The challenge for employers to deploy an intelligent employee management system that maintains satisfaction and productivity at a low cost can seem like a daunting task. However, automation technology is paving the way for unprecedented efficiency for SMBs seeking to better manage their staff.
The emergence of automation technology and artificial intelligence has come at a crucial time for workplace satisfaction. According to Gallup data, employee engagement in the United States has fallen to a 10-year low, with only 31% of employees feeling engaged at work.
The last time engagement fell to these depths was 2014, while the percentage of employees actively disengaged has also dropped to similar levels to 2014, falling to 17%.
Automation tools can save small businesses up to 20 hours of manual work each week, and these time-saving qualities can extend to HR practices and employee management.
In the battle to keep workers happy for less, the implementation of automation employee management tools could become an essential consideration. With this in mind, let’s explore six ways the technology is set to transform employee management for SMBs over the years ahead:
1. Holistic Management
SMBs typically rely on smaller HR teams to conduct sweeping people management tasks such as tracking performance reviews, monitoring attendance, and updating team member records. This administrative burden can cause troublesome oversights in building a holistic overview of their workforce.
Automation technology can transform this burden, creating dedicated autonomous workflows for HR responsibilities, creating task assignments with clear timelines, distributing reminders for task completion, and synchronizing with collaboration tools like Google Calendar and Slack for multi-channel notifications.
2. Cloud Communication
Incorporating automation tools into employee management systems doesn’t have to involve reinventing the wheel or costing the world. Cloud-based integrations within communication platforms like Slack or the use of Google Drive to share documents can significantly reduce the friction between managers and employees, particularly when implementing house styles or sharing workloads efficiently.
McKinsey data shows that 80% of modern businesses use social collaboration tools to enhance business processes, and these can be a significant resource for improving company-wide efficiency and the breaking down of silos.
3. Streamlined Onboarding
Efficiency throughout onboarding processes can improve employee engagement through stronger competencies across the board, helping to facilitate the nurturing of skills.
Not only can a planned onboarding program boost employee retention by 58%, but automation technology can also help to boost worker satisfaction in a way that carries an overall boost to company-wide efficiency.
With the help of AI, automation tools can create bespoke onboarding programs that assess the preferred learning styles of new hires and possible skill gaps while crafting true-to-life simulations and workplace scenarios to test information retention.
4. Payroll Automation
Payroll efficiency is essential for any SMB that’s ambitious about getting the most out of its employees. There’s no bigger motivator than pay, and no greater pain point for staff than when human error or inefficiencies interrupt their access to their salaries.
Automation tools can help to take the risk of human error out of SMB payrolls and can generate paystubs that naturally meet all industry standards.
The implementation of paystub automation tools makes it easier than ever for businesses to optimize their payroll processes for less and take further monotonous tasks away from HR teams, helping staff to focus on more complex challenges.
5. More Time for Management
Crucially, automation can also help to free employees from repetitive tasks such as data entry to help facilitate a more hands-on and responsive management experience for employees.
Essential job roles focusing on data entry, report generation, scheduling, and email sorting can be handled by technology to allow more energy to be focused on directly addressing employee needs.
With around two out of three workers claiming that automation has helped to make them more productive in their roles, the benefits that the technology can bring to employee management are clear.
Productivity tools like Monday are an example of this level of automation in action, with workflow management functions, reminders, updating task statuses, and assigning work all helping to save significant time from management perspectives.
6. Transforming Absence
Authorizing time off for employees is another time-consuming process that can be riddled with human error.
HR professionals are traditionally tasked with manually entering time-off requests, as well as reviewing them and coordinating schedules with management.
Workflow automation tools can integrate with absence management software to enable more employees to directly request time off within the system, helping to streamline the management approval process while ensuring that any holiday is granted with all relevant logistical oversight.
Embracing Automation
Automation technology is no longer reserved only for the most resourceful enterprises in your industry, and the right tools can not only help to save significant work hours but also improve your budget by empowering managers and HR team members to focus their efforts on other pressing tasks.
By embracing automation, SMBs can not only maximize their efficiency but also facilitate growth in a more comprehensive manner, making the technology an essential consideration for any ambitious business.
