5 HR Tasks That Need Automation

The Human Resources department is the backbone of a company, since it’s to make sure that the workforce is compensated for their time and work. Yet, many HR teams waste valuable time on manual processes in compensating workers, thus being burdened with paperwork, files, email threads, and other repetitive manual tasks. Their tasks consist of the following:

Answer various benefits-related questions daily
Manage new hires
Sort through stacks of paperwork

The good news? There is an alternative!

The HR department can benefit with automation, to where they would have more time and money to tackle more important things. With that said, here are five HR tasks that can use automation:

Timekeeping

“Normally, employees can record their hours after they’ve happened,” says Harry Parkin, a recruiter at Eliteassignmenthelp and Uktopwriters. “And, at the end of the week, they would be recorded on a spreadsheet, or be penciled in. However, these manual recordings can be susceptible to human error, either on the employee’s part, or that of HR. When done unintentionally or fraudulently, manual recordings aren’t as relied on today, as those done through automation.”

Digital time tracking lets HR accurately record hours, and help better compensate employees for their time. Digital time tracking can be done in the following ways, or both:

Investing in a biometric time clock
• Requiring employees to log onto a time tracking website for their time spent at work

Records

Records management goes much deeper than just complying with IRS and USDoL guidelines. In fact, it’s managing records of employees – from the time of employment, to how many hours a week they work, etc.

So, why not reduce the burden of sorting through records to find a document, and let automation do the work for you. Automation lets you find a document and other information on-call, which in turn, promotes better transparency, efficiency, and accountability.

Payroll

Since performing payroll manually often takes days to do (which makes it easy to produce errors), automation makes things easier. With countless options for payroll automation, such as QuickBooks, ADP, and PayChex, the benefits of this include the following:

• With accurate calculations, automation takes into account unique points and the correct results when entering taxes, deductions, over-time, commissions, and other discrepancies.
• For payroll records, automation can digitally hold employees’ tax records for a minimum of 4 years, as expected from the IRS, and payroll records for at least 3 years, as required by the US Department of Labor.
• Automation reduces manual errors from recording hours worked or time-off requests, preventing over or underpaying employees, thus resulting in better time management.

Evaluations

For companies, having an effective evaluation structure is essential. Unfortunately, some companies make the mistake of doing ineffective annual reviews, and not tracking employee progress throughout the entire year.

Instead, by creating an automated process for evaluating employees, it opens doors to the following:

• Helps workers understand their job roles clearly
• Helps managers keep track of things they need to work on, and what they’re excelling in
• Encourages collaboration

Benefits

“With life-changing events, open enrollment, and new employees on the horizon, companies have to adapt to changing benefits that they can give to their workforce,” says Hayden Daly, a business writer at Best australian writers and Best british essays. “However, it’s not easy to track employee benefits, especially when working with paper documents.”

The good news is, managing employee benefits can now be done via an online portal. Here’s how utilizing an online portal can keep track of employee benefits:

• Automatic benefit eligibility process
• Educating employees about enrollment, the benefits offered, and their options
• Letting employees modify their plans for life-changing events (i.e. marriage, a new child, divorce, moving, etc.)

Not only does an online portal reduce administration costs, but can also eliminate the headache of managing open enrollment, onboarding, and other benefits.

Conclusion

As businesses grow more competitive and innovative, it’s important for HR departments to modernize with their respective industries. And with that realization comes the idea of automation.

Instead of having to do the tired and repetitive of manual processes that can potentially do more harm than good with human error – and having to hire additional help for such tasks – consider automation in HR processes and workflows. And soon, your HR department will be more self-efficient, and better function as the backbone of your company.