How to automate HR without losing the human experience

A Total Economic Impact™ study by Forrester Consulting, commissioned by ELMO Software, modelled a composite organisation saving 2,184 hours a year on HR admin tasks. This shows the scale of time that can be returned to higher-value human work. 

The challenge is knowing what to automate, what to keep human and how to introduce new systems without making employees feel like they’re dealing with a machine at every step. We sat down with Marika Kelly, founder of HR consultancy Meraki People and an ELMO implementation partner, to understand more.

Which HR tasks should be automated?

The HR tasks that should be automated are those that are repetitive, rules-based, high-volume or need to be done consistently every time.

Do any of these tasks resonate with your organisation?

• Employee data is being entered more than once.
• Managers are chasing approvals.
• New starters are receiving inconsistent information.
• HR teams are relying on spreadsheets to track processes that should be visible, repeatable and easier to manage.

These tasks are important, but they shouldn’t consume the time available for higher-value people work.

Workflows that involve compliance and onboarding are often strong candidates for automation. For example, in ELMO Onboarding, you can automatically assign tasks, forms, documents, approvals and training based on a new starter’s role, department or location. You can set due dates and notifications, and track progress on these outcomes to easily track a new starter’s progression. Or in ELMO Learning, assignment rules can automatically enrol people in required courses based on their position, department, location or start date, while tracking completion and expiry for compliance.

According to Marika, the right question is not, “What can we automate?” It’s:

That distinction matters. A system can prompt and support the manager, but the welcome still needs to come from a person. It can send a reminder about a probation review. It cannot have the conversation that helps someone understand how they are performing or what support they need.

Good automation creates more room for those conversations. It does not remove the need for them.

Which HR tasks should remain human?

Some parts of HR should not be automated, or should only receive light-touch automation such as reminders and prompts. For example, performance management and learning and development depend on judgement, context and real human connection. The conversation about performance, coaching, discussing career goals and the support someone needs to grow, should stay human. But the administration around them can be automated. That’s how organisations help people feel valued, not processed.

The principle is simple: automate the onboarding administration, not the welcome; automate the performance workflow, not the performance conversation.

Onboarding is a useful example. The administrative side can be automated: forms, documents, approvals, compliance tasks and reminders. That creates a more consistent foundation for every new starter and reduces the follow-up burden on HR and managers.

But the experience should not stop at task completion. Organisations also need to think about the moments that shape whether someone feels expected, supported and connected to the team.

That might include:

• a manager being prompted to make contact before day one
• a clear introduction to the team and workplace
• information tailored to the employee’s role and circumstances
• regular check-ins during the early months
• a deliberate handover from recruitment to onboarding and then into the wider employee lifecycle

The same principle applies to probation. A reminder can make sure a check-in happens. It should not turn the check-in into a compliance exercise.

Regular conversations over the first six months can help managers identify support needs early, recognise progress and address problems before they become a surprise at the end of the probation period.

Automation can also help organisations remember important moments, such as work anniversaries or key development milestones. The value is not in the automated message itself. The value is in giving leaders and managers a prompt to recognise the person behind the record.

How do you decide what to automate? Is there a rule or test?

To decide what to automate, test each task against a simple framework. A task is a good candidate for automation if it is:

• Repeatable
• Rules based
• Time consuming
• Important to complete consistently
• Reliant on capturing, storing or keeping a record of documentation
• Low risk, meaning the outcome won’t significantly affect someone’s employment of wellbeing
• Better handled by software than by human judgement 

An administrative task can be low-value for the person completing it without being low-value to the organisation. Compliance tracking is a good example: it may be mandatory and business-critical, but it’s still work software can manage, freeing people to spend their time on higher-value tasks that need judgement, context or relationships.

It’s also important to note that automating a broken process won’t fix it. Mapping your current pain points and processes before introducing automation helps ensure technology improves the way work gets done, rather than simply speeding up existing problems.

How do you tell employees you’re automating HR processes?

Tell employees you’re automating HR processes by explaining why the change is happening, what it means for their day-to-day work and how they’ll be supported through it. The technology is only one part of automation. The harder work is often helping people change habits that have developed over years.

Teams can resist a new system for understandable reasons. They may worry that automation will reduce their role, expose mistakes, take away control or add more work to an already busy team. Resistance isn’t always a sign that the software is wrong. It can be a sign that people haven’t been given enough context, involvement or support.

