What Is HR automation? 9 examples and benefits to start out

As HR professionals strive to do more with less, one way to free up valuable time for your team to focus on high-level, strategic work is to automate some of your most common HR tasks. In this article, we’ll cover the benefits of HR automation along with common challenges, types of processes to automate, and the top systems to consider. Without tedious, administrative work on your plate, how will you use HR automation to drive business outcomes? The sky’s the limit.

What is HR automation?

HR automation refers to the use of software to streamline human resource management tasks. This includes processes like employee onboarding, payroll processing, benefits administration, time and attendance tracking, performance management, and compliance monitoring.

By implementing HR automation, businesses can eliminate repetitive tasks and establish efficient, accurate workflows. This enables HR departments to use their skills more effectively in daily operations, freeing up time to engage more deeply in talent development and organizational growth. Ultimately, HR automation empowers teams to maximize their impact and contribute meaningfully to the company's overall success.

4 benefits of HR automation for your business

With the right HR automation tools, your business processes—from onboarding to offboarding—can undergo a digital transformation that saves time and creates a better employee experience. There are plenty of reasons to love HR software—and automation is at the top of that list. Here are four benefits of HR automation for your business.

Enable data-driven decision making

HR automation enables data-driven decision-making by streamlining the collection, processing, and analysis of vast amounts of workforce data. Automated systems provide real-time access to critical information, such as employee performance, engagement levels, and compliance status. Supported by data, HR pros and executives alike are enabled with the people metrics they need to optimize talent management and make business decisions.

Increase efficiency

When handled manually, document-driven HR processes can be time-consuming, repetitive, and inefficient. Automating tasks like payroll processing, leave management, and employee onboarding, saves time on these otherwise cumbersome administrative functions. 

Improve employee satisfaction

HR automations make it easier for employees to access and sign critical onboarding documents, enroll in benefits, and track pay stubs. Some standout software solutions can even automatically send engagement surveys to employees, configure performance review cycles to help team members progress through their careers, and remind employees to complete learning management courses or required workplace training. 

Quick, easy, and automated access to all these HR processes can help your workforce feel supported—helping businesses retain top talent. 

Compliance support

Automation reinforces accurate and consistent data management which supports strategic adherence to compliance regulations. For example, platforms like Rippling can automatically flag local, state, and federal infractions of minimum wages or non-compliance with sick leave policies—and recommend a plan of action for each one.The ability to automatically update policies, generate timely reports, and set up compliance course enrollment rules are additional ways that HR automation supports compliance.

Common HR automation challenges

Point based software solutions have been around for a while, but in recent years they’ve multiplied and infiltrated the HR world. As a result, teams often juggle siloed systems, which can undercut the benefits of automations and create a variety of challenges, from integration issues to employee resistance. 

Integrations with existing systems

Integration between HR, IT, and financial systems can be technically complex. Differences in data formats, compatibility issues between platforms, and connection issues can create challenges when integrating HR tools with existing systems. When this happens, hiring managers often don’t have access to the data they need, and recruiters waste valuable time going back and forth between the various systems including HRIS, ATS, and payroll systems. Using one unified database to service all of HR’s needs alleviates the challenges associated with different data in multiple systems. 

Data security and privacy concerns

Data security is another concern for HR automation. HR systems store sensitive employee information such as personal identification details, salary data, and health records. It is crucial to ensure robust security measures are in place to protect this confidential information.

Change management and employee resistance

HR teams may be unfamiliar with new technology and reluctant to adopt them. Some platforms aren’t designed with users in mind, which makes them hard to learn and difficult to use. It’s also not uncommon for organizations to struggle with getting the support they need after implementation. Comprehensive training, communication, and support plans can help address these change management issues and overcome fears related to HR automation.

HR processes you should automate: 9 examples

There are many HR processes that can greatly benefit from automation. Here are nine examples to consider.

Onboarding new hires

With employee onboarding automations, a hiring manager can set up a new employee with everything they need, from devices to benefits enrollment to corporate cards, in just minutes. A robust platform like Rippling can automate the entire onboarding process from start to finish.

An automated employee onboarding workflow can:

• Generate the new employee’s offer letter
• Add them to the payroll and prorate their first paycheck based on their start date
• Send them a company device
• Assign their app accounts, like Gmail, Zoom, and Slack

Employee relocation

When an employee moves to a new state, much of the HR work required centers around compliance—an area ripe for automation. Compliance violations can result in fines, penalties, and even legal trouble. Automating your compliance work means protecting your business from costly mistakes before they happen.

Once you trigger the automated relocation workflow, the employee moving states can:

• Receive updated compensation that complies with minimum wage laws in their new state
• Be prompted to enroll in applicable benefits plans
• Have their payroll tax withholding updated automatically, with accounts created in their new state and taxes automatically withheld and filed with the proper state and local tax authorities
• Get enrolled in any new state-required employee training programs

Employee promotions

When an employee is promoted, there can be many administrative changes to make. Here are just a few items your HR team can include in an automated workflow for promotions:

• Adjusting the promoted employee’s position in the company org chart
• Adding them to management groups or director channels on Slack and other apps
• Automatically updating their compensation in payroll
• Applying the right expense policy to their corporate card (or issuing one to them if needed)

Employee milestones

Employee milestones can be tricky to keep track of over time, especially as the size of your team grows. But celebrating them can be essential to increasing employee engagement and retention.

