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HR Workload Automation 5 Use Cases & 6 Best Practices in 2024

~75% of CEOs see talent acquisition and retention as their biggest short-term concern.1 HR is usually in charge of hiring and retaining talent, but their personnel can be too busy on time-consuming processes, such as employee onboarding.

Workload automation (WLA) helps HR teams focus on talent deficit strategies by automating time consuming procedures (Figure 1). This article informs CEOs and HR executives about WLA’s benefits and use cases in HR.

The image shows that WLA improves efficiency, provides actionable insights, reduces errors, improves communication and collaboration, etc.
Figure 1: Benefits of WLA for HR departments. Image source: AIHR

What is WLA in HR?

Workload automation is a tool to automate back-end transactions between computing environments in an organization to respond to business needs. WLA is used in the HR department to automate business processes such as:

  • Payroll management
  • Hiring
  • On-boarding
  • Off-boarding

Top 4 use cases of WLA in HR

1. Payroll automation

Payroll automation can be critical for HR. However,

are time-consuming and error-prone tasks when done manually. Delayed checks can lead to quitting, making such mistakes costly. Workload automation solutions with finance automation can assist in payroll automation.

Workload automation tools with finance automation

Workload automation systems with finance automation can be used by HR in payroll administration:

  • Audit trails: Payroll-related transactions can be recorded using automated systems, guaranteeing that all changes are logged and auditable. This can aid in identifying anomalies and ensuring regulatory compliance.
  • Benefits management: Employee benefits can be managed via automated methods, such as tracking employee enrollments and calculating benefit deductions from paychecks.
  • Budgets and forecasting: With WLA tools, automated systems can be set up to assist with budgeting and forecasting by:
    • tracking expenses
    • creating financial reports.
  • Compliance reporting: Compliance reports, including:
    • headcount reports
    • turnover reports
    • compliance reports

can be generated by automated systems. This can assist HR workers in tracking key KPIs and making data-driven decisions.

  • Payroll management: Payroll activities, such as:
    • calculating employee pay
    • employee taxes
    • creating paychecks
    • direct deposit information

can be managed by HR using workload automation tools. This can helps in ensuring that employees are paid correctly and on schedule.

  • Payroll security: Workload automation can help HR safeguard payroll data. Sending spreadsheets by email or sharing them with other team members can increase security risks like identity theft. Transferring payroll data workload automation software can reduce this danger.
  • Tax compliance: Automated systems can be set up to assure tax law and regulation compliance, such as filing and paying taxes.
  • Time and attendance tracking: WLA can provide automated time and attendance tracking. Automated time and attendance tracking can assist HR personnel in ensuring that employees accurately report their hours worked and can aid in labor law compliance. This information can then be fed into the payroll system for correct pay calculation.

2. Human capital management tools integration

Workload automation software can automate transactions between human capital management (HCM) tools. Managing data across multiple applications in HR can:

  • Be time-consuming
  • Lead to service-level agreement (SLA) breaches.

For example, NGA human resources are tasked with scanning and double-checking payroll-related service-level agreements. The company used many work schedulers to automate SLA checks in various HCM products. However, HR professionals needed to watch operations 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and manually add and remove items from job queues.

The company implemented Redwood’s workload automation tool in its environment. Redwood’s workload automation tool automated business processes among different HCM software like SAP S/4 HANA and Workday. This enabled the company to automate workflows related to payroll management and tax provisioning.

Figure 2: SAP Workday integration.2

3. Hiring

Using WLA tools can save time during the hiring and let your HR department focus on skilled applicants. The hiring process can require the HR department to:

  • Post social media posts
  • Schedule interviews
  • Manage email communications
  • Manage CVs.

By using WLA solutions to automate these tasks, HR can spend more time on candidates who could be a good fit. Workload automation solutions can be used in:

  • Background checks: Workload automation tools can automate tools for background check systems to verify information provided by candidates, such as education and employment history.
  • Check references: Automated reference checking systems can be set up to call candidates’ references and collect information about their qualifications and employment history.
  • Creating offer letters: Automated systems can generate offer letters with the required legal information and company policies.
  • Screen resumes: WLA tools can automate applications for resume screening and send qualified applicants to HR personnel.
  • Progress tracking: HR professionals can use workload automation tools to track the hiring process and choose when to make an offer.

4. On-boarding

WLA technologies automating the process of giving access to applications to recent hires in the onboarding process can save time and increase security. In the on-boarding process, workload automation solutions can be used for:

  • Access management: Employee access to company applications and resources, such as email and HR software, can be managed using workload automation tools.
  • Benefits enrollment: By using WLA tools, automated systems can be set up to assist employees with enrolling for benefits such as health insurance and 401(k) plans.
  • Employee information management: Employee information can be managed via automated processes, such as updating employee records with new hire information and tracking employee information for future reference.
  • Sending reminders: To remind new hires of essential tasks in the employee onboarding process, such as filling out paperwork or completing training modules, automated reminders can be set up.
  • Training: Automated systems can be set up to track employee progress through training programs and guarantee that all required training is completed on time.
  • Automate application permissions: During employee onboarding, granting application permissions to new employees can take days. Without WLA, HR can provide access to applications for employees manually. These can cause HR and employees to waste time.   

5. Off-boarding

Like the on-boarding process, workload automation tools can save time in the off-boarding process. Workload automation solutions can be used in:

  • Access management: After an employee quits, automated methods can revoke their access to company systems and resources, including email and HR software, with WLA technologies. Off-boarding employees without WLA requires HR to revoke permissions manually. Due to ex-employee clearances, this takes longer than automation and is riskier.
  • Benefits management: Automated systems can be implemented to help employees with the continuance or cancellation of benefits like health insurance and 401(k) plans.
  • Document management: All relevant paperwork, including leave forms and final paycheck information, can be managed and stored by automated systems.
  • Employee information management: Automated processes can update employee records with off-boarding information and save employee data.
  • Exit interviews: Exit interviews can be automated to collect valuable employee input.
  • Return of company property: Automated systems can remind workers to return laptops, keys, and credit cards.

3 benefits of workload automation in HR

Workload automation can benefit HR in both small and large businesses. WLA can provide:

  1. Better time management: Workload automation can save time from payroll management, on-boarding, hiring, and off-boarding. HR can prioritize key initiatives like improving employee satisfaction.

6 best practices of WLA automation in HR

Workload automation practices such as the ones listed below can be useful when deploying WLA to HR:

  1. Communicate with HR about WLA: Discuss WLA with HR. Communication helps WLA in HR. Explain automation and how it can simplify their lives. Your team should know WLA’s benefits.
  2. Determine the tasks that swamp your HR department: HR must identify tasks and applications that need orchestration and automation. You do not want to buy workload automation software that will not improve your department’s efficiency. Find a department-specific tool. Thus, survey issues.
  3. Make a priority list of the tasks that need to be automated: After gathering information about the backlogged chores that impede HR from focusing on establishing a pipeline for high-quality candidates or preparing certification programs for your staff, prioritize the processes that need to be automated. This list could be:
    • Payroll management
    • Hiring
    • On-boarding
    • Filing taxes
    • Employee benefits
  1. Identify potential HR employees to become WLA specialists. Find WLA specialists with your HR. WLA professionals will start and run automation tools, ensure the system works, and update system data, including salaries, benefits, and new hires.
  2. Find a suitable technology: Find the ideal workload automation tool through technology research. There are over 20 WLA tools with unique features, and prices are available. WLA tools can vary in their integrations with ERP tools, and they can be low-code or high-code driven. Ask your IT department or IT consultants about the tools you are interested.
  3. Automate with care: Use WLA optimization techniques cautiously in HR. Avoid employing WLA tools in empathy-sensitive situations. People should promote talented people and reference WLA tools for insights.

2 challenges of WLA in HR

  • WLA in HR can decrease work motivation: A study indicates that HR technologies may reduce work engagement and stress.

For more on WLA in HR:

If you have further questions about workload automation best practices you can reach us:

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Cem Dilmegani
Principal Analyst
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Cem Dilmegani
Principal Analyst

Cem has been the principal analyst at AIMultiple since 2017. AIMultiple informs hundreds of thousands of businesses (as per similarWeb) including 60% of Fortune 500 every month.

Cem's work has been cited by leading global publications including Business Insider, Forbes, Washington Post, global firms like Deloitte, HPE, NGOs like World Economic Forum and supranational organizations like European Commission. You can see more reputable companies and media that referenced AIMultiple.

Throughout his career, Cem served as a tech consultant, tech buyer and tech entrepreneur. He advised businesses on their enterprise software, automation, cloud, AI / ML and other technology related decisions at McKinsey & Company and Altman Solon for more than a decade. He also published a McKinsey report on digitalization.

He led technology strategy and procurement of a telco while reporting to the CEO. He has also led commercial growth of deep tech company Hypatos that reached a 7 digit annual recurring revenue and a 9 digit valuation from 0 within 2 years. Cem's work in Hypatos was covered by leading technology publications like TechCrunch and Business Insider.

Cem regularly speaks at international technology conferences. He graduated from Bogazici University as a computer engineer and holds an MBA from Columbia Business School.

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