HR departments are often one of the busiest and most overworked areas of an organization – not to mention one of the most understaffed. Not only do they have to onboard new employees, answer benefits questions, handle employee paperwork and manage payroll, in many companies, HR still has to do all of this manually.

In the digital world, HR management software provides the automation needed to be more efficient. So it shouldn’t be too big a surprise that there are automation tools out there to help HR better manage all of the different jobs they perform on a daily basis.

Here are just a few of the things HR can automate to help them improve their jobs and get more done.

Onboarding

The amount of paperwork and training that many new hires have to complete within the first few days or weeks of starting their jobs can be daunting, even for the most seasoned HR manager. By automating the onboarding process, you can streamline the information you provide and collect from your new employees. Plus, with automated onboarding, most of the work is done for you; you just have to make sure the I’s are dotted and the T's are crossed. You can even provide a more cohesive and consistent experience to new employees by sharing the same information and training with each new hire, regardless of department – and keep it all in one convenient location.

Benefits

How many questions a day does HR get about benefits? From marriages and new babies to our favorite time of year – open enrollment – there seems to be a constant stream of benefits questions coming from every department. By automating the benefits process with an online portal, you can send your employees there to get the answers they need and update their new information. You can even make open enrollment easier for you and your HR team by providing it online through the portal. You’ll probably still get the occasional benefits question, but you’ll have significantly fewer than before you automated. And there’s a good chance that the few you do get can be answered by directing the employees to the portal.

Tax forms and documents

Staying up to date on the latest tax laws can be daunting for anyone. With automation, though, you won’t have to worry about it. Many automated online payroll systems come with tax compliance features, so you can rest easy knowing the system will regularly update and stay on top of all the changes. And it will make those changes automatically. This will help ensure your company avoids incurring any penalties to the IRS because you missed a change in the tax law.

Payroll

Similarly, payroll has its own rules that need to be followed closely. Doing payroll by hand can lead to cases of human error, which can cause problems for your company and your employees. Why not automate the entire process with online payroll systems that take care of the entire process for you? Not only will it reduce (or possibly eliminate) the issues of human error, but it will ensure your employees are always paid correctly, and on time. And they’ll appreciate that.


Time sheets Manually tracking time sheets should’ve gone out with the last century. And for many companies, it did. But for those who are still manually calculating employees’ time cards, it’s time to automate the process and save yourself some time. Automated time-management systems make it easier for your employees to enter their time, and for you to track and manage those time cards. Wouldn’t it be better for everyone if the whole process was automated?

While all this automation might seem like it’s the end of HR altogether, it’s actually the opposite. HR has never been more important. And automation tools will only help HR do their jobs better than ever before by allowing them to focus on people and strategic initiatives – not time-consuming, manual processes.