Businesses of today are experiencing greater disruptive forces of technology than never before. Those that don’t conform to the dictates of digital transformation are either rendered dormant or thrown to the bin.

For example, the customer of today expects immediate responses for their online queries. As a result, companies of today must work harder to satisfy the ever-changing customer needs and expectations. To survive the harsh business climate, organizations need to automate repetitive tasks.

That way, they will free up more time for employees that can be spent on other equally important tasks. That is why Robotic Process Automation (RPA) technology has become necessary in the HR department.

What is Robotic Process Automation?

RPA, also identified as Robotic Process Automation is the use of robotic technology by businesses to automate various repetitive tasks. That way, it frees up more time for employees to focus on other quality tasks. As a result, it leads to increased productivity and efficiency in different activities within the company. One area where this technology is becoming applicable is in the Human Resource departments.

Any company that uses labor on a large scale for general knowledge process work, where people are performing high-volume, highly transactional process functions, will boost their capabilities and save money and time with robotic process automation software

Most tasks in the HR department are repetitive by nature. Besides, obstacles and errors often derail the streamlining of activities within the department. As a result, it will have an adverse impact on the payroll administration, employee on boarding and talent management.

RPA uses multiple robots to automate some of these tasks. That way, an organization will have a fully functioning virtual workforce that handles these tasks with a greater degree of accuracy and efficiency.

What the future of RPA in HR?

The 2017 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends study found that almost 50% of the executives within the leading HR global firms believe that RPA will deliver a 10-20% savings to their HR and overall business processes.

The survey titled “Rewriting the rules for the digital age” saw more than 10,000 HR leader in 140 countries stress on the need for organizations to automate their HR processes. As a result, many HR departments are taking a radical shift to change the way their work environments work.

The accelerating rate of change in business, the economy, and society challenges both business and HR to adopt new rules for leading, organizing, motivating, managing, and engaging the 21st-century workforce

The new shift is making considerable changes in the HR department. Typically with HR processes witnessing a high volume of repetitive tasks, the RPA could significantly improve the rate, efficiency and cost-effectiveness in the functions.

Here are some of the ways in which RPA technology could help the HR department run its tasks:

#1 Careers and learning

As companies look to build their workforce for the future, continuous training is necessary for success. The new necessity calls for a learning and development system. Thanks to RPA technology, it becomes easier for the HR department to deliver the training in a range of platforms and make them easily accessible to the employees.

Besides, as organizations become more digital, the need to grow careers has increased too. As a result, it necessitates the use of RPA technology to redesign the HR functions to work faster and embrace changing career demands.

#2 Talent acquisition

More organizations are also using RPA technology to bring forth a digital experience in the candidate recruitment efforts. Savvy recruiters would embrace new technologies to forge new psychological and emotional connections with their candidates.

Additionally, they would use the technology to eliminate the mountain of paperwork. Through the use of a database that keeps the potential employees’ profiles and notifies them of their interview results, the HR makes the rather complicated recruitment process an easier ride. Rather than focus on the employing recruiters, the RPA system would help amplify the voice of the company’s brand. As a result, it helps attract and keep top talent.

#3 Employee experience

Employee engagement and culture is a huge deal for every human resources department. As a result, various organizations are developing an integrated approach to the entire employee experience.

With an integrated RPA system within the HR process, a new pack of advanced integrated tools would become available that would make their work easier. Potentially, this would see the workplace culture and engagement go beyond the daily interaction to more productivity.

Thanks to the robotic automation technology, it becomes much easier to hire or dismiss employees based on the demands of the job at hand. As a result, it leads to increased productivity in the organization.

#4 Performance management

Across all industries, companies are looking into various ways they can RPA technology to re-evaluate their performance management programs. Right from goal setting to the evaluation of rewards and incentives, RPA technology makes it easier for HR departments to keep the organization productivity.

Aligning the RPA changes with the business strategy would see an ongoing transformation of work for the HR process. This is especially so for the firms with a vast number of employees to cater for in their payroll.

Being a highly repetitive process, automation with RPA makes the employee payment process a much more relaxed affair, free of errors and less time or labour consuming.

#5 Augmented workforce

Automation (RPA) and cognitive technologies are some of the defines forces that are reshaping the HR process and the underlying workforce. Implementation of these technologies would see organizations experiment and implement tools that could focus on strategically retraining the employees on the significant advancements in HR functions.

“Cognitive technologies” include machine learning, deep learning neural networks, natural language processing, rule engines, robotic process automation, and combinations of these capabilities for higher-level applications

Possibly this would also encourage employees to indulge more and play a significant role in the automation process.

#6 Mergers and acquisitions

HR departments always face a headache in events of mergers or assets of the different platforms set to integrate between the relevant businesses. Without the right software, it would be difficult, if not impossible, for the platforms to work seamlessly as one structure. RPA enables the HR experts to bridge the incompatible applications and platforms in a less costly and time-consuming manner.

Its interaction with the presentation layer allows RPA to build a seamless communication channel between the merging systems without the need to restructure the whole set-up into one entity to work harmoniously.

