QUIZ: Are You Stuck in the Cycle of HR Admin?

How bad is the problem of being stuck in ‘the Cycle of HR Admin’? Take our quiz below to find out.

First, let’s take a quick look at our C-suite’s perception of how important the insights of HR leaders are for their business.

Harvard Business Review argued nearly a decade ago that CHROs make great CEOs. Recently, we’ve seen companies like Greggs, Tesco Ireland and Chanel make that exact move.

But switching up that relationship first, how important do you think HR’s expertise currently are to CEOs? Take a guess at which figure above is the most accurate.

• Option A: 56%

• Option B: 72%

• Option C: 89%

We have some bad news and some good news here. According to Forbes, almost 90% of CEOs believe that HR should have a central role in the business. However, the bad news is only 45% of CEOs say they are creating the conditions for HR to lead business growth successfully.

HR teams have evolved from what HR Brew calls ‘compliance police’ to ‘talent management coaches’. Because of that, new roles such as HR Analytics Manager, Diversity and Inclusion Manager and Employee Experience Manager have emerged as key for many businesses. 

But just what percentage of the fastest growing roles on the market are focused on enabling our multigenerational, hybrid, diverse workforces to excel and building an employee experience that makes people stay? 

• Option A: 5%

• Option B: 11%

• Option C: 20%

When LinkedIn analysed the roles that were growing the quickest on the entire jobs market, no less than one in five (20%) were within the HR department. In fact, the roles mentioned above occupied the #2, #3 and #5 spots respectively.

Let’s move the lens now towards HR themselves and how they may feel trying to strive for great employee experience in these conditions. A hint here - around the same portion have either had their budget cut or are expecting to. So, what do you think is the most accurate figure above? Find out if your guess is on the money below.

• Option A: 56%

• Option B: 23%

• Option C: 18%

Unfortunately, the reality is that over half of HR leaders (56%) both think their budget will be or has been cut and that their business doesn’t value HR. There is a lot to be done to move to a strategic standpoint and that starts with automating low-value administrative work so HR teams can work on the projects that make a real impact.

Is Manual HR Slowing Down Your Organisation?

HR professionals are far more than just firefighters. But with many laden down by slow, low-value tasks, are we making the most of their expertise? Learn how to break the Cycle of HR Admin.

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When HR processes are still manual, HR teams lose time each day to tasks like data input, finding information from email threads and downloading and storing important files. This leaves them with no time for building employee experience, better diversity or development and change management.

But what portion of HR teams are still having to work within slow, fractured processes? Find out below. 

• Option A: A tenth

• Option B: A fifth

• Option C: Two thirds

The truth is, an astounding number of HR teams are still very much dealing with manual spreadsheets and a lack of automation. In fact, only 32% of HR teams have digitised their HR processes, meaning that 68% of teams are likely spending time on items such as maintaining records and processing requests rather than the initiatives that will create satisfied, productive and retentive employees.

While using an outdated HR system may just seem like a small frustration in your employees’ day, the reality is that the moments they lose when doing simple things like requesting leave add up over time. In fact, around 90% of employees lose time each week to work that is not related to their core job.

But let’s turn to the impact of those slow processes – how much time do you think HR teams are losing each week answering questions from employees?

• Option A: 42 minutes

• Option B: 1.5 hours

• Option C: 3.5 hours

In our latest HR study, HR professionals reported spending around three and a half hours each week on each of the following tasks: employee enquiries, recruitment, payroll, performance management and learning and development. While some of these are essential for retention, employee enquiries are often repetitive and require sending the same information over and over again.

Adding automation here to do that can enable even small HR teams to handle 80 requests in 30 days with a less than eight hour turnaround.

Source: Personio’s latest HR study

We’ll give you some hints with this one. So, about 98% of employers collect data to measure employee experience once a year and nearly a quarter do this once a week. But how many of those share usable, fresh data with their HR team so they can make informed decisions? Find out below.

• Option A: 12%

• Option B: 34%

• Option C: 56%

The truth is, with the majority of organisations not collecting regular data, over half of HR managers across Europe say that their department lacks the data and insights they need to make strategic decisions.

Sometimes, we think of slow, inefficient HR processes as something that only has an impact on HR teams. However, as something that touches every single employee across the company, the reality is that it’s something that can really cause time to be wasted at scale in your organisation.

But how many of our employees are losing time each week to things like updating their digital employee file details, requesting holidays or documents?

• Option A: One in four

• Option B: Two in three

• Option C: Four in five

Interestingly, our most recent HR study found that around 83% of employees lose up to eight hours per week to tasks that are not related to their core job. And within this portion who do lose so much time, 82% (or four in five) employees lose time say some of it is to HR admin such as recruitment, processing leave, accessing HR information and other related tasks.

If this quiz has been eye-opening, don’t worry. Not only is it not unusual to experience the frustration of HR administration weighing down your organisation from achieving their best, there’s an easy solution – a HR solution you can depend on.

But how much time does the right HR software stand to help you gain each month on time-consuming tasks such as recruiting, onboarding, HR management and development? Take a guess and check below.

• Option A: 7.5 days

• Option B: 2.5 days

• Option C: 3.9 days

By consolidating all of your employee data in one, easy-to-navigate place and adding a little magic of automation to your slowest workflows, you stand to save about 60 hours a month. But what does that mean in practice? That’s about 7.5 extra working days, just from getting the right tool in place. What would you do with that time?

So, how did you do overall? Any answers that particularly surprised you or are you all-too-aware of the impact of slow HR processes?

• 0-4 right answers: You may not be fully aware of the impact hard-to-navigate HR processes have on your business. Take a look at our guide below to learn more.

• 4-6 right answers: While some of these metrics may not be a surprise, there’s always more you could learn to move from process to purpose. Learn how in our guide

• 6-8 right answers: Congratulations, you’re more in the loop of the problems that stem from low-value HR tasks. If you need help, take a look at our guide below.