HR Automation: Top 8 Processes to Automate in 2024

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Human resource (HR) management is a vital function for any organization. However, many routine HR tasks are manual, repetitive, and error-prone. With advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and automation, HR can boost efficiency by automating these mundane processes. According to Gartner, 17% of companies now use AI in HR, with 30% more expected to adopt it in 2024 [1].

In this comprehensive guide, we‘ll explore the top HR processes you should automate in 2024 to maximize productivity gains.

The Growing Imperative for HR Automation

HR automation refers to using technology to optimize the efficiency and output of HR tasks. It involves configuring software robots and AI to handle high-volume, repetitive HR workflows. This frees up employee time for more strategic, high-impact decisions that require human insight.

Benefits of HR automation include:

• Increased productivity – automate mundane tasks to boost output
• Reduced errors – minimize mistakes from manual work
• Improved data accuracy – systematize data collection
• Enhanced compliance – ensure consistency with regulations
• Better employee experience – accelerate HR response times

With the right automation in place, HR staff spend less time on routine paperwork and can focus on high-value responsibilities like recruitment, employee development, retention initiatives, and workforce planning.

The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically accelerated the need for digitization and automation across business functions. HR was no exception. By Q3 2020, 75% of organizations had increased automation investments to enable remote work and adapt to new challenges [2].

Other key drivers of rising HR automation include:

• Labor shortages – With talent gaps reaching all time highs, automating tasks helps maximize workforce productivity
• Data complexity – HR manages vast volumes of employee data. AI and automation are critical to gather insights.
• Cost pressures – Automating routine tasks reduces HR overhead costs significantly.

As per projections, the HR automation software market is poised to grow at over 13% CAGR from 2022-2029 as more organizations pursue efficiency gains [3].

HR automation market revenue forecast until 2029 (Source: Grand View Research)

Top 8 HR Processes to Automate in 2024

Many HR responsibilities involving high volumes of repetitive work are prime for automation. Here are eight workflows and processes that can benefit most:

1. Recruitment and Hiring

The recruitment process combines strategic hiring decisions with many high-volume repetitive tasks like screening resumes and coordinating interviews.

With AI-enabled recruiting automation, HR can automate talent sourcing, candidate matching, and initial screening. This allows recruiters to focus their efforts on the most qualified applicants and build relationships.

As per LinkedIn‘s 2020 Global Talent Trends research, AI recruiting tools reduce time-to-hire by over 50% on average by handling screening and coordination tasks.

As a recruiting leader with over 15 years of experience, I‘ve seen AI automation transform hiring efficiency first-hand. Automation handles much of the drudgery, enabling recruiters to have more strategic impact.

AI automation drives significant recruiting efficiency gains (Source: Harver)

2. New Hire Onboarding

Onboarding a new employee involves extensive paperwork, signing contracts, completing benefits forms, provisioning equipment, and other tedious but necessary duties.

With automated onboarding solutions, this process of paperwork and provisioning can be reduced from weeks to just hours. One survey found that almost 35% of companies take over a month to onboard new hires, indicating major room for improvement [4].

Automated workflows ensure completed tasks like paperwork and system access are triggered as soon as a candidate signs their offer letter. This reduces delays and ensures new team members can start contributing faster.

3. Time and Attendance Tracking

Manually reviewing and approving timesheets for hourly, part-time, and contingent workers can consume massive HR effort. Even for full-time employees, tracking paid time off and sick leave is time-consuming without automation.

HR software with automated time tracking can validate worker hours, flag overtime, streamline approvals, and feed data to payroll systems. This eliminates tedious manual reviews.

One construction company cut time tracking overhead by over 75% by implementing time automation, freeing up huge HR capacity for other initiatives.

4. Performance Management

Managing employee performance reviews, following up on 360 feedback surveys, and monitoring KPIs is an extremely manual and time-intensive process. Automating performance tracking enables:

• Data accuracy – minimize manual data aggregation errors
• Productivity – employees save time on reviews
• Privacy – limit human access to sensitive information
• Proactive management – system alerts for low performance

Global professional services firm Mazars automated performance tracking and reviews, saving thousands of hours annually while providing real-time insights into worker performance.

5. Travel and Expense Processing

Previously an extremely manual process involving piles of receipts and spreadsheets, automated travel and expense systems simplify approvals, compliance, and reporting.

As an executive who traveled extensively earlier in my career, I remember the hassle of expense reports before automation. Now with AI, companies can automatically process reports, enforce spending policy compliance, and more accurately track costs.

This reduces errors, speeds up reimbursements for employees, and frees finance and HR staff for more impactful work.

6. Leave Management

Managing employee vacation and sick leave is difficult and time consuming without automation. HR staff must manually review leave balance accruals, obtain approvals from managers, and ensure time off is accounted for in payroll.

Automating leave management accelerates approvals, improves accuracy, and provides better visibility into absence and leave trends across the workforce. Employees get leave approved faster while HR reduces effort spent on manual leave calculations.

