How to avoid getting snowed under with back office admin this winter
The Christmas festive period might be over, but winter is certainly not. With snow thick and fast in some regions, it’s understandable that HR and payroll teams may want to pack up and hibernate for the next couple of months. So, how can HR and payroll teams beat the January blues and feel inspired in the New Year? To start with, they can begin to minimise the mundane back office admin tasks that absorb so much of their time.
Admin is a big part of the HR and payroll job role. With spreadsheets and data registers both needing to be kept up to date, alongside monthly payrolls and onboarding processes, it’s easy for HR and payroll teams to be snowed under by admin activity.
However, there’s light at the end of the tunnel. Here’s how HR and payroll teams can minimise—or even complete free themselves of—mundane payroll tasks.
Automatic power
HR and payroll teams have a considerable amount of tasks to squeeze into a working day, yet many of these tasks are repetitive and take up a lot of precious time. By introducing technology—specifically automation—into the HR department, team members can automate these mundane tasks and can therefore reduce the amount of time they spend on admin.
With automation taking some of the pressure away from the human workforce, they are able to do what they do best, focusing on the important tasks such as running the monthly payroll. Rather than taking jobs from HR and payroll professionals, automation actually puts the Human back into Human Resources.
Avoiding admin
For HR and payroll departments, winter can signify the end of the payroll year for some regions. This can be a momentous task that causes a lot of stress for internal teams. Alongside introducing technology into internal processes, these teams can also outsource their payroll to third party providers. These providers, which can help with both day-to-day services and compliance, will alleviate the stress associated with the end of the year, and will give payroll teams peace of mind that their processes are under control and at minimal risk of non-compliance.
Keeping up with compliance
When it comes to data legislations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), HR and payroll teams can use even automation to remain compliant. For example, organisations should delete the data of customers or ex-employees after a certain amount of time. To eliminate the risk of forgetting, technology can be used to automatically delete the data when necessary. As technological advances minimise the risk of human error, they can enable HR and payroll departments to run at a greater efficiency, empowering their role within the business as a whole.
Although winter can be uninspiring for some, there are a number of ways that HR and payroll teams can reduce the amount of admin work they have to do. Not only does this free up HR teams to do more important, employee-facing tasks, it also let’s these teams reflect on the new year and plan for the year ahead.
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