HR Process Automation: 13 HR Processes That Can Be Automated (And How to Do It)

I’ve spent over 20 years of my career helping HR departments implement technology to streamline and improve their processes.

The increased capability of modern HR software astounds me, and I truly believe we’re in the tech’s golden age.

The time to harness the power of automation is now. But what HR processes can be automated? And more importantly, how?

Let’s take a journey through the world of HR process automation and explore exactly how to streamline — and even outright eliminate — tedious, error-prone manual processes. Along the way, we’ll uncover how automation frees HR to focus on objectives that truly add value and boost your organization’s ROI.

What is HR process automation?

HR process automation enhances HR’s efficiency, accuracy and productivity by automating the department’s most repetitive, time-consuming tasks. This allows HR to focus on more important initiatives, like:

• strategic planning
• recruiting top talent
• developing and engaging employees
• strengthening compliance
• researching benefits and industry trends
• and more

HR automation takes care of certain manual HR activities so we can concentrate on the bigger picture.

What HR processes can be automated?

The world of automation is always evolving, but certain HR processes are primed for it. I’ve found that automating repetitive tasks or processes with some sort of established routine makes the most impact.

Here are 13 HR processes that can be simplified and streamlined through automation:

1. Payroll

Payroll is likely your organization’s largest expense and most time-consuming undertaking. And even with the help of sound data sets, payroll doesn’t just happen.

In the absence of automated tech, HR pros must first import that data manually, opening the door to costly errors — and at the very least — hours of needless data reentry.

HR automation simplifies the entire process by automatically pulling live data from employees’ hours worked, approved expenses, benefit selections and compensation changes. The ideal software will then take that data and use it to self-start payroll each period.

Now instead of painstakingly building and running payroll, HR simply oversees it.

2. Onboarding and offboarding

HR is typically tasked with building, maintaining and enhancing the entire employee onboarding and offboarding process.

This includes cumbersome processes like gathering employee info, assigning necessary trainings and ensuring all new hires complete and sign the correct documentation. The separation process also has many components, including compensation, benefits, exit interviews and succession planning.

Automation helps retain your hard-won hires with a streamlined process that empowers them to transition into their new roles. And when the employment relationship has ended, automation helps make the process as smooth as possible by reducing errors and increasing efficiency, which helps show high performers that the door is open for their return.

3. Timekeeping

Timekeeping usually goes something like this:

1. An employee completes and submits a timecard.
2. Their employer collects the timecard.
3. HR then verifies the timecard.

That’s a lot of manual data entry and a lot of time lost on both ends.

When you automate the timekeeping process, accuracy and employee satisfaction improve and HR enjoys the fruits of a reduced administrative load.

4. Position management

Manually managing personnel, staffing needs and organizational structure?

That means you’re continually exposing your business to preventable errors and inconsistencies, not to mention the massive time sink that goes into managing each individual change.

Automation makes workforce planning easier by streamlining and standardizing the process to reduce manual data entry.

This, in turn, creates companywide consistency and empowers HR to make more informed decisions.

5. Performance management

Effective performance management aligns employees with the greater organizational goal. But to get there, HR must first collect and analyze employee data. Then comes the task of ensuring the exchange of consistent, fair and ongoing feedback.

Automation makes it simple to learn what matters most to employees by seamlessly distributing and collecting feedback.

The right tech automatically houses and stores the documentation, resources and processes HR needs to make every evaluation consistent and painless.

6. Time-off requests

Time-off decisions are a hassle for everyone. They make employees wait, turn managers into the bad guy and require HR to step in and mediate disputes.

Tech that automatically approves, denies or holds an employee’s time-off request builds trust by helping them better plan their lives.

This helps HR focus less on tediously reconciling schedules and more on engaging and retaining employees.

7. Tax forms

To protect an organization’s tax responsibility, HR must understand and effectively manage a hefty load of responsibilities, including:

• numerous tax forms
• local tax requirements
• employee address changes
• updates to existing tax laws
• any state(s) of operation

One misstep could trigger costly compliance penalties. Automating these tedious aspects of tax management gives HR peace of mind and helps employers comply with confidence.

8. Recruiting

Hiring the right people at the right time and staying in compliance can be a challenge for any business. And in today’s competitive job market, one negative candidate experience can be costly.

Automated recruitment processes make it easy for HR to source and qualify candidates, schedule interviews and maintain frequent communication so top talent doesn’t fall through the cracks.

9. Background checks

Investing in the wrong people can put an organization’s reputation and workforce at risk. Manual background checks, which rely on in-person visits and phone calls, can be slow and inefficient, causing delays that jeopardize your chances of securing the best candidates.

