Have you ever wondered why Human Resources is such a vital branch to every company? This essential department tracks applicants, streamlines the onboarding process, trains employees, manages benefits and timetables, handles legal concerns, and last but not least, sorts out interoffice conflicts. So, how is running a business even possible without an operative and productive HR division?
THE hr system
Nowadays, 53% of HR professionals say employee engagement increases when onboarding is improved, according to Risepeople.com. Moreover, among HR professionals who claim difficulty in retaining older workers, 47% cite work location inflexibility as the biggest challenge, followed by career inflexibility (45%) and work hours inflexibility (44%),
As we can see, HR employees are starting to get tired of performing. Their rates of productivity are quickly decreasing, while technology takes over the world. Today, automating your HR system is one of the smartest decisions to take as a company.
But Why?
- It’s less labor intensive which makes it less time consuming
- It’s consistent and fair play (especially when hiring, non-biased)
- Information is easy to track
- Data can be accessed from any computer, leaving room for potential freelance hiring
But How?
There are many ways in which you could automate your HR system. Let me present to you the essential ones:
Hiring Goals
There can be a lot of miscommunication between recruiters and prospective employees. Sometimes, details are missed or information is mistaken. With an automated HR system, there is no need to worry about these problems anymore. Checking the system is enough to find out all the aspects that you need. It makes your job easier, faster, and flawless!
Automated hiring requests work like this:
- The applicant visits the application web page – here, they learn about the job requirements, read all the job descriptions, and answer some quick questions
- They fill in their information details
- They are then directed to a “test” page – here, they respond to some personality, skill and abilities questions
- If they get a good score, they will get an interview with the recruiter (yay!)
- Background check and signing the relevant documents comes right after
And, that’s it! No more time spent reading thousands of applications and risking involving emotionally and subjectively in the decision-making process. Automation simplifies everything.
Check out the best software tools:
Tracking the Timesheets
Timesheets…. what a pain in the bum! We all hate it, yet we all do it. It’s part of the routine, so we must stick to it. In the end, timesheets promise we get paid, don’t they? If we don’t fill them out correctly or make innocent mistakes, our longtime productivity could suffer, and we might not even get that paycheck in due time. As you may know, completing timesheets manually can present problems because:
- They can easily be lost, ripped, or stained
- Even the smallest mistakes delay the input of info into payroll
Here are the best timesheet software processes available online:
- Toggl – a time-tracking and timesheet automation service for employees; it also tracks team progress both online and offline and has a work timer. It costs $9 per month, but you get a free 30-day trial.
- Clicktime – designed for both small and big businesses, the app keeps track of online timesheets and pay dates, analyzes the projects’ profits and costs, and track employee performance; it’s a little bit more costly - $16 per month, getting a free 30-day trial as well
- Freckle – tracks timesheets, tracks employees’ progress, invoices and bills for the time worked; pricier, from $25 per month for five users; any additional users must pay $10 per month; you get a free 14-days trial.
Employee Onboarding
When adding a new person to the team, your company’s HR department must undergo numerous integration processes, such as:
- Orientation
- Data completion
- Contract signing
- Other important processes
The HR department plays a significant role in the onboarding routine, such as:
- Scheduling meetings with new employees
- Printing several policies and forms for new hires
- Monitoring the hiring process and asking questions
- Pairing the new employee with a mentor
- Preparing PowerPoints or any other type of digital help to present facts and stats
- Organizing different workshops and discussing the company’s policies
- Manually adding the new hire in the computer’s database
Thus, onboarding can be time-consuming and not very efficient for the company’s productive endeavor. Automate it now using the following (awesome!) software:
- BambooHR – time-off tracking, e-signatures, free trials, online support, training and deployment included
- Whatfix – one-to-one personalization, gain insights for making better decisions
- Monday.com – uses a template that allows you to communicate effectively with your employees (even remote workers!), read applications, conduct interviews, processes payouts
- Process Street – includes training and deployment as well, 24/7 support, prices starting at $15/month for each user
Updating Information
Vital employee information must be on hand all the time. A responsible employer keeps his or her employees’ emergency contact numbers and addresses easily reachable. But, when the number of persons employed in your company exceeds 50, it’s hard to keep up.
Automating the information update makes tasks so much easier for everyone! Staff won’t need to spend hours copying important information anymore – everything will be done automatically!
Here are some examples of my favorite software that can make this easy for you:
- Namely Software – stores employee information, data, time-off and reporting of social news feed; tracks progress; the price is worth the quality.
- RUN by ADP Software – has a unique portal for keeping all employee information in one place; helps teams make fillings and tax deposits;
Leave Requests
Manual leave request can bring troubles to the HR department and the employer. A form that is improperly filled will take long hours to correct. That removes the staff's focus on other more critical tasks and minimizes their efficiency. If you choose to automate your leave requests, everything runs more smoothly. This process becomes faster and way more efficient. More than that, it is less prone to grammatical mistakes or errors.
If you choose a well-designed automation system that conforms to the applicable laws, you won’t need to complete numerous papers or follow endless procedures. Here are some good ones:
- Bindle – web-based; matches your time off policies (if set up correctly!) and assigns an approver to each employer for approving or rejecting leave requests; starting from $1.50 per month, designed for both small and medium businesses; the only supported language is English.
- Calamari – contains two separate modules, clock in/out and leave management; for the second, it plans time off, personal days, and remote work, it automates entitlement calculation, and it multiples policies automatically applied; you can try it for free!
- Zoho People – tracks time and attendance, simplifies employee performance reviews, fits your business’ needs, saves time with self-serve features, and automatically updates info of your employees.
Performance Appraisals
Performance appraisal is crucial to your company’s development. It can make HR processes much more productive (as seen above!), and make employees feel more motivated than ever. Let’s be honest: we are not always in the mood to cheer our staff up. By automating this process, you can recognize their performance and keep track of their qualities-development without having to overwork.
According to KissFlow, studies indicate that 48% of companies don’t really do anything to measure improved productivity. That’s why companies need to go digital! Here are some of the best software to choose this year:
- Impraise – You can empower your people by increasing alignment and clarity around individual performance, development areas and, real-time coaching; unlock their potential for growth and impact with 52%, and grow 17% in profitability
- Cornerstone Performance – offers performance management, succession, compensation, insights, and view; you can quickly improve their performance with this management system and control their growth
- Taltrack – set individual goals, track and influence their performance, and empower check-ins with this fantastic app; their motto is “putting the ‘human’ back in HR”; the application was built by a group of experienced people from all over the world.
- Workday Performance Management – supports the review process (from alignment to review and compensation), includes training, deployment, 24/7 support (Live Rep), and online assistance.
Wrapping Up
Automate your hiring process, leaving requests, timesheet management, employee onboarding and offboarding, information update and performance appraisals today. Don’t waste time on manual HR tasks anymore – take the easy and productive route!
About the Author: Susan Saurel is a qualified teacher of higher category, PM in an IT company, a passionate writer for cheap essay writing service EssayWritingLand. In her free time, she likes to contribute articles about business and education sphere or spend this time traveling with her children.
