Reducing the hassle of managing manual onboarding processes

HR departments have a lot of responsibility within an organization to maintain compliance with a host of state and federal laws relating to data privacy, discrimination, and record retention. It's a lot of work for a lean organization to keep up with, and the penalty for mistakes can be high. Organizations are responding by automating two of the more repetitive, but critical, HR processes: onboarding and offboarding.

Risk of errors and tedious duplication of data-entry makes onboarding unpleasant

Onboarding for many organizations still involves manually filling out physical paperwork and then having an HR generalist manually input it into the system, which can lead to mistakes. Forms can sometimes get lost, or critical steps in the process can inadvertently be skipped. Most new employees also need access to multiple software applications, databases, and secure email, all of which must be handled by IT.

Failure to remove all accesses and user accounts during separation compromises security

Offboarding is even more time-sensitive than onboarding. In these situations, even if the separation is amicable, it's essential to terminate all system access, inventory company property the employee possessed, process final pay, and stop benefits.

Both of these critical processes can be augmented with automation to ensure they are completed quickly and accurately. Using a tool like Self Service, HR staff can enter the employee data one time, then hit a button to create a user profile and enroll the employee in the benefits and compensation system. Another button can send a request to IT for a laptop, application installs, and appropriate database access. IT staff then approve the request, and OpCon executes the workflows to generate credentials, give access, and assign a laptop.

The process can work in reverse for offboarding. IT staff can execute all of the access termination workflows with the push of a button while HR uses a different button to initiate the termination procedures.

Incorporating automated workflows into your solution roadmap

There are many other opportunities for HR process automation to help make your HR processes more efficient. Almost any business process that can be broken down into executable steps can be automated, and human resources is a department that must adhere to policies and procedures more than most. We’d like to invite you to have a conversation with an SMA representative to see how what we can do to help your organization automate critical processes.

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About the author:

Ben Demaree is Director of Product Management for SMA Technologies, where he bridges the gap between the clients and the development team to make sure our clients have the best tools possible to meet their automation demands. When he's not at work, Ben spends his free time with his wife and four children and an interesting variety of pets.