How Companies Can Leverage Automation To Drive Efficiencies And Boost Employee Satisfaction

Brad Smith is the Chief Information Officer at Paycom, a comprehensive HCM software company. He has more than 30 years of IT experience.

Burnout affects our people more than you might think. Almost half (44%) of U.S. employees feel burned out by their jobs, according to the Society for Human Resource Management. As tech leaders, it’s our responsibility to fix it with engaging software that simplifies their work and eliminates frustration.

But where do you start? You have to target the data errors and time-consuming tasks that negatively impact your workforce—and your bottom line—the most. And you can do that with automation.

Let’s dig into how manual processes attack operations. Then we’ll see how automated tech can eliminate a productivity killer like time-off decisions and how to easily introduce enhanced automation into your organization.

Eliminating Manual And Repetitive Tasks

Most employers still rely on redundant processes. What they may not know is that tedious tasks, time-consuming corrections and managers' decision fatigue all make their employee experience suffer. And the excessive amount of time invested into unneeded manual work isn’t lost on those performing it.

Repetition inevitably takes a toll on morale. For 39% of HR professionals, a heavy workload prevents their team from reaching its annual goals, according to a 2024 survey commissioned by Paycom and conducted by PSB Insights. In the same survey, respondents cited manual HR tasks as one of their biggest obstacles.

Of course, wasted time also has a cost. Take a routine process like time-off management. According to Ernst & Young, manually reviewing and approving just one time-off request costs an estimated $11.22. Given a single employee takes an average of 15 days off per year, according to The Harris Poll, a company with 500 employees could easily lose $84,150 every year manually managing time-off requests.

This issue isn’t lost on HR—and they know it’s possible to fix. In fact, according to the survey commissioned by Paycom mentioned above, an overwhelming 94% of HR professionals agree that automation helps reduce mistakes. Ninety-two percent of respondents said automated tech helps prevent inefficiencies and repetitive tasks.

The results make it abundantly clear: We have to drop outdated, time-consuming processes if we want to push our organizations forward. And HR automation can help.

How Automation Helps Employers

By automating tedious and seemingly small tasks, organizations can find large, far-reaching changes like these two key examples:

1. Improving The Employee Experience: No one wants to feel like they’re wasting time. Automation helps workers free themselves of redundant and manual labor so they can focus on more meaningful aspects of their role that can’t be automated, like strategic planning, negotiations, conflict resolution and more.

2. Driving Cost Savings With Enhanced Efficiency And Accuracy: If built and implemented correctly, automated tech circumvents human error. At the same time, it streamlines the tasks—such as time-off management—that consume costs and our workforce’s time.

When we recommend and implement software, we put our expertise on the line. Consider these tips to help maximize your investment in your organization:

1. Invest in the right provider. Research your options and look for automated tech with proven results. Ideally, your tech should exist in a truly single software, so data flows seamlessly across tools.

2. Champion employee usage. Any tech you introduce should put your employees’ experience first. Ensure it makes it easy for them to access and manage their data at any time, anywhere. This will also help improve the accuracy of the tasks you automate since employees know their data best.

3. Make sure your automated tech proves its worth. Don’t accept an option that doesn’t measure ROI and show you how to maximize it. Your investment should allow you to easily identify the positive effect it has on operations. Many providers may tout ROI—the one you choose should prove it.

Remember, change isn’t always easy. With the right consideration and automation, however, your company can confidently step into the future of technology.

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