A streamlined and automated background check process not only helps the hunt for top talent, it also improves efficiency and the candidate experience and can even help boost your bottom line.

10. Compliance management

Unchecked regulatory issues grind business to a halt and pile more on top of HR’s workload. But trying to stay ahead of employment laws can also feel like spinning plates. Or it could, without the help of automation.

The right tech empowers HR to automate and manage their necessary compliance tasks, reducing your organization’s risk and exposure to violations, audits and costly penalties.

11. Employee engagement

Employees should never feel disconnected or unsupported. To foster a culture of engagement, it’s essential to address their psychological, emotional and social needs in a seamless and accessible way. You can create a unified experience with tech that allows you to automatically collect employee feedback, send recognition notifications and trigger relevant actions based on preset parameters.

Automation not only lightens HR’s load but helps your organization identify trends and areas of improvement and promote a culture of recognition and appreciation that leads to improved morale.

12. Training and development

Career growth and development are top priorities for today’s employees. But without a solid training strategy, your business risks falling short.

That’s where automation comes in. By leveraging a learning management system (LMS), you can automate training and reminders and receive real-time updates when certificates are uploaded for approval, which helps to ensure a seamless and compliant process and frees HR to focus on strategic initiatives.

13. Benefits administration

Still dealing with spreadsheets, plan brochures and physical enrollment forms? The right benefits administration software offers automation throughout the entire process, from enrollment to ongoing support and reporting. Plus, it allows benefits data to flow seamlessly into every other piece of an employee’s HR life cycle, which reduces manual errors and makes it easier to retrieve information.

How to automate HR processes

Now that we’ve identified which HR processes can be automated, let’s take a closer look at how to automate them with the right HR tech.

Payroll

Employees expect their pay to be on time and correct, and an automated payroll system helps ensure this by calculating the correct deductions.

It automatically pulls live data from employees’ hours worked, approved expenses, benefit selections and compensation changes, eliminating any need for reentry.

Paycom’s automated payroll software automatically identifies errors and guides employees to resolve them before submission, so HR doesn’t have to.

Expense management

HR can simplify the reimbursement process with a software that automatically allocates expenses imported into a general ledger.

HR pros gain greater visibility into the process with on-demand analytics and customizable reports that show outstanding approvals, spending by department and more. At the same time, HR doesn’t have to worry about tracking employees down or wondering who hasn’t signed off yet.

Tax management

Manually calculating taxes risks costly noncompliance. HR pros can help mitigate their responsibilities with tax management tools that automatically debit payroll taxes, deposit them on their due dates and remit their filings.

The right tech will even convert and balance your year-to-date payroll tax totals, reducing your risk of audits and freeing HR to focus their efforts elsewhere.

Garnishment administration

Garnishments are risky business. But you can lower your organization’s liability with a tool that automatically reconciles the payment amounts, calculations and third-party payees.

Garnishment administration tools track and record deductions every pay period so HR doesn’t have to.

General ledger automation

Accounting teams are often tasked with the tedious chore of keying payroll general ledger information into their accounting software each pay period.

You can streamline this process with a tool that automatically generates general ledger reports for direct import.

Intuitive reporting, enriched audit trails, customizable file layouts and real-time alerts are all possible when you automate this cumbersome process with the right tech.

Onboarding and offboarding

Onboarding and offboarding is a time-consuming task. But this, too, can be automated with the right human resources information system (HRIS).

This software empowers employers to collect, manage, store and process their employees’ information in one place. A truly single software automatically populates information across multiple systems like payroll and time and attendance, ensuring accuracy and eliminating the need for data reentry.

Employees just enter their information once, freeing HR from piecing together information across multiple systems and making onboarding and offboarding a breeze.

Onboarding and offboarding paperwork

The right document management software enables HR to create, assign, archive and retrieve forms and to-do lists with ease, so your organization can streamline offboarding and onboarding while helping ensure compliance with laws and regulations.

Documents can be automatically routed for approvals based on a predefined workflow and, when complete, added to employee personnel files, empowering your teams to ditch traditional paper processes for an easier and more secure way.

Position-specific workflows

Position-specific workflows within an HRIS tie job attributes to a specific position within an organization, rather than an individual employee. HR can then create custom categories and let automation take care of the rest by assigning forms, checklists and trainings to a specific group of new hires.

New hire welcome announcements

Now that you’ve got your new hire through the door, it’s time to share it widely. But it can be easy to overlook this step during an employee’s first week. Instead, HR can create and store an automated message that welcomes new team members and introduces them to your organization. This shows employees you care and takes the pressure off crafting a custom welcome message each time.

