It’s common knowledge that the “Great Resignation” has been a feature of the American business landscape since mid-2021. When business ebbs and flows are at normal levels, employee turnover is typically pegged at around 2% per month. In April 2021, as reported by the United States (U.S.) Bureau of Labor Statistics, that rate began to climb significantly, reaching 2.9% in August. In September alone, a record 4.4 million individuals resigned from their jobs.
Successfully metabolizing staff changes is inconvenient under any circumstances but as increasing numbers of workers vote with their feet, leaving employers in droves, organizations across the U.S. are scrambling to deal with the intense disruption caused by the mass exodus.
Many are turning to human capital management (HCM) software to ease the burden of recruitment and onboarding. Operational agility, efficiency, and performance depend on having the right workforce strategy in place and are vital to navigating change successfully.
Efficiency Through Automation
Research suggests that human resources (HR) professionals spend up to 15% of their time—over 300 hours per year, per person—on routine tasks such as maintaining employee records. A survey conducted by Forrester early in 2020 indicated that 76% of businesses are still massively dependent on paper processing. It follows then that as well as being manual—and error prone—these routine HR tasks take time away from more important activities like recruiting, onboarding, creating competitive benefits packages, and developing learning programs that fuel and sustain business growth.
HCM systems automate routine tasks and shortcut more complex processes with tools including one-touch background checks and automatic training enrollment. This is particularly important during periods of intense change because it frees up HR teams to concentrate on new hiring, as well as on the critical training, engagement, and culture-building activities that enhance employee retention.
Call out:
A recent Nucleus Research study found that automated cloud Workforce Management solutions, which include time & schedule, deliver an average of $12.24 for every dollar invested in the solution in under 5 months.
The efficiencies associated with automation are also significant. Two-thirds of the Forrester respondents said they’d encountered sub-optimal or outright broken processes in remote work situations that resulted from COVID shelter in place restrictions.So it’s not surprising that some 54% of businesses are transforming their end-to-end processes to support digital business strategy. And while not the primary driver of process transformation, cost reduction plays a role, with 70% of businesses rating cost as an important metric in evaluating the success of transformation efforts.
Improved Planning
Slow, manual processes and disconnected systems result in operational silos and incomplete data that deprive HR leaders of the clear picture of the current state of the organization’s workforce they need in order to plan effectively. Untrustworthy data also limits HR’s ability to play a constructive strategic role in business growth. According to Gartner, only 8% of business leaders trust the information and data provided by their HR team.
Modern HCM solutions enable 360-degree visibility while integrating essential functions like talent management, performance management, and employee costing—all within a single platform. With a comprehensive view of accurate and complete organizational data—both past and current—leaders can confidently plan, operationalize, and measure progress against company benchmarks across every team, department, and function. Seamless access to historic data also means managers can evaluate the efficacy of previous business decisions as a guide to future decisions.
Our HCM solution separates essential job information—such as title, reporting structure, responsibilities, and skills/experience—from the individual in the position. This ensures that position data is not lost when employees leave or change roles. As a result, the organizational chart maintains its integrity and it’s easy to see the positions needing to be filled. This means HR and other executives can control and project headcount with ease, onboard and offboard efficiently, and accurately plan and forecast financials.
Strategic Alignment
Agility is key when the pressure is on to attract and retain employees of the highest caliber and to respond quickly and proactively to constantly changing business demands. An HCM solution breaks down organizational silos and positions HR as a strategic partner, enabling you to:
- Accelerate recruiting to reach new talent before your competitors
- Use data to confidently move team members into new roles to address short-term gaps
- Ensure you are continuously nurturing top talent and providing merit opportunities to high performers
- Help your people feel safe and secure with easy enrollment to benefits
- Automate time-consuming tasks to help HR teams focus on the higher-value activities that make them an indispensable strategic asset to the organization
Looking for an HCM?
Please read our disclaimer here.