According to the Work Market 2020 Insight report, 70% of business leaders spend 45 minutes to three hours of an 8-hour workday on repetitive tasks. This is no surprise as every organization has its own set of workflows, which can be time-consuming and prone to error. However, intelligent workflow automation can change this narrative.

Workflow automation enhances accuracy, boosts efficiency, and saves time and energy so you and your employees can focus on higher-value tasks. This guide explores digital workflow automation, showing you how to set up an automated process for work-related tasks with examples.

What is workflow automation?

It’s a process that involves using software to streamline and automate manual tasks in an organization. The digital workflow automation creates a process where tasks are completed automatically with little or no human intervention.

A workflow is usually part of a larger business process. When automated, it helps businesses increase efficiency, reduce errors, save time and money. Furthermore, it simplifies the work process.

Digital workflow automation allows you to create efficient and easy-to-follow steps for the processes that keep your business running. Examples include sending marketing emails, managing calendar events, tracking brand mentions, managing invoices, lead follow-ups, and more.

Automating these activities ensures information gets to the right people at the right time while fostering the smooth achievement of business goals.

What are the advantages of intelligent workflow automation?

As per the 2023 State of Process Orchestration report, 91% of respondents intend to invest more in process automation within the next 24 months. This is expected as intelligent workflow automation brings about a plethora of benefits including:

Reduce manual work and errors

A workflow automation system ditches manual processes like time-consuming paperwork, calculations, and data entry. These activities are prone to errors and can easily get misplaced. 

However, automation ensures accuracy and uniformity in operations, leading to better results and fewer mistakes. Furthermore, it cuts down the time spent on repetitive tasks, saves you the cost of paper supplies and other administrative expenses, and secures data while making it easy to monitor.

Streamline communication and processes

Many digital workflow automation systems integrate communication tools like emails, Slack, Microsoft Teams, and more. This helps handle repetitive tasks by ensuring information flows seamlessly across an organization’s departments. 

For instance, it automatically assigns and distributes tasks to appropriate team members and sends real-time notifications when tasks are assigned, completed, or need attention. This ensures each task is executed without manual intervention while eliminating delays and confusion regarding duties.

Improve compliance

Digital workflow automation sets a standard for procedures across your company by providing a clear record of activities. This ensures employees perform tasks according to predefined guidelines, industry standards, and regulations.

Reduce stress and burnout 

According to the Deloitte Global 2022 survey, 43% of Millennials and 44% of Gen Z employees have recently left a job due to burnout. Intense workloads are one cause of stress and burnout among employees.

However, an intelligent workflow automation system reduces the time and energy spent on tedious tasks. When employees know they have software to handle large volumes of work, they’ll feel less stressed and more motivated to work. Ultimately, this creates a positive work environment that encourages employees to stay productive and loyal, thus reducing attrition rates.

Read next: How to Use Data to Better Understand Attrition and Retention

Improve collaboration and resource allocation

Digital workflow automation tools often include features such as easy communication and feedback, collaborative editing, document sharing, and project management. This helps team members efficiently access and monitor projects, work together, and update one another on assigned tasks all in one place. 

Setting Up a Digital Workflow Automation System

1. Identify processes to automate

Not every task requires automation. Some can run efficiently without the risk of human error. Hence, it’s crucial to identify the activities that require this investment. The general rule of thumb is to automate repetitive, error-prone, cost-extensive, and simple tasks that can be made more productive. This may include onboarding process, customer inquiry responses, and invoice processing.

2. Choose a workflow automation tool that works for you

Research and pick a digital workflow automation tool that fits your business needs. When choosing, consider cost, user-friendliness,  seamless integration, security, capacity, and other vital factors. 

Depending on your needs, there are different automation tools to choose from. As an HR manager, your best bet is HR software. These tools help streamline workflows, improve efficiency, and optimize the employee lifecycle, from recruitment to retirement.

Learn more: HR Automation: Your Guide to Functions, Benefits, and Implementation

3. Design your workflows

For a smooth experience, create a visual representation or a detailed report of your workflow process that defines tasks and the series of steps from start to finish. 