Instead of trying to keep up with every milestone manually, automate them. You can set up milestone-related workflows to:

• Automatically sync employees’ career milestones to your company calendar
• Send out celebratory emails
• Add milestone notes to company all-hands agendas
• Send notifications of important milestones on Slack, either to stakeholders or the entire company

Offboarding

Your employee offboarding process is another area full of workflows that can be automated to save time and increase company security. Offboarding mistakes can pose a serious risk—like when an employee who has exited your company retains access to confidential information, app access, or systems. 

Offboarding workflows can include automations for:

• Generating separation agreements
• Scheduling an exit interview
• Calculating, cutting, and issuing an employee’s last paycheck
• Assigning offboarding tasks to their manager
• Revoking access to company systems and rescinding app access on their last day

Performance reviews

HR automation can be used to empower performance across your company. With a performance management system, it’s possible to assign, share, and track goals across your company. Then managers and employees can review goals by status, owner, and quickly identify places where there may be a gap. It’s easy to view progress and identify gaps sooner rather than later.

Performance management workflows allow you to: 

• Assign everyone applicable goals, based on their department, team, or custom groups
• Show everyone their individual goals 
• Surface goal progress in performance reviews
• Track progress and performance in real time

Leave requests

Leaves of absence can be paid or unpaid, compulsory or voluntary, and vary in length depending on a tangled web of different federal, state, and local requirements. Manually tracking it all in spreadsheets or over email back-and-forths drains time and exposes HR teams to errors. 

HR automation supports leave management by enabling:

• Employees to track their leave requests so they don’t have to worry about following up with HR
• Automated reminders to ensure managers know how to adjust workloads 
• Reports to inform budget for temporary replacements or overtime costs during peaks in leave requests

Time tracking

Automations can make manual data entry, syncing issues, and late approvals from supervisors issues of the past. Automatically tracking employees’ hours—from clock-in to payroll processing—removes risks and gives everyone time to focus on top priorities.

Instead of manually entering hours and shifts, time and attendance streamlines the process of time tracking:

• Employees can clock in and out using a kiosk, mobile app, or computer
• Managers can approve hours which instantly sync with payroll
• HR teams and executives gain real-time insights into workforce productivity

Applicant tracking

Companies use HR automation to aid in the recruitment process. With the right solution, teams can post job openings on multiple job boards, screen applications, schedule interviews, and communicate with candidates from a single platform. This not only reduces administrative burdens but also enhances the overall candidate experience.

With automation, recruiters and hiring managers are able to improve the recruitment process by:

• Seamlessly managing and communicating with candidates throughout the hiring process, from application to assessments to onboarding
• Easily facilitating employee referrals
• Requesting candidate availability with the click of a button, then scheduling interviews using a built-in calendar

HR automation tools to streamline your workflows

The right HR automation tools help reduce human errors, promote better collaboration between your HR department and other teams, and create a smoother, better employee experience. Here are three of the top tools in the marketplace.

Rippling

In Rippling, all the systems you rely on to hire, pay, and manage your people sync to a single source of truth for employee data—a unified workforce management platform—so information can move freely from one system to another. The upshot? Comprehensive and powerful automations fuel the platform and its capabilities. 

BambooHR

BambooHR is a software platform that caters primarily to small businesses and helps with payroll, onboarding, accounting functions, and more. It enables users to store everything in one place and generate reports to gain valuable insights. 

Workday

Workday is a human capital management, financial management, and enterprise resource planning software system. It provides tools for managing HR, payroll, benefits, talent, and workforce planning, and offers reporting capabilities. 

Make the most of your HR automations with Rippling

With Rippling, your employee data isn’t trapped in a specific app or silo—all the systems you rely on to hire, pay, and manage your people sync to a single source of truth for employee data so information can move freely from one system to another.

Rippling allows you to automate virtually anything—simple, one-step tasks or complex, multi-step processes with conditional, daisy-chained workflows. You can trigger actions across Rippling’s core HR, IT, and finance systems, as well as third-party apps and integrations like Slack and Zendesk. And with Rippling’s Workflow Studio, anyone from an HR Director to a CFO can build the automated workflows they need without knowing how to code—all it takes is a few clicks.

HR automation FAQs

Can HR be fully automated?

While software can automate many administrative HR tasks, such as data entry, payroll processing, and employee self-service, fully automating every aspect of HR is challenging. In areas such as conflict resolution, employee engagement, and strategic decision-making, human judgment is required.

How do I choose an HR automation tool?

To choose an HR automation tool, assess your organization's specific needs and workflows. As you review tools, consider ease of use, integration capabilities, scalability, and customer support. User reviews and demos can help determine the tool's effectiveness.

What is an HRIS?

A Human Resource Information System is a software solution that integrates various core HR functions and processes, such as storing employee data, managing payroll, and benefits enrollment.

Does HR automation affect compliance?

HR automation can reduce the risk of human error. It can also help with accurate record-keeping, timely updates to regulatory changes, and adherence to local employment laws. However, HR still requires oversight on compliance issues and ensures alignment with specific legal requirements.

Disclaimer: Rippling and its affiliates do not provide tax, accounting, or legal advice. This material has been prepared for informational purposes only, and is not intended to provide or be relied on for tax, accounting, or legal advice. You should consult your own tax, accounting, and legal advisors before engaging in any related activities or transactions.