HR automation: why use HR automation tools? | myhrtoolkit

What is HR automation and how can it benefit businesses? Find out in this guide from myhrtoolkit.

What is HR automation?

Automation refers to processes whereby human assistance is minimal. In terms of HR, automation helps HR departments and businesses operate more accurately and efficiently to complete tedious but important admin tasks.

Why use HR automation tools?

Automation and HR can be a match made in heaven when you have the right tools in place. Technological developments within businesses have made a huge impact on HR, where in many cases paperwork and spreadsheets are being replaced by systems that include automated functionality.

HR automation software

The automation of HR functions could theoretically be achievable using a spreadsheet or a system you develop in-house; realistically, however, most businesses turn to HR software when it comes to making the most of HR automation. Powerful cloud-based HR software systems are available across the UK market, with excellent HR platforms existing for SMEs and enterprise organisations alike.

As we’re tailor-made for the SME market, we’ll focus on how HR software helps automate the HR processes that matter most to small businesses. An automated HR system can provide the following processes for SMEs:

Holiday entitlement

Staff can request holidays and managers approve requests, with holiday entitlements updating to reflect any annual leave remaining. This saves you having to manually calculate holiday entitlement for a range of employees.

Starters and leavers

When someone is starting at or leaving your organisation, this can involve a lot of paperwork. With an HR system in place, employee information is available when you need it and the system can update to reflect the employee’s status (influencing holiday entitlement, for example).

Related article: How to calculate holiday for leavers

Absence trigger points

When recording an absence, an employee’s record updates relevant information such as their Bradford Factor score. Automated trigger points can then alert employers of absence levels and patterns as they develop.

Related article: How to use sickness trigger points to enforce your absence policy

Document updates and reminders

You can encourage employees to read important documents with automated reminders. The software can also alert you when documents are about to expire and ensures everyone has access to the most up-to-date version of documentation.

HR automation benefits

HR process automation has a whole host of benefits for organisations of all sizes. Here are our main takeaways for the benefits of automation:

• Efficiency: when a system is prompting employees to complete essential admin and tasks, this means employers and HR managers are spending less time chasing up on these and more time on the things that matter most.
• Accuracy: when you update a detail on an HR system (such as a name or phone number), this will update across all other relevant fields. So, you’ll have up-to-date information without having to check on it all manually.
• Security: automation also gives you scope for ensuring your security is as tight as possible. For instance, myhrtoolkit has a dedicated Security Centre for assigning permissions and monitoring security.
• Compliance: automation helps you maintain best practices within your organisation, in compliance with measures such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Try HR software for free

Interested in seeing how HR automation can help your business? You can get in touch with the myhrtoolkit team to book a demo and start a free trial.