Reflecting on the pandemic impacts can unfold various truths about an enterprise’s operational models and work culture. The HR function went through one of the hardest times when remote work became the new reality and HR professionals had to redesign their processes and policies to adjust to the new normal.
Now, most companies follow a hybrid work culture, so how can the HR department adapt to this new reality?
According to a survey by NGS Global, most respondents said they used in-depth candidate assessment tools that they had never used before. Also, 85% of HR professionals believe that their talent acquisition methods have altered in the past year. Similar changing demands are now challenging the HR function in the hybrid work model, such as:
- Maintaining reimbursement of office expenses as per the state laws for remote work setup.
- Tending to tax and other complications that arise if the employees are interstate residents.
- Monitoring employee performance from home or in-office, as the job duties and performance expectations remain the same in the hybrid work model.
- Ensuring employee education on cybersecurity to safeguard the intellectual property and sensitive data of the corporations.
- Creating an ideal workspace that transcends the physical barriers and continues in the work-from-home ecosystem.
The Role of RPA in the Human Resources Department
With the increasing challenges for the human resources department, the 2019-2020 Sierra-Cedar HR Systems Survey notes a 50% increase in RPA tools usage in HR functions.
PwC also observes in its 2020 survey that 45% of HR executives plan on investing in RPA at least 1-2 years before their previous estimation.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) or hyper-automation can take up several HR tasks to free up their calendar for other crucial undertakings.
There are numerous benefits of RPA for HR, such as:
- It enhances the accuracy of data processing that can be prone to errors with human intervention.
- The HR team can focus on improving the overall efficiency and productivity, while the RPA can tend to labor-intensive back-office processes.
- With the Great Resignation still in action, RPA can enhance employee satisfaction, further impacting the company revenue.
- The effort or cost per task is relatively low for RPA.
- The RPA bots can come in handy for streamlining talent acquisition processes.
RPA Use Cases in The HR Department
From hiring to operational management, there are several use cases of RPA in the HR department. Companies can leverage the RPA potential to give a makeover to their HR function in the following ways:
- Learning Operations: The conversations around employee upskilling and reskilling have increased with the rapid pace of digital transformation. Digital and data literacy have become mandatory skills and organizations are looking to train their workforce quickly and effectively on these skills. However, the remote and hybrid work environments have changed the traditional training methods. Today, the training needs to happen using multiple formats (such as video, audio, text, quizzes, practice sets, etc.), it needs to be available online, the content has to be highly personalized to the needs of each learner, and the training content should be delivered based on real-time data. HR and training teams can leverage RPA to deliver the most impactful learning experiences to their employees. Using RPA, they can ensure learning engagement, real-time performance monitoring, and progress tracking – without any manual efforts.
- CV Screening and Background Verification: Hiring is one of the most important functions of the HR department, but much time is spent on resume screening and sifting through application forms. With RPA, CV screening and background verification are all about putting in the selection criteria, and the software will send out interview notification calls to suitable candidates. RPA can eliminate piles of hiring paperwork and make the recruitment process smoother and quicker.
- Quick Onboarding: Employee onboarding includes several manual tasks such as assigning credentials or delivering relevant onboarding documents to the employees. RPA can streamline the onboarding process while making it completely paperless, leading to tremendous time and cost-saving, and enhanced accuracy. RPA integration in the onboarding process can reduce error rates, increase the overall onboarding speed, and enhance the candidate experience. The HR department can also automate the training process by offering digital profiles to the new hires with business processes, compliance standards, and other regulations.
- Shift Allowance and Attendance Calculation: Instead of manually noting the shift allowances of employees across the enterprise, RPA makes it easier with bots to record data from multiple back-end systems. Furthermore, RPA-based software can also track employee attendance to avoid any inconsistencies and flawed data input.
- Payroll Processing: Payroll processing is a recurring task for the HR department, along with expense management and travel allowance calculation. RPA can simplify all these processes by collecting accurate data and syncing with multiple systems like employee management details, accounts payable, general ledger, and time tracking. RPA can also verify the working hours and offer other allowances by approving genuine invoices.
- Employee Data Management: Employee data management requires consistent actions across multiple databases that record payroll, employee benefits, incentives, and other vital details. With continuous new hiring, employee data management can become strenuous. But RPA integration can not only manage the employee data effectively but also clean it at regular intervals. Well-maintained and accurate employee data also helps in ensuring compliance with the laws and regulations.
- Performance Management: All enterprises are exploring ways to enhance their employee performance with the help of performance management systems. RPA can make it easier for the HR department to keep the organizational productivity high with employee goal setting, incentive evaluation, etc. With automation, performance management also becomes error-free, consistent, and less time-consuming.
- Employee Exit Management: Similar to onboarding, RPA can also provide a hassle-free off-boarding experience to the employees leaving the company. Things like generating exit documents, payment clearance, data and system access revocation require immediate attention during employee exit. RPA bots can provide all the necessary data from multiple sources while auto-generating required mails to departments for updating employee data. They can also communicate with the finance department to process final payments without any human intervention.
In Conclusion
Better RPA practices in HR can give a boost to companies if they follow strategic planning. Businesses should always check for the effectiveness of any RPA model and consistently collaborate with their existing team of HR professionals. With a defined ROI goal, trained internal staff can leverage the RPA capabilities and drive up efficiency.
To explore the vast potential of RPA in HR and other business sectors, connect with Heptagon RPA experts right away!