That’s why it helps to treat implementation as a change management exercise, even when the change seems small. As Marika explains:

“We encourage organisations to approach the implementation of a new system with a change management mindset, even if it’s only a minor change for employees initially. Explain that it’s about automating and streamlining day-to-day admin to ensure consistency and compliance, and importantly, to free up the HR team to focus on the things that have the biggest human impact.”

When it’s time to go live, Marika recommends an “existing worker” onboarding approach that gets the team using the system straight away, and bonus points if you can make it fun. In practice, this means asking current employees to complete a short onboarding flow in the new system as if they were new starters, such as updating their personal details, acknowledging a policy or completing a quick training module. It gives everyone hands-on experience early, surfaces any questions or issues before they matter, and turns the launch into something people take part in rather than something that happens to them.

How does a connected foundation make better human work possible?

A connected HR foundation makes better human work possible by bringing employee data and workflows into one place, so HR teams spend less time managing information and more time using it to support people.

When employee information is scattered across systems and spreadsheets, HR teams spend time reconciling data instead of using it. Managers have less visibility. Employees may be asked for the same information more than once. Small errors can become larger problems when they move through payroll, onboarding or compliance processes.

A connected HR foundation can reduce that fragmentation by centralising employee data and supporting workflows across the employee lifecycle. ELMO HR Core, for example, is positioned as the unified employee system of record that connects people data, core workflows and insight across the ELMO platform.

Because that data lives in one place, HR teams also gain access to built-in analytics without having to pull reports from multiple sources. That gives leaders a clearer view of their workforce to inform decisions, plan ahead and anticipate what’s coming next, whether that’s turnover trends, capability gaps or future resourcing needs.

The benefit isn’t technology for its own sake. It’s a clearer operating foundation for HR teams, managers and employees. Less manual handling can mean fewer errors, better visibility and more time for the work that needs a human touch.

What does HR’s role become once admin is automated?

The success of HR automation should not be measured only by how many steps have been removed from a process.

In fact, Marika says that the real reward when business implement technology successfully is the focus that HR teams can put on strategic people work. This has included;

1. Business strategic planning tied to growth goals, such as 20% year-on-year growth.
2. Intentional culture creation, using culture canvases.
3. Leadership development.
4. Personal five-year career journeys for employees.
5. Reward and recognition programs.
6. People and culture calendars.
7. One-on-one employee coaching and support.

When HR is not buried in administration, it can focus on the work that creates lasting value: building culture, developing leaders and helping people do their best work. That is where HR’s impact is felt — in how well the organisation supports its people, not simply in how many tasks it processes.

Marika Kelly

Founder, Meraki People

How do you know whether HR automation has worked?

A useful way to measure whether HR automation has worked is to measure not just time saved but:

• Has HR gained time for advice, coaching and strategic work?
• Are managers more confident about what they need to do?
• Do employees experience clearer and more consistent processes?
• Have errors, duplication and avoidable follow-up decreased?
• Are important conversations happening earlier and more often?
• Can leaders make decisions using information they trust?

Conversely there are ways to see warning signs that it’s not working such as work has simply moved to managers, employees can’t find help or HR is connecting automation errors.

Where should a team start with HR automation?

Teams should start HR automation by identifying where time is lost to repetitive admin, mapping those processes from the employee’s perspective and involving the people who use them before anything goes live. For organisations beginning their automation journey, Marika suggests these practical steps:

1. Identify where HR and managers are spending time on repetitive administration.
2. Map the process from the employee’s perspective, not only the HR team’s.
3. Separate the repeatable steps from the decisions that need human judgement.
4. Involve the people who own, use and experience the process.
5. Start with a process where the benefits will be visible and measurable.
6. Prepare managers and employees before the new workflow goes live.
7. Review adoption and experience after launch, then improve the process.

Of these, stakeholder involvement consistently makes the biggest difference. “Across our implementations, we’ve seen that when there’s strong stakeholder involvement through discovery, preparation and testing, organisations get the greatest results,” Marika says. “They end up with more effective systems, a stronger return on investment and the most benefit for their HR team.”

The goal isn’t to make HR feel automated. It’s to make good HR easier to deliver consistently.

When technology takes care of repetitive administration, people teams can spend more time on the work that builds trust: listening, advising, developing leaders, shaping culture and helping employees succeed.

That’s the human case for HR automation.