Home topics news Image Credit: Mimi Thian on Unsplash HR News HR Three ways HR teams can leverage automation to create time for higher-value work Leigh Pullen August 11, 2021 Whether you still call it Human Resources or have moved to new names like People and Culture, Talent Management or People Operations, the business function that manages the onboarding of new employees, the departures of those leaving and the employee experience in between is dependent on hundreds of processes. While the HR team is highly focused on ensuring the success of everyone, it’s an often overworked function that is highly dependent on manual processing to keep things running smoothly. Like a duck smoothly gliding across the water, HR is often a hive of hidden activity below the surface. That can be updating a payroll system with the correct bank account details, processing leave applications, sending letters of offer or commiseration during the hiring process, or combining data from different places for reporting. There are myriad opportunities to automate. Benefits of automation Although the “H” in HR stands for human, it’s a business function responsible for many critical processes. And those processes can take so much time that they prevent HR professionals from working directly with people. Intelligent automation, using smart software tools like Robotic Process Automation (RPA), hands over repetitive and often tedious, tasks to automated software, allowing HR team members to focus on higher-value activities that directly impact the people they work with. When a process is automated, it