e - B o o k

Transformation through automation

Five ways to raise your HR game

2Five ways to raise your HR game

Why is automation a game-changer? Here’s another way to put it. How would you feel about freeing up 30% of your team’s time?

With automation, HR and People teams can do just that, allowing them to concentrate on what really matters: building great experiences for their people.

Just as Personnel evolved to become HR in the 1980s, so HR is now changing to become a ‘People’ function – an organisation where people are the most valuable asset and where company success is dependent on their workforce being successful. Forward thinking leaders are embracing the changing face of HR and getting ahead by automating processes to free up their HR teams, enabling them to focus on their people.

In this eBook, we’ll explore how automation and technology play a vital role in transitioning a traditional HR function to a modern HR and People function; supporting the transformation to a People Company.

We’ll explain the benefits automation has for your People function, your workforce experience and your business growth.

Finally, we’ll break down the five key outcomes you can achieve by embracing an automation strategy and explain how Sage People, our powerful cloud HR and People management solution, can help.

Overview

Contents

Introduction 4

Why automate? 7

Five outcomes you can expect from HR Automation 9

Some cost benefits of automation 15

What our customers say 16

Find out more 17

Five ways to raise your HR game

4Five ways to raise your HR game

The world of work continues to change – and the pace and complexity just stepped up a gear.Today’s workforce is more diverse, mobile and technology enabled than ever. Everything is 24/7, on-demand and increasingly disparate. As a result, employee expectations are higher, and businesses need to be more responsive and adaptive than ever.

There are now five different generations working together in the workplace, all with different skills and backgrounds. Coupled with this is the growing contingent workforce including freelancers, contractors and gig workers – which is expected to rise by 28-37% by 2020, according to a recent Deloitte survey*. This diversity presents new challenges for HR leaders who now have to manage a variety of expectations about how, when and where employees work.

Introduction

Workforce including freelancers, contractors and gig workers is expected to rise by 28-37% by 2020*

37%*The Workforce Ecosystem; Managing beyond the enterprise, Deloitte, 2018

5Five ways to raise your HR game

Technology also continues to change apace. We’re so accustomed to having everything at our fingertips; from switching on the heating from a smartphone to turning the lights on through voice recognition, and this expectation has reached the workplace. New technologies are also emerging such as big data, machine learning and artificial intelligence; a marked evolution in how we gather and interpret data that enables us to find meaning and patterns where we couldn’t before. For HR, this can completely transform a business’ understanding of their workforce and how they plan for the future; for example, through the use of predictive insights, or the ability to understand sentiment or intent through analytics.

Introduction

6Five ways to raise your HR game

Not only are the expectations of the workplace changing, but so are the demands put on leaders.New regulations like the GDPR are impacting the way businesses manage the data they hold on their workforce, driving new requirements and safeguards for employees.

The global skills crisis continues unabated, making it harder and more competitive to find and attract the right people. It’s harder still to keep a hold of them, particularly as the culture of mobility, where employees move jobs more frequently, increases. To add to that, getting the most out of employees continues to be a struggle, with both productivity and engagement levels remaining stagnant.

With these rapidly shifting dynamics, businesses find themselves at a crossroad. Those who choose to embrace the changing face of HR and adapt, have an opportunity to thrive and transform into a truly people centric organization; who employees want to work for.

But how do they do this? Many HR leaders are looking to modern HR technology to help move them forward; and at the centre of that is automation. By applying automation throughout the employment lifecycle, businesses can free up valuable HR time, deliver a much slicker workforce experience and increase productivity across all functions.

If only this transformation was as easy as giving Alexa a spoken command. The reality is that most HCM solutions are struggling to keep up with the rapid pace at which technology and digital ways of working are evolving, becoming outdated and no longer fit for purpose. Leaders therefore have to think carefully about the changes they want to make and look to a solution that will not only solve their immediate problems but withstand the test of time.

Introduction

7Five ways to raise your HR game

Automating HR processes is arguably one of the most beneficial investments a business can make. When you think about how time consuming, repetitive, resource intense and increasingly outdated transactional HCM processes are, there is no denying it’s time for change.

At a process level, automation streamlines many day-to-day manual admin tasks, improving productivity and efficiency, as well as reducing costs and the risk of human error. But the bigger picture is the impact this then has across the business. Crucially, automation frees up a significant amount of time for both HR managers and employees, allowing them to focus on adding real value such as nurturing and developing their people as well as strategising and innovating.

McKinsey estimates that 60% of all occupations have 30% of activities that could be automated.Consider the impact your team could have if they had 30% more time to focus on employee experience, forward planning and business growth.

Source McKinsey: A future that works: automation, employment, and productivity 2017

Why automate?

