense management software reduces HR headaches

Try it for yourself

As you can see, there are many benefits to automating the administrative tasks that HR staff waste time on every day. With useful automation technology now available, affordable, and user-friendly, there’s no reason not to use it in human resource management.

Whether yours is a big or small business, HR automation can make a huge difference to performance.

By using workflows to automate business processes, providing excellent self-service and giving individual managers the user-friendly, easy to use tools that they need, HR and Payroll can ensure they have a holistic view of the entire organisation, creating strategic opportunities and assisting future growth.

If you’re curious about how you can integrate HR automation into your business goals, you may be interested to see more of our resources on digital transformation below: