Part Three: HR: It’s Time to Move to a More Digital Way of Working

Published On May 27, 2017

Before we begin, a quick recap of parts one and two:

HR departments are largely mired in paper-based and manual processes, most notably in recruiting and selection, employee onboarding, employee file management, policies and procedures administration and employee separation.

Each of these functions are affected in specific ways (covered in-depth in part two), but the overarching theme is a reliance on paper-based and manual processes results in too much time spent on process execution (i.e., searching through filing cabinets/save files for relevant information) and not enough time on strategic, value-bringing initiatives (i.e., hiring the right candidate).

And lost time is the best case scenario. Much more likely is a failure to automate workflows invites a whole host of unnecessary costs, risk and inefficiencies to the entire organization, including:

• · Ill-informed strategic decisions

• · Compliance violations and regulatory fines

• · Unnecessary expenses, as more spend to perform rote tasks is needed

• · Unfulfilled workers, upset about performing busy work and not value-driven initiatives

Then, of course, are workforce trends that benefit from making the switch to automated workflows. These were covered in part one, but briefly:

• Changes to Overtime Rules: Can result in 4.6 million employees losing their exemption immediately, and another 500,000 to one million currently exempt employees losing their exempt status over the next 10 years.
• Big Data: Data-driven insights into workforce trends and take action to refine recruitment, compensation and other performance incentives to meet employees’ evolving goals and interests.
• Employee Engagement: Increasingly, organizations are focusing on improving employee engagement to drive better performance.
• Millennials: Organizations that want to attract and retain fresh talent will need to recruit this cohort of digital natives and ensure that their journey through hiring and onboarding is supported through mobile and social platforms.

So, how can your HR department move towards a more digital way of working?

A more digital way of working

You want to play a bigger role in driving strategic decisions within the larger enterprise, securely and easily sharing information and eliminating silos, thereby enabling yourself and others to see a complete picture of workforce status and your Human Resource processes.

Choosing a solution can help you:

Capture: ALL critical content (paper, electronic and data) from any location, and drastically reduce the need for manual data entry.

Manage: content through your processes and eliminate wasted time. Automate your processes, handle exceptions with tools to manage related tasks, activities and conversations and facilitate case management activities.

Ensure Access: for all authorized personnel who need to access content and processes.

Measure: Monitor and report on the statistics, information and activities within your system. Identify and eliminate bottlenecks, without involving IT.

Store: Securely store and protect content from disaster during its entire lifecycle. Ensure compliance with legal requirements. Automatically destroy content when it expires in accordance with retention requirements.

One parting piece of advice: Should you decide to begin your digital transformation, seek out a vendor that is well established and highly regarded by industry analysts. Additionally, when possible, investigate solutions from vendors with whom you already have a business relationship with, so as to reduce risks and facilitate the procurement processes.

Learn more about the benefits of automating HR workflows.