In 2018, HR.com and Iron Mountain conducted a study on The State of HR Automation in Mid-Sized Organisations. Findings reveal that most HR departments are STILL bogged down by manual administrative tasks. A majority of respondents (59%) said the HR professionals in their organisation spend over half their time on manual administrative tasks. This is supported by other HR.com research. In their Advancing HR Function study, half of respondents predicted that 'HR will be transformed into a much more strategic function as administrative duties are automated or outsourced to others.' And yet, despite all the advancements in technology, HR often still finds itself trying to balance two roles: Rule-driven bureaucrat and strategically motivated talent manager. If HR Professionals want to take a leading role in redesigning work, such a redesign needs to amplify efficiencies through automation so as to have the bandwidth to become a more strategic function. In this blog we explore where HR automation can produce the greatest efficiency gains across the employee lifecycle.

As we've illustrated in the previous blogs in the this series on whether to automate or not to automate, automation of the right tasks and processes in the employee lifecycle is critical to business success. is now a key pillar of the future of work and implementing a human-automation collaboration is essential to any digital transformation program. But what process and functions should you automate first? And how do you make sure that it is roles as opposed to people, that are made redundant? EY has done considerable research in this regard and this blog explores how their best practice advice on how to automate intelligently.

Automation will certainly change human resources as we know it, but the impact will reach far beyond the HR department to encompass the entire employee lifecycle. Organisations that manage such transformation successfully will be those in which leaders and HR professionals recognise what tasks machines can do significantly better than humans and automate only those tasks. Focusing human effort on activities that humans do best will result in a happier, more engaged and more productive workforce overall. Designing such an organisation requires a much longer-term people strategy (one that goes beyond the usual succession planning), coupled with transparent dialogue with the existing workforce about the benefits of automation on what it means for them. This Blog in the HR automation series explores the broader implications that automation will have on leadership, employees and the entity of the organisation itself.

Apparently you can’t solve the ‘how to automate work’ problem by thinking solely about automation replacing jobs. This is the premise behind Reinventing Jobs: A 4-Step Approach for Applying Automation to Work by Ravin Jesuthasan, Managing Director at Willis Towers Watson, and John Boudreau, professor and Research Director at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business and Center for Effective Organisations. Based on their decades of experience helping companies transform approaches to work and leadership, Reinventing Jobs offers a new set of tools for applying automation and artificial intelligence in today’s organisations. In this Blog we will examine the 4-Step framework for applying automation to work outlined by Jesuthasan and Boudreau, who believe that 'simply asking which humans will be replaced by automation fails to take into account how work and automation will evolve.' Now let's continue our exploration of this series on whether to automate or not to automate tasks and processes across the employee lifecycle.

The technological revolution has brought with it both hope and fear, excitement and trepidation. The jury is still out on whether the advances that technology enables will be overwhelmingly positive or negative. The reality is that it we humans need to take responsibility for making well informed, intelligent decisions about how we use and apply technology in our lives to ensure that the results are positive. Nowhere is that more relevant than in the workplace. Over the next few weeks, we will be doing a deep dive into HR automation to unpack the latest research, best practice and trends about how to apply HR automation to the employee lifecycle. This blog series will highlight what every leader and HR professional needs to be aware of in order to make those fully informed decisions about HR automation so as to ensure that the effects those decisions have on employees and the workforce generally, create positive results for all parties. Not to mention for the future of HR and the future of work.

We're all conscious of the fact that working in a shifting market landscape with constant disruption, all the while leveraging automation to optimise production, is an ongoing challenge. According to Deloitte's research about the age of 'Industry 4.0,' many leaders view the transition required by digital transformation as complex and challenging. However necessary digital industrial transformation may be on an organisation’s path to becoming fully connected, the journey if often hindered by speed bumps. Deloitte’s Industry 4.0 Readiness Report found that only 14 percent of the 1,600 C-level executives surveyed are confident that their organisations are ready to fully harness the changes associated with Industry 4.0. As organisations are called on to transform along with the market and society itself, what types of business models will serve the organisations of the future? In this week's HR Blog we explore the future of work through the lens of Industry 4.0 and the emergence of the 'Teal' organisation model as a possible framework for navigating business transformation with success.

The Employee Lifecycle (ELC) is your roadmap to building an engaged employee experience. Cloud HR software is how you digitally transform your employee lifecycle to reduce friction and deliver powerful results to potential, current (and maybe even past) employees that is simple, automated and engaging. In this week's HR Blog we explore how to make your employee lifecycle sing...

As the world of work changes, so too must the approach of those who design, build and maintain our physical and/or virtual offices. Accordingly, how those who are in charge of managing the teams who occupy these physical and virtual spaces is also in a state of flux. With four generations in the workplace for the first time in history, we also need systems, processes and offices that support and adapt to the needs and talents of the entire cohort, fostering constructive interaction and collaboration across generations. We've shared a few posts recently about the future of work, including digital workspaces, human capital trends and driving culture change. Continuing on with this 'future of work' theme (because a good offence is the best defence), this week's HR Blog turns an eye to the practical solutions for managing the future of work, workplace and the performance of your workforce.