Of course, it can still be beneficial to send a personalized email to certain people — like department heads — announcing new hires.

30-, 60-, 90-day check-ins

There’s more to onboarding than just paperwork and training. The right HR tech will help transition new hires to productive contributors, checking in with them along the way.

Automated email messages at employees’ 30-, 60- and 90-day hire dates help keep them on track and accountable. Plus, it helps open the door to more candid conversations about their development and what challenges may be standing in their way.

Some software even gives you the ability to collect, measure and review employee feedback in real time.

HR can schedule surveys at regular intervals and get ahead of issues that could potentially harm an employee’s experience.

Performance management

Monitoring the progress of an employee’s development is simplified with the right software. Performance review tools provide consistency and efficiency and ease the burden on both the administrative and user end. HR can assign goals by position, department or individual and establish specific sign-off tiers before final approvals. Plus, employees can easily see their evaluations and monitor their development.

Access revocation

When an employee leaves, it’s essential to promptly revoke their IT access to protect your organization’s security. With the right HRIS, you can automate this process by creating custom rules that trigger access revocation when an employee’s status changes, helping ensure a smooth and secure offboarding experience.

Hardware and software requisitioning

Recovering company-owned equipment doesn’t have to be a hassle. By leveraging document management software, you can streamline the process with automated task assignments, scheduled notifications and triggered events, making it easier to get equipment back on time and minimizing the workload for HR and IT.

Exit interviews

Don’t let departing employees take their reasons for leaving with them. Conducting exit interviews is always a best practice, but automating the process with a survey tool can help you gather more accurate and actionable feedback. Plus, with a range of response types, you can get to the root of the issue and identify areas for improvement.

Final payment

The last step in the offboarding process is issuing the final payment to the departing employee, but this can be difficult to calculate manually while ensuring compliance with local employment laws. The best automated payroll software will pull live data from employees’ hours worked, approved expenses, benefit selections and compensation changes, making final payments a breeze and reducing your organization’s risk in the process.

Time and attendance

Time and attendance tracking tools accurately and efficiently manage when, where and how employees report their hours worked. A truly single software integrates time tracking with payroll, so HR never has to rekey a thing.

Time-off approval decisions

Software that includes automated decision-making with customizable policies ensures fair, consistent and immediate resolution of employee requests. Some tools even let HR set specific time-off decision-making criteria to help ensure operations keep moving. Once it’s set up, automated decisions flow seamlessly and accurately into payroll. HR is no longer stuck mediating time-off denial disputes, and accurate recordkeeping reduces data errors and compliance risk.

Scheduling

Scheduling tools enable HR to create and edit templates and then assign grouped employees to recurring shifts or customized schedules. Automating the processes in this time-consuming task helps managers avoid scheduling conflicts and easily meet operational demands.

Labor allocation

An HRIS removes the burden of manual calculations associated with labor allocation. Employees’ time can be categorized by a specific location, department or job and automatically allocated to the right compensation the moment they clock in and out. With the software maintaining proper category assignment upon clock-in, HR can better track where and how the company’s money is spent.

Health and safety

An organization’s success depends on the health and safety of its workforce, but HR shouldn’t have to shoulder this responsibility alone. The right tech helps HR spot potential violations on the horizon and navigate the ever-changing regulatory landscape with confidence.

Automated license expiration alerts

HR pros have a lot on their plate; keeping track of a laundry list of certification renewal dates only adds to it. Automated compliance reporting software alerts HR to expiring certifications to help mitigate their risk and give them peace of mind.

Vaccination status tracking and reminders

Employers need to be tuned in to their employees’ vaccination and testing status. And as we experienced during the pandemic, comprehensive insights are necessary to be informed and action ready.

Employee vaccination status tracking software can help make this a reality. HR pros securely collect, track and manage employee data in one place, and a comprehensive dashboard can give them unparalleled insight into their results to be audit ready.

Incident reporting workflows

Employee safety is paramount. And even with the right protocols in place, you can’t eliminate the possibility of an injury. Automated reporting workflows help HR track and monitor incident reports for effective workplace safety. It can also help HR establish and maintain a process that prevents threats and encourages workplace safety.

Compliance and reporting

Employment laws are numerous, complicated and ever-changing.

Organizations can keep compliance in check with a human capital management (HCM) software that maintains a single system of record, generates real-time reports and automatically updates you with the most current legislative changes.

Government compliance

HR departments can meet their regulatory responsibilities with an automated tool that provides compliance updates and real-time monitoring of changes in:

• unemployment claims
• FLSA
• FMLA
• COBRA
• OSHA 300/300A/301
• EEOC
• VETS 4212

These tools can then generate the reports you need in the government-required format.

