A key challenge facing HR teams is the administrative burden of managing sequences of actions that must occur over days, weeks or longer.

The need for communication across different technology platforms, including HR databases, compliance tools and IT systems, introduces significant complexity.

React to events - predictably

Employee lifecycle events can manifest themselves from a wide range of different technology sources. For example, some businesses start their employee onboarding process in their core HR database and then need to request IT to create user accounts (usually after other processes have been completed and a start date has been agreed upon).

Sometimes, HR teams need to respond to events that originate from an IT-managed platform (such as Active Directory for user account management).

Responding quickly and efficiently to business events presents a variety of challenges. The burden of manual steps can be expensive. Keeping track of the current state (and remembering to follow up when events haven't happened as required) is unreliable and likely to lead to mistakes.

HR automation is a straightforward set of technologies that bridge the gaps between separate systems and helps teams manage inherently challenging problems.

React to new information

Some important events arise (or at least can be detected) by analysing changes in data rather than from specific technical events. Responding to information in databases (or extracts from database systems) can be helpful when a specific "event" isn't available as a trigger, or for detecting changes with more complex logic (such as changes over a given threshold or a percentage increase).

This also opens the possibility of detecting and responding to generalised changes over a range of people or trends over time. Artificial intelligence can be introduced to help detect issues than otherwise wouldn't have been detected.

HR automation tools can help combine information from multiple database systems and make decisions based on various combinations. For example by combining performance management, compliance tools and web data sources.

Automation solutions don't need to be complex to deliver value. Even relatively simple processes can offer benefits, such as sending reminders to managers before employee probation periods end.

Automate your outcomes with Actions

The benefit of process automation is the actions that are triggered from the initial events.

The simplest outcome is often an email notification or automatic Teams message that can be delivered without manual steps. This is particularly useful to automate reminders when events haven't progressed quickly enough (or if an important deadline is approaching).

Web hooks (or APIs) provide a mechanism for the automated process to communicate with other technology platforms and software. These are often used to progress actions or update information in otherwise disconnected systems. For example, the process could send a message to Active Directory to automatically disable the user account of contract workers once their period of employment has ended.

Actions also include the possibility to update dashboards and management reports that provide an overview of the business. These can be particularly useful for providing executive overviews of key performance indicators, and for identifying opportunities for process improvements.