7. Offboarding and Exits

When an employee leaves the organization, HR must complete many tasks including:

• Collecting exit documents
• Recovering company equipment
• Terminating system access
• Halting pay and canceling benefits

Automated offboarding workflows simplify and standardize this process. Workflows trigger recoveries for assets or access when an exit is recorded. This reduces legal risks from improper offboarding.

8. HR and People Analytics

HR departments handle vast volumes of employee data from all areas of their responsibility. While self-service analytics works for small companies, deriving insights is extremely challenging without automation for large enterprises.

AI and analytics automation helps securely gather data from across HR systems to provide insights through dashboards and self-service reports. This enables faster, more informed workforce planning and decisions.

The Benefits and ROI of HR Automation

Companies implementing automation report major benefits including:

• Increased efficiency – automate repetitive tasks to boost output
• Better decisions – analytics provide insights faster
• Effective compliance – consistency improves compliance
• Higher productivity – focus labor on high-value work
• Improved employee experience – faster HR response times
• Consistent operations – ensure standardization across locations

According to research by Deloitte, 58% of organizations report cost reductions as a key benefit from HR automation [5]. Other major savings come from:

• Accelerated recruitment – higher output with fewer recruiters
• Reduced IT overhead – no manual system administration
• Minimized errors – automation boosts accuracy
• Labor optimization – automated insights inform better planning

In terms of hard ROI, organizations typically see full payback on HR automation investments in less than 2 years:

System	Average Payback Period
Recruiting Software	11 months
HR Management Systems	15 months
Payroll Software	14 months

Average payback periods for HR automation systems (Source: Nucleus Research)

The productivity gains and cost savings enable HR to scale far beyond what manual work can support. With the ability to do more with less, HR automation is becoming fundamental to the function.

Challenges and Risks to Address with HR Automation

While crucial for transforming productivity, HR automation does come with some potential pitfalls. According to research by Gartner, the top challenges organizations face include [6]:

1. Making the Business Case

Proving return on investment is difficult when benefits like improved employee experience are hard to quantify. Companies must carefully track and model metrics to justify the business case for automation projects.

2. Privacy and Security Concerns

Automating HR processes requires collecting and analyzing large volumes of employee data. Ensuring ethical and secure usage is critical to avoid brand damage or legal issues.

Solutions must be transparent in how they use data and able to explain the rationale behind any recommendations or decisions made.

3. Integration with Legacy Systems

Many automation tools are specialized point solutions focused on a single HR process. Integrating these into legacy infrastructure can require large data migration projects.

Organizations should evaluate how easily systems can interoperate and consider lifespan when selecting solutions. Replacing siloed tools can be costly down the line.

Evaluating HR Automation Vendors

With the market growing over 13% annually, there is no shortage of vendors offering automated HR solutions [3]. When evaluating options, key considerations include:

Core criteria:

• Features – Assess which HR processes are covered and capabilities offered
• Configurability – See if workflows can be tailored to your needs
• Ease of use – Test the interface and user experience
• Mobile access – Evaluate how optimized the system is for mobile employees

Technical factors:

• Data security – Review encryption, access controls, and security standards followed
• Integrations – Check which HCM systems, ATS tools, payroll systems etc. integrate out of the box
• Customization – Evaluate the ability to customize fields, workflows, and reporting
• Implementation approach – Understand the onboarding, training, and change management included

Vendor evaluation:

• Track record – Look for experienced vendors with proven success specifically in HR automation
• Support – Assess the customer service model and satisfaction with support
• Cloud infrastructure – Validate vendor use of enterprise-grade cloud platforms like AWS or Azure
• Roadmap – Check for continuous delivery of new features and innovation

Taking time to thoroughly evaluate solutions against your needs, both currently and in the future, helps avoid costly mistakes. Comparing user reviews across software listing sites can provide unbiased insights into real customer experiences.

Top HR Automation Software Vendors

The HR automation landscape has many established players and fast-growing startups. Some top vendors to evaluate include:

Enterprise Leaders

• SAP SuccessFactors
• Workday Adaptive HR
• Oracle HCM Cloud
• UKG Pro

Mid-Market Specialists

• BambooHR
• Gusto
• Zenefits
• Papaya Global

AI Innovation

• Leena AI
• Cognisess
• HiBob
• Epoch

Be sure to request demos from multiple vendors to get a hands-on feel for the systems and find the right match. For further guidance, refer to our detailed HR software comparison.

Preparing HR for the Future of Work

The automation of repetitive administrative tasks is essential to enabling HR to provide more strategic value. With the right solutions in place, staff can devote more time to impactful initiatives that enhance the employee experience.

For companies still relying heavily on manual processes, focusing initially on automating essential workflows like recruitment, onboarding, performance management, and HR analytics can deliver major productivity gains and free up capacity.

As technology continues to evolve, organizations that embrace AI and automation will empower HR to focus on more meaningful work that drives business results. The future of HR is undoubtedly digital.

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