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6 Ways to Simplify HR Administration in Your Workplace

CoAdvantage- Complexity in HR is a hot – and complicated – topic. HR leaders say that their HR administration has grown significantly more complex over time: “Being a competent HR professional has become increasingly complex,” say researchers from the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, Brigham Young University, and Utah State University.

That growing complexity is due to rapidly emerging competencies that HR professionals must master, particularly related to technologies like workforce analytics and automation; increased regulation and compliance requirements; and new (and often unnecessary) levels of process and decision-making complexity. With COVID-19, HR teams are also contending with brand new challenges related to remote work, economic challenges, and navigating compliance with labor law during an unprecedented situation.

That complexity saps productivity and eats time. Specifically, research from The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) indicates that complexity saps between 16% and 50% of executives’ productive time. How can HR deal with this added complexity?

1: Make simplification a priority.
Simplification takes time and staff. Technology firm Adobe found that its performance management process was so complex it ate 8 million person-hours annually! Organizations must be willing to dedicate the resources needed to unravel such processes and pare them back to more manageable levels.

2: Interrogate the complexity.
HR guru Josh Bersin recommends first assessing complexity at your organization. “In order to make things simple,” he writes, “you must first understand how complex they really are, and from there boil it down to its essence.”

3: Think in terms of “time capital” as well as financial capital.
Too much to do in too little time complicates work; by approaching time as something to be budgeted, companies can pare back on meetings, calls, and forced multitasking.

4: Expand skills.
Fast Company recommends that HR leaders develop their business acumen as much as their HR acumen: “The complexity of business today requires an HR leader to possess an intimate grasp of the business, industry, market, and more.”

5: Automate.
HR technology has come a long way, and automating many rote tasks in areas like payroll and benefits administration can simplify work for human employees, producing great ROI at the same time.

6: Partner with others.
Working with outside HR specialists and organizations like PEOs can improve business efficiencies and help to simplify in-house HR work significantly.

CoAdvantage, one of the nation’s largest Professional Employer Organizations (PEOs), helps small to mid-sized companies with HR administration, benefits, payroll, and compliance. To learn more about CoAdvantage’s ability to create a strategic HR function in your business that drives business growth potential, contact us today.