Government reporting deadline reminders

As you work to shield your organization from audits, violations and other penalties, your HR compliance software should work for you. The right tool will automatically send recurring, correctly formatted reports and notifications about impending deadlines to help take the complexity out of compliance.

Scheduled report generation and delivery

Your company can’t comply with confidence without insight. An automated software uses real-time employee data to create truly comprehensive reports. All HR has to do is confirm which report they need and automation handles the rest. This empowers your organization to instantly run reports on:

• Fair Labor Standards Act
• Family and Medical Leave Act
• Equal Employment Opportunity Commission EEO-1
• Occupational Safety and Health Administration 300, 300-A and 301
• Veterans’ Employment and Training Service 4212
• California pay data
• payroll-based journal
• and more

Compliance training assignments

Want to help ensure compliance companywide? Then give employees easily accessible training content. A learning management software makes it easy to automatically assign legally required training, track course completions and keep your workforce up to date on licenses, certifications and company policies.

Recruitment

To stay competitive, businesses must efficiently source, attract and recruit top talent. But developing a robust talent pipeline and identifying qualified candidates is no easy task. That’s what makes applicant tracking systems (ATS) vital. These software applications streamline the recruitment process by automating, collecting, sorting and reviewing job applications. This helps HR efficiently manage large volumes of resumes and quickly identify qualified candidates.

Candidate disposition workflows

One feature of an applicant tracking system is candidate disposition workflows. This streamlines the recruitment process by automatically advancing candidates to the next stage or sending them a rejection email.

Timely responses are key to successfully attracting and retaining top talent, and the ideal ATS allows HR to create and store templates for each type of candidate communication. Some applicant tracking systems take it a step further by automatically recommending open positions to qualified candidates already in the system.

Job board management

Another feature of ATS software is the ability to instantly create and distribute job postings across a swath of job boards and social media platforms. This not only ensures consistency but also eliminates the need for recruiters to post each job manually. Plus, HR can cast a wider net and attract a diverse pool of qualified candidates.

Resume screening

ATS software can also free HR to focus on more strategic initiatives by automating repetitive recruitment tasks like resume screening. Once an applicant applies, ATS software can automatically create an employee profile for them, parsing their resume to autofill fields and minimizing data entry.

Interview scheduling

Automated interview scheduling helps your organization provide a stellar candidate experience. Once a call or interview is scheduled, a calendar invite is automatically emailed to the applicant. Predefined templates for scheduling can also help keep the interview process consistent across applicants.

Candidate communication

Streamline communication — and your applicant pool — by automating correspondence, including knockout messages and rejection responses when candidates don’t meet your requirements. When a candidate completes their application, they’re sent a confirmation email and offer letter automatically. Candidates can also easily communicate with recruiters via text messages within an ATS.

Tax forms

Managing payroll taxes is often complicated, time-consuming and undeniably stressful. What if you could clear your plate of these responsibilities while also lowering your company’s liability? It’s easier than you think with the right payroll tax software.

Online tax filing

Businesses can help alleviate their administrative burden by using a software that automatically collects payroll taxes through debit, remits them by their due dates and files quarterly federal and state tax returns online. Your team won’t have to calculate a payroll tax rate ever again, and you won’t have to worry about the consequences of missing a payment.

Tax correction reports

Ready to say goodbye to frustrating corrections? The right HR reporting tool automatically delivers the recurring reports you need when you need them — daily, weekly, monthly quarterly or even yearly. This can help you gain early visibility into payroll tax issues that need attention, so you can easily address prior period adjustments.

Missing tax information alerts

You shouldn’t have to guess if your company’s data is right. You need tech that automatically notifies you about payroll tax issues that require attention, so you can address them before they impact your business.

Background checks

Bringing on a new employee requires a significant time and financial commitment. But despite the importance of background checks, businesses need them to be both thorough and quick to keep top talent from falling through the cracks. An efficient background screening software puts all the pieces in place to help do your due diligence.

Data collection

Background checks involve extremely sensitive info, so protecting the data and peace of mind of your business, employees and candidates is paramount. A single-database software helps reduce the risk of background information ending up in the wrong hands.

Cross-checking data and verification

When you use a single software to automate background checks, all communications between candidates and your business are kept in one location, helping avoid the confusion of pulling info from multiple places.

Result communication

The right tech automatically notifies job candidates, contractors, freelancers and even current employees when a background check needs to be completed. Throughout the process, candidates and employer personnel get automatic screening status updates. And once a candidate is hired, their information populates systemwide and their signed authorization and screening results automatically flow to their online file within the software.