This report helps employees easily understand and implement the workflow while showing what will be automated and the expected results. They also serve as a guide to spot automation errors and a blueprint for future automation needs.

For example, create a map or flowchart for employee onboarding, indicating specific steps such as document submission, scheduling meetings, and granting app access.

4. Implement and test thoroughly

Test your automated workflow to ensure the result meets expectations and fix any bottlenecks, data breaches, or other issues that can impede a smooth process. 

For example, test the onboarding process with dummy data to ensure all steps are correct and necessary information disseminated.

Once everything is good to go, introduce the tool to your team. Provide relevant training so employees can better understand the steps and are confident enough to execute them.

5. Monitor and refine your system

Once your digital workflow automation is up and running, monitor and optimize the process regularly. This is to ensure the workflow automation remains accurate, efficient, and productive. From time to time, check for bugs, assess completion times, and identify areas of improvement through employee feedback.

10 Workflow Automation Examples For HR Teams

Document workflow

HR teams often work with numerous documents, from offer letters to employment contracts. This paperwork requires signing and safe storage. Some of them include:

Contract approvals 

A digital workflow streamlines the entire process from contract creation to final approval. First, identify who needs to review and approve the contracts. Then, use the appropriate software that facilitates digital signatures and automates notifications and reminders for involved parties.

Onboarding paperwork

Use automated workflows to allow new hires to complete and sign paperwork electronically. This ensures a consistent employee onboarding process, thus reducing stress.

Expense report processing 

The expense report workflow process typically involves submission, review, approval, reimbursement, and record-keeping. Use automation to make it easier for employees to submit, monitor, and analyze expenses. This tool should be easy to use and integrate with existing accounting and payroll systems. 

HR workflow automation

Automated job posting and candidate screening

Automated recruitment workflows often begin with posting job openings on LinkedIn, Indeed, and Glassdoor. Then, collect applicants’ information and screen resumes via an applicant tracking system (ATS). The workflow should then send automated emails to inform candidates about their application status, including online assessments if necessary. 

Once the candidate is screened and hired, it should then transition into the onboarding workflow as per above.

Read more: Which Employee Onboarding Software is Right for Your Team?

Leave request and approval

Every employee will request paid time off at your company. An HR workflow automation system makes the request and approval process easier. 

The tool replaces the monotonous email exchanges traditionally required for leave requests. It also centralizes data for easy access and integrates with the team’s calendar to reflect an employee’s absence.

Performance review reminders

HR software allows you to create employee evaluation questionnaires, which employees and managers can fill out and submit digitally at their convenience. It also sends reminders to employees to complete their self-evaluation and document results. This helps review performance effectively without micromanaging your team.

Payroll processing

HR teams can automate payroll processing by using software that collects employee timesheet data, calculates wages alongside taxes, and generates payslips in compliance with labor laws. These tools also help track organizational changes, new hires, resignations, employee promotions, and inform relevant stakeholders about necessary changes.

Employee satisfaction surveys

Determine the areas to measure employee satisfaction. It could be overall job satisfaction, company culture, work environment, leadership, or employee financial wellness. 

Use a survey tool to create a questionnaire and send invitations via email or internal communication platforms. Determine how often employees will receive this survey and schedule distribution and reminders.

Time and attendance tracking

HR intelligent workflow automation shuns paper timesheets and manual entries and adopts mobile apps where employees clock in and out. This digital workflow automation system also reports work hours including overtime and minimizes the risk of inaccurate attendance tracking. Ultimately, it promotes a fair and reliable timekeeping system.

Benefits enrollment

Use automation tools to configure benefits, determine eligibility benefits, and enable employee self-service. They typically import employee data from existing HRIS, send timely notifications on the enrolment processes to employees, and allow employees to review and choose benefits. 

Also, these tools seamlessly integrate data from payroll systems, so when employees select their benefits, the system automatically deducts contributions to ensure compliance and eliminate errors.

