There is no doubt that HR departments make a big contribution to the development and success of any company. HR activities cover a wide range of tasks related to attracting and retaining human resources. This includes searching, selecting and hiring candidates, onboarding new employees, creating various corporate systems of benefits and incentives, ensuring compliance with current labor laws, organizing events and team building activities aimed at team building.
This is not a complete list of possible tasks for the HR department. Many of them are associated with typical and routine processes that take time and lead to employee burnout. HR automation is designed to greatly streamline routine tasks and free up time for relationship and people-centric processes. How to automate HR activities and what tools are needed for this, we will consider below.
What does HR automation include
HR automation is the application of technologies and systems to optimize and automate various processes and tasks related to human resource management. Automation involves the replacement of manual labor used on a daily or monthly basis for various HR -tasks, automated solutions such as programs, apps, chatbots, online services, and artificial intelligence. Automation of personnel processes can cover several types of activities, including recruitment, adaptation of employees, intra-corporate communications, administration of benefits and bonuses, hiring and dismissal of employees, etc.
On average, an HR team can spend two to four hours on the same repetitive manual processes that are time consuming and have a negative impact on overall productivity. The introduction of special services for HR automation has a number of advantages for the company and will allow:
- Speed up the hiring and onboarding of new employees;
- Track, collect and analyze information related to personnel, and make informed management decisions based on this information;
- Minimize errors and human error through digitalization.
By automating routine HR tasks, organizations gain a competitive advantage that allows them to attract more qualified people and effectively manage their existing talent pool.
Which HR processes can be automated
Let's consider a few basic processes that can be automated:
- Selection and recruitment
- Staff training and adaptation
- Internal communication
- System for monitoring and recording working time
- Accounting for compensation and benefits
- Accounting for travel, etc.
To automate a particular process, it is necessary: 1) to analyze and audit the current situation, followed by the formulation of tasks and the identification of possible problems; 2) prepare the terms of reference (with the involvement of the company's technical specialists); 3) choose from several services the one that best meets the needs of the enterprise and the tasks of the HR service; 4) implement the program/service, set up and adjust the work parameters; 5) train employees and if necessary.
HR automation tools
To automate the company's HR processes, it is necessary to select the appropriate software. There are dozens of services and programs on the Russian market aimed at improving the quality of managers' work. It can be both application programs on desktops and online services. All of them are general or professional programs that can be used by enterprises.
Let's list some common programs for HR:
- A system for automating recruitment and recruitment processes, building an HR funnel. Examples: Huntflow, Talantix, Flow;
- System of personnel electronic document management. Examples: VLSI, SBER Korus, Kontur.KEDO;
- Complex systems that combine recruitment, training and development of employees, payroll, reporting and certificates, labor protection. Examples: 1C: Payroll and personnel management, Alfa HR;
- Systems for recording and controlling working time. Examples: "Stakhanovite", TimeControl;
- Corporate messenger for team communication with videoconferencing. Examples: eXpress, VK Teams, TrueConf;
- A mobile workplace for an employee that allows you to communicate and solve work tasks online, regardless of location and device used. Example: Atom Space built on the eXpress enterprise communications platform.
- assistant bot,
- training courses,
- ordering references,
- registration of sick leaves and vacations,
- service for executives,
- corporate news and more
Let's take a closer look at Atom Space. This is a specialized application designed for communication between employees of the nuclear industry, as well as for interaction with partners and contractors within the State Corporation. The platform offers both classic functions of a corporate messenger and demanded HR services:
Every day, Atom Space users hold over 250 business meetings and send tens of thousands of messages. At the 2023 TADviser Summit, Atom Space won the Mobile Workplace of the Year award. The award was given to eXpress CEO Andrey Vratsky and Galina Bogatova, Director of the Center for Digital HR Technologies, Business Partner for HR Products of JSC Greenatom.
Summing up, it can be noted that HR departments are the circulatory system of any company, since they are involved in finding and attracting qualified personnel, retaining and motivating staff. When HR is equipped with the tools to automate key processes, they can get through their day-to-day routine faster and more efficiently and can focus on larger and more strategic talent development tasks.