Adverse action letter generation

Federal law requires employers to provide adverse action notifications to job candidates and not misuse any information in a consumer report. Automating this process helps ensure compliance and timely notice to candidates.

Employee engagement

A commitment to employee engagement can set a thriving organization apart from a mediocre one, fueling a company’s success and driving it forward. Employee engagement software can help your business measure, analyze and improve employee engagement.

Surveys

A powerful survey tool can help HR easily generate, collect, review and report on workforce feedback. And with automation and customizable options like conditional responses, dynamic triggers and easy deployment scheduling, you can simplify the survey process and move the needle on issues that matter most to your workforce.

Employee rewards

We all like to be recognized every once in a while, especially when our work has made a positive impact on the company. Automated HR tech makes it easier to recognize these accomplishments. Because compensation is tied to performance, employers can quickly and efficiently communicate with employees regarding rewards, perks and raises.

Training and development

To attract and retain top talent, it’s essential to prioritize training and development. An automated LMS can help you easily and consistently train your employees.

Required training invites

An automated learning tool makes it easy for admin users to automatically assign specific courses to individual or groups. Employees are then notified when they’ve been assigned a course and when it’s due.

Progress dashboards

The right tech will empower HR pros and managers to monitor employees’ progress with a dashboard view that displays assigned learnings and their statuses.

Automated filing of completion certificates

A certification management tool also helps organizations keep track of certificate completion and expirations. HR can set up the software so admins receive notifications any time an employee uploads a certificate for approval.

Benefits administration

Reduce the risk of noncompliance, eliminate data reentry and give employees peace of mind with a tool that automates and streamlines enrollment for you and your people.

Open enrollment process

Tired of open enrollment headaches? An automated benefits administration software effortlessly guides employees through enrollment, allowing them to easily review plan documents and preview the impact of their choices on their pay in real time.

Benefits selection tracking and reporting

Employers need to be able to both track and report on enrollment progress. Providers like Paycom offer reporting on where in the enrollment process employees are and any incomplete benefits tasks as well as which benefits they’ve selected for the upcoming year.

Updating info with carriers

After your employees finish enrollment, chosen benefits automatically flow into payroll. And a benefits-to-carrier tool automates the secure transfer of data to your plan providers.

How do HR automation tools optimize workflow?

While we’ve explored how automated tech works independently, keep this in mind: Automation isn’t optimal unless it’s holistic. Ideally, all of your tools should exist in a truly single software, so data flows seamlessly from one to the next.

Take expense management, for example. If your employees’ self-service app makes it easy for them to snap pictures of their receipts, that’s great! But your tech should also automatically send those submissions to supervisors and accounting for approval, then seamlessly import approved reimbursements into payroll. This saves HR from having to rekey data that someone — in this case, your employees — already submitted.

Automation is great for benefits enrollment, too. Tech that helps employees understand their options and make informed choices is undeniably useful, but it should take it a step further and allow them to test the effect of those selections on their pay. And if your HR software is already capable of that, then your payroll tool should be able to self-start with that data once your workforce’s benefits formally take effect.

Beyond payroll, automation can also help you assess trends within your organization and shore up compliance. For example, if your business requires every employee to maintain an annual certification, the tech should automatically alert you to who’s approaching their deadline or, even better, instantly notify employees and their managers of outstanding items.

These are just a few examples of how automation streamlines your workflow. As tech continues to evolve, you can expect even more ways for it to harmonize your HR experience.

For more of my thoughts on HR automation, listen to this episode of the HR Break Room^® podcast.

FAQ

Why is HR process automation important?

HR process automation pulls HR out of repetitive, tedious tasks so it can focus on strategic initiatives that truly add value. Organizations reap the rewards of greater efficiency, accuracy and productivity and gain a competitive edge in the business landscape.

How do you implement HR processes?

You can implement HR processes with a sound strategy and the right HR tech. A single HR and payroll software automates routine tasks to help your business run more smoothly. HR is no longer stuck in the middle of these tedious transactions, opening a whole new world of efficiency and engagement.

Are HR planning processes necessary?

Yes, but that doesn’t mean HR needs to develop a plan of action for activities that companies can, and should, automate. HRIS software helps employers simplify and streamline tedious HR tasks, including payroll, onboarding, time tracking and more. This frees HR to focus on the human side of their work, like strategic planning.

How does HR automation help HR employees?

HR automation helps enhance the efficiency, accuracy and productivity of the HR department by automating the most repetitive, time-consuming tasks. This helps HR employees gain time back to focus on strategic initiatives that truly add value.

To learn more, download the How Holistic HR Automation Transforms Payroll and Beyond guide.