Benefits of Using an HR Workflow Automation Software

HR software offers these perks to every organization:

Data-driven insights

Automation saves time that would have been spent collecting data from different sources. It spots trends and areas of improvement, and helps you make informed decisions in a couple of clicks. It allows HR teams to gain real-time insights into the workforce, see how decisions affect business outputs and adjust accordingly.  

For instance, you can gather, organize, and analyze data from various tools within one unified system. It also creates automated reports you can easily share with team leads and managers for strategic decision-making.

Enhanced employee engagement

Using automation software means employees are freed from performing mundane, repetitive tasks. This seamless, convenient, and user-friendly experience empowers employees to be on top of their tasks with little or no input from HR teams. It keeps employees engaged and boosts job satisfaction.

Relevant reading: 20 Strategic Employee Engagement Survey Questions

Reduced risks and improved compliance

Automation ensures your company complies with employment laws and tax regulations. How? It provides access to accurate employee benefits, creates contracts compliant with local regulations, and offers proper documentation and recordkeeping. All these work together to avoid breaking labor laws, which can hamper business growth.

Simplify Workflow Automation with Omni

Omni frees HR teams from administrative cycles by offering workflow automation for the entire end-to-end employee lifecycle — from recruitment and onboarding to employee engagement and payroll — allowing you to redirect your time to strategic work that drives business growth.

Powering Asia’s fastest-growing, modern companies, Omni scales alongside your company so you can customize and leverage the system to meet your business exactly where you are — as well as where you’re going.

With a full suite of modules to support every aspect of your business, Omni’s platform offers an intuitive and fully customizable platform that integrates with your team’s favorite tools for a seamless and timely adoption.

As remote-first workplaces become the norm, travel has become essential for employee well-being, fostering a positive company culture, and ensuring smooth operations. Whether it’s for those rare face-to-face meetings, team bonding trips, or for business, employees need a clear roadmap, which is why creating a comprehensive travel policy is crucial. 

What is a Travel Policy?

A travel policy is your company’s guiding light for managing business trips with fairness and efficiency. It spells out what’s expected when employees hit the road. Think of it as a travel playbook that keeps costs in check, aligns with company goals, and puts safety first.

By setting standardized steps, the travel policy streamlines travel planning, cuts down on unnecessary spending, and clears up any confusion.

What are The Benefits of Having a Travel Policy?

For Employees

• Flexibility and autonomy: The travel policy sets the ground rules and expectations, but it also gives employees enough freedom to customize their trips based on their preferences.
• Safety and well-being: Ensuring compliance with safety and health protocols is crucial in an ever-changing world. This policy aims to prioritize the safety of our employees while traveling for work.
• Clarity and transparency: By spelling out the ins and outs of business travel, a travel policy ensures everyone’s on the same page and helps employees make informed travel decisions.
• Cost control: Adhering to the travel policy guidelines allows employees to avoid unnecessary expenses and keep travel costs within their budget.
• Fairness and Equality: A solid travel policy ensures fairness by setting consistent rules for everyone, regardless of rank.

For Organizations

• Increased productivity: With clear guidelines and expectations for business travel, employees can focus on the main purpose of the trip, increasing efficiency and productivity. 
• Better decision-making: A standardized travel policy allows employers to make better decisions through data and well-defined criteria.
• Improved employee morale and engagement: Fair and transparent travel policies can contribute to a positive company culture, boosting employee engagement and satisfaction.

• Optimize budgets: By establishing specific guidelines and removing the fluff, organizations can optimize budgets, and stick to creating a travel plan that fits its needs.
• Risk management: A good travel policy doesn’t just pack your bags; it packs peace of mind too, tackling potential risks and ensuring employee well-being during their business travels.

What to Consider Before Creating a Remote-First Travel Policy

Approval process

A solid policy should map out the approval process for business trips. It should include details such as criteria for approval, relevant forms that need to be filled and signed, persons involved in the procedure, and more.

