Embracing Automation In HR And Payroll in UAE

Businesses of today are witnessing massive digital transformation at dizzying speed, and you are left with two options- either embrace the innovations and thrive or remain dormant. If you decide upon the latter, there are chances of your business succumbing to the external market pressure.

There is a large proportion of businesses that are stragglers when it comes to adopting latest technologies. But if you aspire to survive and stay ahead of the game, then adoption is the only option!

Robotic Process Automation(RPA) is a revolutionary technology trend that has been gaining serious traction in the last few years.  RPA uses artificial intelligence and software robots to streamline workflows and it is expected to evolve and soar within no time.

Automating complex processes or routine tasks is of significant importance and as such RPA is the need of the hour. There are diverse industries that benefit from RPA and one such sector that reaps maximum benefit from the technology is HR and payroll.

HR department in any organization is responsible for a plethora of mundane tasks and their plates are always full. With the adoption of RPA, most of these tasks can be automated with greater degree of accuracy and efficiency.

RPA adds new functionalities to HR processes and does not replace HR software suite or employees. The technology rather makes the lives of employees easier and allow them to focus on the growth of their organization.

The robotic software carries out varied functions that range from collecting and copying data, running reports, processing and submitting e-mails to feeding data in HR or payroll systems and pre-populating forms. They are designed with self-learning artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities that ensures response to changes and performs tasks far beyond basic processing.

RPA facilitates the shortlisting of suitable candidates and compresses the onboarding process by taking over many of the tedious tasks that happens at the onset of the tenure of any employee. It acts on your behalf and saves you from the herculean task of manually updating everything. It also enables customization of training based on individual characteristics. Managers need not have to physically monitor productivity as it can be based on actual performance metrics.

Unlike in the past where you had to transfer all the employee data from your HRIS to a document template upon request for a document from an employee, RPA can automatically generate the documents. Smart robots pave way for automatic tracking of pay checks, benefits administration, rewards and reimbursements.

Software robots are far more productive than humans when it comes to monotonous tasks. With RPA, only minimal resources are required for the execution of hire-to-retire processes such as benefits, payroll and recruiting. Modifying or retraining the robot’s automated tasks is a cakewalk and the best part is that it is easier than re-training a staff.

Running payroll manually is not only monotonous but risk worthy; a small error is all it takes to  cause serious effects on the bottom line of a business. RPA replaces the process of checking data and looking for errors prior to running payroll with an automated validation check that can be executed in seconds.

Payroll activities that will benefit from RPA:

• Contractual changes: Designation, benefits, roles and responsibility
• Permanent changes like hike and contact details
• Temporary changes: Bonus and expense payments, overtime
• New hires / separations or departures
• Attendance records
• Validation checks
• Deductions that include pension, union, travel card and loans

Executives within leading HR global firms are of the opinion that RPA will deliver a 10-20% savings to their HR and overall business processes. Automating HR operations benefits the company as a whole and not just a single department.

While RPA has the potential to make business processes smarter and efficient, finding the right balance between automated tasks and employee responsibilities is what makes the difference. If you fail to achieve it, unlocking the potential of RPA might be quite challenging.

RPA is a huge sensation that has unmatched integration capabilities and the technology is something that you can’t do without in the future. You can trust the process blindly as it accomplishes work exactly as they are programmed to!