How ‘smart automation’ can boost HR to world-class levels

A “smart-automation” approach can give a typical HR organization a measurable lift when it comes to improving customer experience and efficiency, according to new research from the Hackett Group.

The Hackett Group’s new Digital World Class analysis found that those typical HR organizations can reduce costs by 17% and operate with 26% fewer staff hours–while also improving effectiveness and internal customer experience. The Hackett Group research advises that, by following a smart-automation strategy, typical HR functions can boost efficiency levels close to those seen by world-class HR organizations (defined as those that achieve top-quartile performance in both efficiency and effectiveness across an array of weighted metrics in the Hackett Group’s comprehensive HR benchmark).

- Advertisement -

The research emphasized that, in the emerging digital era, HR organizations are moving beyond the inward-focused metrics of efficiency and effectiveness to also measure the experience of key stakeholders. As a result, the Hackett Group has added “customer experience” as a separate area of analysis, measurement and transformation focus.

For 2019, in fact, the Hackett Group has begun breaking out customer (user) experience as a separate performance metric, rather than embedding it as part of effectiveness. The research found that world-class HR organizations are more than three times as likely to be seen as valued business partners, and over seven times more likely to be seen as collaborators than typical HR organizations.

RELATED: 8 skills HR business partners need for success

“Smart automation offers a very achievable path to performance improvement for HR today, particularly for HR organizations that have not already fully optimized their HCM environment,” says Harry Osle, leader and principal in charge for Hackett Group’s Global Human Resources Practice. Osle says that, at typical HR organizations, the majority of the people and budget go to administrative and transactional work.

He adds that smart automation can help address this by streamlining and automating inefficient, fragmented processes, so that staff can be redirected to higher-value activities. He explains that HR organizations that do not take advantage of what smart automation offers will be stuck delivering services in a very traditional way, which is likely to increase costs and underwhelm its customers.

- Advertisement -

Interested in HR Tech? Follow along HERE with HRE‘s coverage from HR Tech in Las Vegas.

Max Caldwell, principal-in-charge of the Hackett Group’s People and HR Transformation practice, says it’s important to keep in mind that technology alone will not get HR organizations to digital world class. He says a holistic transformation plan describing how to engage and partner with the business is key. For example, to address talent shortages and retention difficulties, HR must adjust its service design to focus on improving the employee experience, he says.

“Analytics must play a role in strategic workforce planning, to ensure that the company’s future talent needs are met,” Caldwell says.

Avatar photo
Tom Starner
Tom Starner is a freelance writer based in Philadelphia who has been covering the human resource space and all of its component processes for over two decades. He can be reached at [email protected].