Work-life balance expectations

In a remote-first organization, crafting travel policies with work-life balance in mind is a must. Guidelines for trip frequency and duration should be established to keep employee burnout at bay and ensure employees don’t miss out on their personal lives.

Expense reimbursement policies

With travel comes expenses. It’s important to consider details and process for submitting and reimbursing business travel expenses, covering everything from flights and accommodations to meals.

Data Security Measures

With remote work, data security is pivotal. The travel policy should have some golden rules for keeping company info safe on the go, such as using secure Wi-Fi networks and steering clear of public computers.

Read next: Employee Data Management: How HRIS Can Help Achieve Accuracy and Security

Communication and collaboration

In a remote-first workplace, nailing communication and collaboration is key to success. Your travel policy should include tips and guidelines to stay connected and productive even while being on the go. 

Travel policy building tools

Numerous tools are available that can simplify and enhance the process of building and managing your company’s travel policy. Consider modern tools such as TruTrip‘s policy builder to streamline planning, ensure compliance, and promote efficiency.

4 Steps to Establishing an Effective Remote-First Travel Policy

1. Define your needs

To establish an effective remote-first travel policy for your organization, start by asking these key questions:

How frequently are employees traveling for work?

Figuring out how often employees travel helps identify patterns and assist in resource planning.

What are the primary purposes for travel?

Are your employees attending conferences, meeting up with clients, or attending training sessions? Knowing the reasons for their trip can help prioritize and streamline travel plans.

What is your budget for travel expenses, and how will you manage it?

Establishing a travel budget helps manage expectations and expenses. Consider adopting HR tools to track and manage employee travel expenses and reimbursements.

Additional reading: 5 Reasons to Switch to an All-In-One HR Software

2. Establish the framework

Determine if travel requires pre-approval

Decide if employees require approval prior to their trip. Here are some key approval factors to consider:

• The purpose and duration of the trip.
• Time zone differences and how this will impact an employee’s work schedule.
• Any expected expenses that may arise such as transportation, accommodation, meals, and any other related costs. 

Set expectations for communication while traveling

Lay out communication guidelines to keep interactions as smooth as possible during the trip. Expect the unexpected and brace for any connectivity hiccups that might mess with your communication flow. With a solid game plan, you can make the most out of your travel policy and develop a cost-effective trip.

3. Address key considerations

Maintain productivity during travel

Provide clear guidelines and best practices to keep employees motivated and productive even while on the go.

Reimbursement policies

Establish reimbursement policies so employees know what expenses are covered and how to claim them.

Employee safety

Craft a foolproof travel safety guide for employees: think essential procedures, emergency contact numbers, and health tips.

Tax implications

Highlight any tax implications employees might encounter based on their travel location and length of stay. Point them to relevant tax resources or professionals to ensure they stay compliant with any tax requirements.

4. Communicate and update your travel policy

Clear communication: Make sure everyone is aware of the travel policy. Share it in meetings, email blasts, and include it in your employee handbook or intranet. Keep it easily accessible so employees can reference it whenever they need.

Regular reviews and updates: Review your travel policy regularly to keep up-to-date with employee feedback, changing regulations and evolving company needs.

Build a Successful Travel Policy for Your Remote-First Team

Crafting a solid travel policy for a remote-first team is crucial for balance, productivity, and safety. That’s why it’s important to have the right tools by your side. 

All-in-one HR software like Omni is a powerful tool for storing disparate company files scattered across your company. As a single source of truth for documents such as travel policies, Omni streamlines your HR processes and makes them more efficient.

Powering Asia’s fastest-growing, modern companies, Omni’s document management scales alongside your company so you can customize and leverage the system to meet your evolving document management needs while ensuring compliance with regulations. 

Streamline your travel policy management for your remote-first workplace today,

Finally, your company has begun to scale with its workforce increasing. However, it’s not long before you notice that your company’s growth comes with an increase in HR workload. How do you maintain consistency in hiring or keep up with accurate performance evaluations? This is where HR workflows come into play.