% of activities that can be automated

8Five ways to raise your HR game

The benefits of HR automation

Automation of HR processes can transform how your business operates and revolutionise your workforce experience. The key to this success though is selecting a well-designed, innovative and forward-looking solution that can grow with you.Sage People is a global, cloud solution that addresses the needs of both HR and of the workforce; helping transform how organisations understand, manage, engage and develop their people.

Increase productivityStreamlined processes and automated workflows allow your HR team to spend less time on admin tasks and more time on high value people interactions; all while improving productivity across the workforce with quicker and easier ways of working.

Deliver world class workforce experiencesDeliver great experiences across the entire employment journey with intelligent automation during onboarding, in-life and offboarding processes; all whilst saving time and money. HR and management can then focus on people, strategy and innovation; resulting in improved engagement and business growth.

Improve workforce visibilityWith automated reports and easy to consume dashboards from one source of truth, you can provide easy access to real time people data. This frees up HR staff to analyse the data, improving credibility with managers and the c-suite by providing actionable insights with more robust, considered recommendations.

Ensure global and local complianceAutomation reduces the risk of human error, non-compliance and penalties, with audit trails and workflows for different legislations. Spend more time enforcing global policies and enabling managers to remain compliant.

9Five ways to raise your HR game

Five outcomes you can expect from HR Automation:

Five outcomes of HR automation

Great onboarding experiencesDeliver a seamless

and consistent onboarding journey, keeping new hires

engaged throughout and reducing time to

competency.

1Flexible

performance management

Say goodbye to bulky, time-consuming and

ineffective annual appraisals for a more

people-focussed approach.

3

An engaged and motivated

workforceEmpower your

employees – and HR and People team – to

do their best work.

2Empower

employees through

self-serveRelieve your HR team

and managers of unnecessary admin

by giving employees ownership of their own information.

4Actionable

insights, data driven

decisionsReplace clunky board packs with accurate

and up-to-date interactive

dashboards, with actionable insights at

your fingertips.

5

10Five ways to raise your HR game

First impressions count. An onboarding journey is an opportunity to make employees feel welcome, confident and to set the tone around how you’ll engage with them. Not only that, but great onboarding and pre-boarding experiences can significantly reduce the time it takes for employees to get up to speed with their role and begin to add value.

What do you want to achieve?• Stay connected to employees from point of hire to their first day; ensuring they’re

engaged and excited

• Sign contracts and complete admin ahead of start dates, without having to chase

• Give new hires easy access to a suite of helpful resources, ensuring they feel confident and motivated

• Enable employees to understand policies and complete any mandatory training as early as possible

• Get accurate employee details with no manual input from HR, such as re-keying data into systems

Deliver a seamless and consistent onboarding journey with Sage People: • Send personalised emails ahead of start dates, welcoming employees and directing

them to resources; getting them up to speed faster

• Streamline the hiring process with electronic signatures and automated reminders to complete tasks in less time and with less effort

• Provide online forms, checklists, company videos and policies from an Onboarding portal and track their progress; reducing intervention for HR and Managers

• Drip feed content so that employees receive it in stages, reducing the risk of being overloaded

• Enable employees to input their details into the system, with no manual HR input required

• Send timely surveys, helping you continually develop your onboarding process with up to the minute feedback

Outcome 1: Great onboarding experiences

11Five ways to raise your HR game

Employees who feel engaged and motivated do their best work. This is turn increases productivity, profitability and also improves customer experiences. By automating HR tasks across the entire employment lifecycle, HR personnel and managers can spend more time on valuable human interactions, as well as planning for their employees’ future.

What do you want to achieve?• Seamless and personal experiences across the end-to-end employment journey

• Improve employee engagement, productivity, retention and reduce absenteeism

• Allow HR and managers to focus more on strategising, coaching and mentoring

• Drive clear and regular two-way communication between the business and the workforce

• Understand what employees really think of their workplace and employer

With Sage People, you can spend more time connecting and engaging with your workforce:• Deliver tailored communications to groups of employees, for example based on

locations or functions

• Design basic or complex automated workflows to minimise admin for HR staff and managers

• Stay connected to your people when they’re on the go, with secure access on any device

• Send targeted pulse surveys to better understand your levels of engagement and drivers across different groups

• Enable employees to provide recognition for their peers

Outcome 2: An engaged and motivated workforce

12Five ways to raise your HR game

Traditional approaches to performance management such as annual appraisals are time-consuming and fast becoming out of date. Businesses are starting to move towards a more sustainable approach centred around continuous conversations that allow for regular, iterative improvements; resulting in improved engagement, productivity and growth.

