How to Remain Calm in the End of Year Frenzy? Increase Your Efficiency.

Wherever you are in the world, I’m willing to bet that the end of the year is hectic for you like it is for me, with an increase in visits from family and friends, extra traffic on the roads, and of course more cooking and baking. I often worry about getting it all done effectively and suspect I’m not alone! At the end of each year, I find myself reflecting on the last 12 months to see how I could be more efficient for the next year to come.?

We’re also seeing everyone having to tighten their belts, both professionally and personally, as the world rebalances after the massive economic hit of the pandemic. This feels like the first year that my social calendar has returned to maximum capacity, after a quiet few years in the Pandemic, which makes it feel even more hectic now, don’t you think? So, in terms of our Perennial HR Challenges, I can’t think of a better time to talk about Increasing Efficiency as we all have to do more, with less. I, however, think we should be trying to do less with less. True efficiency is about prioritizing effectively and reducing or cutting out the unnecessary, time-hungry tasks, where possible.?

Do Less, with Less!?

We define the perennial HR challenge of Increasing Efficiency as reducing time and money spent on administrative tasks related to staffing, training, compensation, and other workforce management activities.?

So, what does that mean for HR/HXM now specifically? Well, to stay current and keep up with employee expectations we know that most companies are using hybrid work as an opportunity to improve operations and reduce costs and overhead - but they are also taking advantage of intelligent technologies to support greater process automation with robotics and other aids like chat bots. There is perhaps an innate fear in many that these processes remove the “Human” aspect from Human resources – however, we know that when they are done right, using robotic or automated processes frees up the humans to take care of the most important things, especially for managers. As a manager myself, I know that I’ve spent so long on administrative HR tasks in my career, often at the expense of my own strategic thinking and ironically, at the direct expense of time with my teams. A current example of this Artificial Intelligence actually has the potential to improve Human Contact in HR, but you don’t need to take my word for it…?

In our recently published research paper Addressing Perennial HR Challenges with Human Experience Management Technology we found that ‘automation can significantly reduce the time required to complete HR Processes.' A total of 35 customers shared data concerning a percentage decrease in the time required to complete larger HR processes such as hiring, onboarding, and conducting performance and compensation reviews. These results averaged a 57% reduction.?

That’s absolutely huge! Imagine what you could do with that time… where would you want to spend more time? Employee Development, perhaps? Here are some other ways in which some form of automation or AI can help your organization increase efficiency:?

Reducing administrative workloads?

• Streamlined benefits administration?
• Standardized global payroll processed?
• Simplified interview scheduling and offers?
• An HR help desk to answer questions and address issues (chatbot or live chat)?
• Ability to secure legal signature of HR documents from anywhere at anytime?

Empowering employees through self-service?

• Simplified employee user experience?
• Streamlined paperwork collection from new hires (and positive user experience for them) / optimize HR document processes (e.g., onboarding paperwork)?
• Streamlined feedback/communication between managers and supervisees?
• Guided workflows to complete complex tasks across several systems?

For further detail on all these streamlined processes, and many more, be sure to check out our Whitepaper.? Also, from another of our Research programs, The Evolution of HR Meta Trends for 2022, we saw the ‘Intelligent Technologies’ trend move up three spots from its number 6 ranking in 2021 to third place in 2022. I can’t see it falling for 2023, can you???

So, as we start thinking about closing out 2022 – how are you thinking about driving efficiency in your organization? Please do get in touch with your best suggestions, results, or ideas! In the interim, I’d like to wish everyone the very best close to the year on a personal and professional front, and to thank you for joining me for my musings in this blog series.