This post will explore how you can create effective HR workflows and transform how you manage HR tasks. Let’s begin by understanding HR workflows.

What is an HR workflow?

An HR workflow is a set of organized tasks or processes that automate your HR functions, ensuring they are efficient and error-free. They include automating tasks like employee onboarding, payroll processes, and other HR-related activities. To better grasp the meaning of workflows, let us consider the examples of HR workflows. 

What are the examples of HR workflows?

1. Recruitment and onboarding

A recruitment and onboarding workflow involves creating an ordered process to ensure the hiring and welcoming of new hires to your company is hassle-free. A recruitment and onboarding workflow includes the application process, collection of new hire’s paperwork, and onboarding tasks.

For instance, recruitment and onboarding workflows would involve setting up an applicant tracking system (ATS) that collects and organizes potential employees’ applications. Then, after your HR team reviews the submissions and selects a candidate, the workflow automatically transitions the candidate to the onboarding process, which includes completing all necessary paperwork and training sessions.

Read next: 10 Companies That Have the Best Employee Onboarding Experience (and You Can Too)

2. Performance management

Performance management workflows are organized processes you design to ensure your employees meet their goals. A performance workflow would contain key components including setting goals, conducting performance reviews, and providing feedback.

A performance management workflow would include setting measurable goals that align with your company’s objectives. Then, integrate systems that can automate the scheduling of employee performance reviews and ensure they receive prompt feedback.

3. Leave management

This type of HR workflow involves organizing a set of processes to handle the leave requests of your employees. An effective employee leave management HR workflow can submit and approve leave requests and update payroll systems.

For example, a leave management workflow would include setting up a time and attendance system that makes it easy for employees to submit their leave requests. Then, after you approve their requests, the workflow automatically updates the payroll system to reflect their leave.

4. Payroll processes

A payroll workflow is a sequence of organized tasks you create to ensure your employees are paid accurately and on time. This HR workflow makes it easy to calculate salaries, deduct taxes, generate payslips, and initiate payments.

The workflow would involve having software that calculates each employee’s gross salary. After that, it automatically deducts contributions such as taxes and health insurance premiums. Then, the payroll workflow ensures the software generates payslips that outline employees’ deductions and final take-home pay and then initiates direct deposits. 

5. Offboarding

An offboarding process workflow involves creating an ordered process that smoothly and professionally manages the departure of employees from your company. 

An offboarding workflow would include having a Human Resource Information System (HRIS) that automates the scheduling of exit interviews to gather feedback from employees leaving the company. Then, the workflow notifies your IT team to revoke the employee’s access to the company’s data and communicates with the payroll team to process any outstanding payments.

With an understanding of the examples of HR workflows and how you can easily create one for your business, let us explore why you must have these workflows in place. 

Why is it important to have an effective HR workflow?

Having effective HR workflows aids you as an HR manager in reducing your workload and automating manual and repetitive tasks. Workflows give you more time to concentrate on aspects of human resources that matter. Further, here are some reasons it’s important for your organization:

Improve efficiency and accuracy

HR workflows include the use of structured systems and automation, reducing the risk of errors from reliance on manual or paper-based processes. Using workflows saves you time and improves efficiency.

Ensure compliance

HR workflows aid you in complying with legal requirements like the Labor Code regulations. Workflows ensure you correctly record the documentation of your HR processes, preventing compliance violations and potential legal issues. 

Streamline communication

Workflows make communication within the HR department and the entire organization easy. It also streamlines communication and ensure your employees have a satisfied experience from onboarding to offboarding.

Reduce costs

Workflows improve employee engagement and reduce the high costs of recruitment and training new staff. Additionally, it automates repetitive tasks like data entry and applicant tracking that would otherwise be handled by humans, thereby cutting costs.

Remember, having effective HR workflows make it easier for you to handle HR processes by automating tasks. This reduces the risk of errors and keeps your HR process effective.

What are the steps to create an effective HR workflow?