What do you want to achieve?• Implement new, more effective ways of appraising performance

• Facilitate performance conversations on a continual and regular basis

• Instil a culture of peer recognition, celebrating each other’s achievements

• Reward colleagues so they feel valued for the contribution they have made

• Understand performance across the business as well as who your top talent are

Reinvent your approach to performance management with Sage People:• Automate regular and ad-hoc review processes, to capture performance conversations

at any time

• Align and track performance against individual goals, linking them to company objectives so people understand how they contribute

• Capture and share instant colleague recognition and feedback at any time

• Use configurable performance overviews to easily access key performance data and insights

• Send customized dashboards to management, communicating performance across the business

• Understand who your key talent are as well as the risk to the business if they leave

• Track employee performance and link to comprehensive succession and compensation planning tools

Outcome 3: Flexible performance management

13Five ways to raise your HR game

We’re used to self-serve in almost all aspects of everyday life, such as online banking and automated checkouts, and employees want to be empowered in the workplace too. Enabling your people to do things themselves with an automated, consumer-like and intuitive system will help improve their workforce experience and lighten the admin load for HR.

What do you want to achieve?• Reduce HR requests, freeing up time to focus on more valuable interactions and

strategic planning

• Maintain accurate and up to date employee details, stored in one accessible and secure location

• Empower employees to view their pay information, manage their leave requests, and access policies

• Enable managers to approve leave requests and manage absences efficiently

• Enable quick identification and contact details of colleagues across the business and in other regions

Give employees ownership of their personal information with Sage People:• Employees can securely manage their personal information and access confidential

data such as their pay advice

• Employees can access company communications and policies from any device at any time

• Employees and managers can manage leave requests, with approval workflows and policies applied automatically

• Employees can easily identify and connect with other colleagues across the business

Outcome 4: Empower employees through self-service

14Five ways to raise your HR game

Obtaining accurate and accessible people data has long been a challenge for HR, yet its critical to the future success of a business. With one source of truth that is both reliable and accessible, businesses can instantly get a better view of their workforce enabling much smarter and faster decision making.

What do you want to achieve?• Ensure key decision makers have real-time insights, from one, reliable source of truth

• Show and monitor key metrics for the entire workforce that enables swift decision making

• Get the information needed instantly, without compromising accuracy

• Receive and share the information in an easy to consume format, tailored to different audiences

• Access the information from any device, at any time

Get accurate, actionable insights at the click of a button with Sage People:• Receive up to the minute insights about the workforce through

comprehensive analytics

• Understand what’s happening ahead of time with predictive insights

• View multiple pre-built global reports and dashboards on demand with one click refresh

• Keep management informed across the business, with scheduled reports and dashboards

• Enable managers to subscribe to reports notifying them of exceptions or conditional circumstances such as high absence levels

• Enable rapid identification of trends using charts, tables, and other graphics with data visualization tools

• Spot potential business problems before they occur with early warning systems reporting

Outcome 5: Provide more actionable insights

15Five ways to raise your HR game

Some cost benefits of automation

Free up 30% of your team’s time to reinvest in high-value and creative tasks like creating great workforce experiences1

30%Make your workforce 31% more productive using technology to augment processes in a human-friendly way2

31%

Quickly generate ROI from an automation-enabling HR system in less than 13 months3

<13months

Get set up and see the benefits of using a modern HR and People system in as little as 90 days4

90d a y s

1 Sage People TEI of impact of Sage People2 McKinsey: “Harnessing automation for a future that works”3 Sage People “Unleash the people power in your business in less than 90 days”4 Goldsmiths University of London: “Make Work Human”

16Five ways to raise your HR game

What our customers say

We immediately saw benefits particularly around efficiency and talent, with initial reductions of 20% in administrative work.

Stacie AlexanderSenior Director, Human Resources,Worldwide Clinical Trials

Through the Sage People system, we’ve decreased the time taken in managing annual salary reviews by 50%.

Paula ParkerFormer HR Director,AVEVA

Sage People gives us so much more value. Now we can easily find data, build reports, upload resources and have real-time global visibility of our workforce.

Nicola ClarkHR Director,Ubisense

Using Sage People gives us the ability to do some of the hard work automatically and provide data to assist with decision making in a timely manner.

Claire WebberHR Director,Lovehoney

Managers are saving time and effort, so they can focus on customers and their experience in our stores, and there’s no longer a need for our people to call HR for things such as address changes, benefit questions, review dates, and more.

Cindy BurdtDirector of HR,Theisen’s

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17Five ways to raise your HR game

Discover the benefits of Sage People today at www.sagepeople.com.

Sage People, part of Sage Business Cloud, improves how you attract, manage and retain your workforce.

Through smart and efficient automation you can transform your entire workforce experience, improving productivity and freeing up your HR team to focus on growing your people and your business.

By automating the end to end people journey, Sage People provides the technology and services you need to embrace the new ways of working today and in the future, and will grow as you do.

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Find out more by visiting: www.sagepeople.com