HR administration can prove to be quite mundane in nature. It consumes major part of the day for HR managers, thus allowing very little time for them to concentrate on productive functions such as talent retention, management, acquisition, development of L&D strategies and so much more.

Most HR professionals end up doing a little bit of everything to manage all activities on the same level – such as a bit of on-boarding, little focus on employee relations and engagement, minimal documentation related to labour laws and employee protection act, health and safety norms at workplace, no focus on creation of a vibrant workplace culture and many more could be added.

Focusing on the human side of HR to strategise ways to attract new talent and boost the company’s interest doesn’t even rank in their priority list of HR administration.

Here are top 5 easy steps that can help HR administrative managers save on unnecessary amount of time and money involved. HR administrative systems should be automated to quickly and easily manage day-to-day activities:

1. Make on-boarding a smooth experience for employees

When it comes to on-boarding of new hires, first impression counts. New hires immediately come to a decision if they choose to stay with an organisation for long or not. Make on-boarding a smooth process by allowing new hires the flexibility to fill in data and complete the paperwork online in advance.

However, documents attached need to be cross checked by the HR and verified before employee confirmation. The first half and more of the first day at job of a new hire shouldn’t be spent in filling out forms, but instead focusing on understanding the workplace culture and what’s required on job.

While automating work can be the best solution, however we as humans would love a human interaction. Herein HR managers should deploy mentors (normally employees who have been associated with a company for long) to take new hires through the process of workings and culture of a company.

Hence, it’s advisable for companies to assign a mentor to guide the new hire through the first week of on-boarding process for smooth transition and assimilation into the workplace code and culture.

2. Clarify benefits offered and enrolment norms

Sometime preparing for benefits enrolment can turn out to be a nightmare for most HR managers. Existing and new employees are shooting questions to the HR personnel to clarify doubts regards enrolment and benefits. You can take out some of the burden from a HR personnel to explain terms, benefits and enrollment norms to every employee by automating enrollment processes.

Companies can choose to go completely paperless by opting for a system that guides employees through electronic signup and each detail is well documented for explicit clarification at any point in time. To save even more, integrate your benefit system with the payroll for better calculation regards savings and compensation received.

See: Most Common HR Mistakes that Impact Business Operations

3. Manage timesheets and payroll electronically

Employees and employers/HR managers can be equally poor at recording accurately the man hours put in by an employee at work, especially if they are written on paper and recorded manually. Sometimes, employees who fill their time sheets less than once in week are only 35 percent accurate.

Accuracy can only improve with frequency, hence automate intervals, lunch breaks and in-time, out-time of an employee through an electronic system. The time tracking system should integrate with payroll directly, such as HR managers can save time when it comes to payroll calculation.

4. Manage Time-Off Requests and Vacation Policy

Electronically feeding in data into systems for time-off requests can simplify the process for both HR managers and employee as well. HR managers have to then just search for such documents into the system and adjust pay accordingly.

Also vacation policies should be clearly documented and employees must be encouraged to take breaks for rejuvenation. Use a program that follows a transparent approach to keeping employers, HR managers and employees on the same page when it comes to paid time-offs and leave calculation for vacations.

5. Updating employee information

Updating employee information can turn out to be a quite time consuming process for HR managers, leaving scope for spelling errors in name and education details, birth year and others. This can further lead to entering and managing HR data surrounding payroll, taxes and benefits a cumbersome exercise. HR management has a lighter side to activities such as making note of employee birthdays, special days of the year, anniversary, performance milestones etc.

Make a system that will allow employees to update their personal information themselves. This will allow very little room for errors regards data fed into the centralised HR management system.  Also HR professionals can stay updated on all the crucial employee data, without feeling the need to ask the candidate individually.

In conclusion

If some of these tips are followed carefully, then HR administrative managers can find more time on hand to do things that matter the most to company’s overall growth and implement new success initiatives to find, attract and retain talent. HR managers can now connect with employees better and engage them to support a collaborative workplace culture.

Also read: 3 Effective But Easy-to-Implement HR Tools for SMEs

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