When creating your HR workflow, it’s a continuous process of looking out for areas of improvement and optimizing your process. Here are five steps to developing effective workflows:

1. Identify processes for improvement

The first step when creating your HR workflow is to evaluate your current processes and identify bottlenecks that need improvement. Some effective methods for assessing your current HR processes include;

• Surveys and feedback: Use employee satisfaction surveys to get feedback from employees and managers helps you spot areas of your current process that may be slow or confusing.

• Process mapping: Creating visual diagrams (flowcharts) of your current HR workflows helps you understand each step of the process and identify where errors occur. 

• Data analysis: Observing patterns in delays and errors from your existing workflows helps you analyze your HR metrics and performance data. This data provides evidence of where your current HR workflows need improvement.

2. Define the workflow scope

The next step when building out your HR workflow is defining the scope of the workflow. Here’s how to define your workflow scope:

• Clearly outline what your new workflow aims to achieve to guide its design and implementation.  
• Specify the essential tasks and milestones within the workflow. This helps you keep it comprehensive and focused.
• Engage relevant stakeholders like HR team members and employees from the beginning of the planning process.

By defining your workflow scope, you create a clear roadmap for developing and implementing the new HR process.

3. Develop clear guidelines

The third step when creating your workflow is to develop easy-to-follow guidelines that outline each step of the workflow. 

Clear guidelines ensure stakeholders are aware of their responsibilities within the workflow and that they correctly execute them. 

To develop clear guidelines, you must:

• Ensure your documentation describes each step of the workflow and is in simple language so it’s easily understandable for all users.
• Clearly define the roles and responsibilities of each stakeholder involved in the workflow. This ensures there is accountability and no misunderstandings.
• Include visual aids such as diagrams and flowcharts to assist your users in understanding complex processes and grasping the workflow quickly.
• Develop standard operating procedures (SOPs) to ensure users correctly perform each task within the workflows.

4. Leverage technology and automation

The next step when creating an effective HR workflow is utilizing HR automation tools like employee self-service portals and application tracking systems. Leveraging technology assists you in automating manual and repetitive tasks. 

Some technologies you can leverage when building your workflows include:

• Performance management tools
• Payroll softwares
• Applicant tracking systems

5. Implement and test the workflows

The final step is implementing and testing your workflows, ensuring it meets the intended goals. 

Here’s how to effectively implement and test your workflows:

• Pilot phase:

First, launch your new HR workflow on a small scale within a specific group of employees. Launching at a small scale makes it easier for you to monitor the process closely and identify any issues before the full-scale implementation.

• Collect feedback:

During the pilot phase, ensure you collect feedback about the experience and challenges of users interacting with the new workflow. At this stage, pay attention to quantitative data such as time-saved and qualitative feedback like ease of use.

• Incorporate feedback:

Using the feedback you’ve gathered, refine and optimize your workflows. Incorporating user feedback ensures you address practical concerns and issues, making the adoption of your workflow easier.

• Full implementation:

After making necessary adjustments by incorporating user feedback, implement your new HR workflows across the organization. Remember to provide training sessions to ensure all stakeholders understand their roles and responsibilities within the workflow.

• Continuous evaluation:

The implementation of your workflow should not be a one-time event. After implementation, ensure you continuously monitor the performance of your workflow using KPIs such as user satisfaction, processing time, and error rate.  

Leverage Effective HR Workflow with Omni

HR automation helps save significant time and reduce costs associated with the various manual tasks performed every day by HR and leadership. Studies have shown HR automation can decrease administrative costs by 30% for HR professionals and 49% for employers.

Routine HR workflows, such as data entry, employee onboarding, leave management, and payroll processing, are streamlined and automated, freeing up HR teams to focus on more strategic and value-added activities that drive productivity and profitability for your organization.

What’s more, HR automation tools like Omni provide clear and timely insights into your organization’s spending, helping you build and audit your HR budget backed by real data.
Learn how Omni users like Influur saved time and reduced costs by leveraging HR automation tools.

If you’re ready to make that jump and take charge of your HR workflows,