HR 101: How Technology Can Help You Automate the Busy Work

The role of technology in HR has changed tremendously over the years, especially with IT providers developing solutions specifically for the sector. Leveraging the right HR technology pays off, in terms of improved employee productivity and satisfaction, hiring efficiency, as well as savings in time and expense.

Here’s a primer on how HR managers can use technology to automate work processes:

1. Understand your needs – Today’s HR tools are designed for more than just managing people, but can also offer better insight into current and future needs. Modern systems include features for tracking employee productivity and collecting data about employee skill sets, experience, traits and more.

Analyzing this data allows you to understand which factors benefit the business most, and make these a priority when recruiting or hiring. They can also tell you which employees are most productive and can offer predictions in time to take action. Talent retention is one area where this analysis can have a significant impact on business outcomes. When you consider the impact of losing a critical employee, and take into account the time and expense of hiring, plus the cost of training new recruits, the value to the organization of knowing who is a flight risk is obvious.

2. Pipelining and hiring collaboration – A professional network is invaluable when you’re looking for great candidates. With LinkedIn and other social media sites you can build a broader range of contacts, and more effectively target specific candidates. Having a talent community from which to draw makes recruiting quality candidates more efficient.

Collaborative HR technology helps you do this by simplifying outreach and collecting and presenting relevant data in one place. It also enables hiring managers and recruiters to easily exchange information about candidates while keeping everyone informed of the status of each search. For effective collaboration, you need HR technology with a high level of user integration and control. Many applicant tracking systems provide easy to use dashboards allowing decision makers at multiple levels and roles to work together during the recruitment process.

3. Assess potential talent – Along with building a talent community and managing the hiring process, modern applicant tracking software works with third-party providers to send out aptitude tests, personality tests and other assessments to shortlisted candidates. In most cases, qualified and interested applicants can fill these out online. Since they’re based on quantitative factors, these tests can be more effective than interviews when it comes to making objective decisions. They can tell you if applicants have the desired skills and traits, how well they are likely to fit the team, etc.

In addition, having a better understanding of your workforce with an analytics capability can improve the quality of your hiring.

4. Automate interviews & onboarding – Scheduling interviews, managing interviewer availability and conducting orientations can be very time-consuming. With even many basic applicant tracking systems you can automate these work processes. Offering self-orientation resources for new hires ensures that your HR team is only involved when necessary. Upload company culture guides, policy documents and other resources to a central location that new employees can access on their own.

5. Get better & faster results — Many of the bigger HR technology providers now offer a whole range of features and functions in one place. Integrated HR technology for file management, recruiting, time-and-payroll, benefits and people management processes not only improves efficiency and offers cost savings over investing in separate software for each role, but it also makes it possible to easily do the kind of analytics that enhances HR’s strategic role.

6. Cloud-based flexibility – With cloud-based HR technology, your team can access work at any time, from a variety of locations. Using online recruiting software allows HR recruiters and hiring managers to work when they’re traveling, visiting other sites or even sitting at home. Being in the cloud also makes it possible for all employees to have access 24/7 to HR services such as benefits, time and attendance tracking and more.

With modern tools replacing legacy business software across the board, it’s no surprise that companies now look for HR systems that improve performance and boost the bottom line. If you haven’t already revamped your IT infrastructure, it’s definitely time to start looking for software solutions that give you exactly what you need.