Is RPA good for the business?

The scope of robotics in HR is expanding and not just limited to any particular elements within an organization. RPA is now in use right from the recruitment to the dismissal process in different organizations.

That way, it proves to be much necessary than before. With its application, the technology could see plenty of benefits such as lowering costs, decreasing cycle times, saving employees from monotonous tasks and enhance their productivity.

New robotic process automation (or RPA technology) can dramatically compress the onboarding processes and get you back to focusing on what’s most important for a global company: growth

While it can help in the application of advanced technologies in different HR process, the RPA technology could offer a channel to mechanize and standardize the tasks present within the department. Some of the functions that could see greater mitigation of risks and gathering of profit within the HR process include:

A) Employee screening and shortlisting

The employee screening process and shortlisting make it easy for an organization to invite the right candidates for interview. However, without the HR software, a single hire process might take much more time and labour to find the top talent.

Implementing RPA allows the recruiters to gather and screen the resumes and applications in an automated process against the necessary job requirements. Additionally, such a system could prove useful in picking the best candidates based on the computerized review of their background. That way, they can decide whether or not they are eligible for an interview or not.

B) Organizational information structure

Similarly, the hiring or dismissal process involves plenty of paperwork that employees and the HR department need to go through.

The method of creating, sending and monitoring the flow of information may become hectic especially if left to another employee. To eliminate the manual process, the RPA system could provide the new employee with a more comfortable channel of communication.

That way, it becomes easier to understand the structure and regulations of the organizations.

C) Recruitment, induction and training

Thanks to RPA technology, your organization will establish an automatic induction process that would see a new candidate get a digital profile right after successfully applying and getting the job offer.

Under the candidates’ profiles, the RPA system could trigger an automatic process of on boarding the new employee. Also, in the matter of the new employee, RPA would see to it that the interested individual is fully aware of the business processes, standards and regulations with the right data.

Together with a relevant e-Learning and training support system, the RPA induction process could significantly improve the training effectiveness and adoption.

D) Data management

One of the strongest selling points with an RPA system within the HR process is the use of IT systems as a foundation for your FTE. Without the need for additional integration with the applications, RPA could see the HR department achieve accurate and complete employee data within their stay in the organization.

RPA being a robot, it would not wear out or get tired to handle difficult HR data tasks involving current employees, applicants, compliance regulations, payroll processing and employee benefits. Data cleansing activities would also be available to sustain consistency in the information relayed across the multiple systems using different formats.

E) Employee remuneration

Incorrect compliance submissions, inaccurate data and delays in payments are some of the challenges facing the use of enterprise HR solutions for our existing payroll software.

As a result, it makes it easier to handle the large and highly sensitive volumes of data that is repetitive in nature.

RPA can implement an accurate system to accommodate employee data regarding their payment dates. It can also help with calculating the due amount in compliance with the relevant regulations and security requirements.

That would also see greater visibility of the data to the appropriate authorities and ensure integrity.

F) Employee turnover

The dismissal, resignation or retirement of an employee always triggers a chain reaction that calls for a replacement. A manual process would take plenty of time in the finding, background checking and interviewing of potential candidates.

Mostly, the process is often open to errors and could be prone to instances of fraud and unethical acts. Preventing such scenario would need to implement an RPA system within the HR process. That way, it becomes easier to accommodate the off-boarding and input of the right people for employee replacement.

Automating the process would result in consolidating the leavers’ past input, revoking their system profiles, collecting the company’s assets and processing their final payments.

G) Resource allocation

Two of the most critical resources within the HR department are time and money. Firms using RPA would have the opportunity to have both these resources through a process of automation service.

That would have the HR professional save time on carrying out the internal activities such as setting up new employees, delivering internal documents and solve any employee related issues.

Automation also implies that there will be a certain amount of information simplification, easing the interaction between employees and clients within an efficient time frame. The company would gain more time and money to cater for other matters such as internal development or build workers’ professional skills.

In conclusion

RPA is becoming a huge sensation in the HR department. RPA brings forth the necessary innovative solutions for the HR process that changes the way it conducts its operations.

With plenty of operating models already adopting automation, it’s a matter of time before a majority of the organizations realizes too how the technology could cut costs, drive-up efficiencies and improve the quality of the HR process.

Today, modern human resources (HR) applications can help by providing employees a way to interact with organisations that is rewarding and even fun

Still, the RPA technology is by no means a design to substitute the human capital in a firm, but rather a single transformational solution that serves the purpose of accelerating and facilitating the HR tasks. It is also a technological solution that helps improve the organization’s workflow.

Despite this, there is a future in the unity of HR software and human labour since the effectiveness of the automation process would improve the company’ services without the need to expend their energy and technicalities.

Hitendra Singh Rathore is the Digital Marketing Executive and software analyst at SoftwareSuggest and loves helping people plan, optimize and launch marketing strategies. He has spent the majority of his career in the SaaS industry gaining experiences in areas such as Accounting Software and ERP software analysis. While Digital Marketing is his primary job function by day, Hitendra also enjoys spending time with his family and listening to music.