Streamlining HR administration: Enhancing efficiency and focus

A robust human resources (HR) infrastructure is like the foundation of a house: If it’s not there or your HR administration is unwieldy and ineffective, everything falls apart at a company.

On the flip side, a well-built HR infrastructure with streamlined and efficient HR administration is the base that supports many of a company’s successes. It’s also the secret behind doing HR well.

What is an HR Infrastructure?

All that sounds great – but what exactly is an “HR infrastructure?”

At a high level, it’s all the things your company does to manage people and fully leverage their potential, mitigate people-related risks and foster a positive workplace culture. Depending on the size of your organization, it may include:

• Policies and procedures: Often, one of the foundational, administrative components of this section includes an employee handbook and/or manual that also outlines working conditions and behavioral expectations and heavily influences your workplace culture.
• Recruitment and applicant tracking: For example, Job descriptions that clearly and accurately document, in writing, what each role at your company entails for the purposes of recruiting candidates and setting expectations around scope of responsibilities and performance standards for each employee.
• Workforce planning, management and development: This includes programs and processes around functions such as recruiting and hiring, performance management, discipline, career pathing, succession planning, training and promotions.
• Workforce analysis: The transformation of raw data into actionable information and insight to help inform decision-making and strategizing.
• Benefits administration: Involves enrollment, communication, and reporting functions related to benefits packages that attract and retain top talent and reinforce that your company cares about its people.
• HR technology: Systems that store and track employee records and data, automate processes, and perform advanced functions for efficient HR management.
• Organizational mission, vision, purpose, and core values: These define what your organization is all about and how employees conduct themselves, playing a major role in shaping your workplace culture.
• HR-related compliance: Ensures that the organization adheres to federal, state and local employment laws and regulations. This includes managing labor laws, health and safety standards and mitigating risks associated with HR functions.

And what makes HR administration – the delivery of HR tasks and responsibilities within this framework – efficient? It’s when these HR tasks and responsibilities are carried out:

• In a timely manner – even on an automated basis, when applicable.
• As smoothly and with as few hassles as possible, to the satisfaction of employees and leadership.
• Cost effectively.
• In a way that can be replicated in another location.
• In a way that supports organizational goals and helps to achieve business performance objectives.

In this blog, we’ll discuss why a strong HR infrastructure and efficient HR administration matter, and how your company can take steps to streamline and improve your HR administration.

Benefits of a strong HR infrastructure

There are many positive long-term impacts for a business associated with a well-built HR infrastructure and efficient HR administration.

Reduction in administrative burdens and a shift toward a more proactive, strategic mindset

Most HR personnel, let alone business leaders and owners, would prefer to not get bogged down in manual administrative burdens – those tedious, repetitive and time-consuming HR tasks and processes that, while necessary, could easily be:

• Automated using technology.
• Delegated to employees to perform independently via a self-service portal.
• Outsourced to third-party partners in HR administration.

These could include things like benefits enrollment, new hire paperwork, time and attendance tracking, vacation requests or payroll administration. They have to get done, but shouldn’t consume the majority of working effort for HR personnel.

Adapting your HR infrastructure to reduce administrative burdens frees HR personnel and leadership to turn the bulk of their attention to the things that help organizations grow and thrive. Instead of focusing primarily on routine, in-the-weeds, day-to-day tasks, they can focus more on proactive endeavors that have a greater impact performance and profitability – such as performing analysis, uncovering trends and insights, developing new ideas, formulating strategy and planning for the future, for example.

Fewer errors and redundancies

Implementing the right HR technology and leveraging standardized processes and policies can help minimize errors and oversights, thereby avoiding problems with employees and compliance issues.

Furthermore, understanding the responsibilities and goals of each employee’s role helps to identify and reduce redundancies in the workforce.

Less exposure to legal risk

Laws are complex and constantly changing, especially for businesses operating in multiple locations across U.S. states. The penalties for non-compliance can be severe, including lengthy government audits and investigations, costly fines and damages to a company’s reputation.

Therefore, compliance is one of the most important aspects of HR infrastructure. It is imperative that companies:

• Use the right HR technology to prevent human errors and oversights.
• Establish policies and practices that address and align with current law.
• Have a team of compliance experts in every area of operations to continually monitor changes to federal, state and municipal laws and regulations, and compare evolving law to current company policies, practices and procedures and make updates as required.

Scalability

At some point in the lifecycle of a business, it will need to scale up or down in response to favorable or unfavorable internal and external conditions. People are a critical part in making or breaking a company’s success when it contracts or expands.

By relying on consistent and standardized processes and policies that can be replicated elsewhere, HR technology and HR expertise, a well-built HR infrastructure can help businesses adapt to their current situation nimbly. And with a clearly defined mission, purpose, vision and values, a company can stay true to who it is, what it does and why regardless of employee headcount and the number of office locations.

Consistency in employee treatment

Having a standard set of policies, practices and procedures – and applying them consistently to all employees, across all organizational levels – ensures equal treatment of employees and helps to dispel charges of unfairness or discrimination. It also sets expectations for employees and eliminates any ambiguities in the workplace. As a result, HR infrastructure can reduce conflict with and between employees, leading to a cohesive work environment.

Improved workforce management

With job descriptions and standardized policies and procedures to ensure fairness and consistency, it’s easier to:

• Hold employees accountable for their work performance and conduct.
• Review their performance objectively.
• Enact progressive discipline, if necessary.
• Develop employees’ skills.
• Chart career paths within the company.
• Promote or demote employees.

Better employee experience

Together, a cohesive work environment, consistency in their treatment and robust management leads to a better overall employee experience. This has a downstream impact on employees’ performance, productivity, morale and engagement, all of which ultimately affect business performance and the bottom line. Providing a good employee experience also helps to retain people for longer and reduce turnover.

Practical steps to make HR administration more efficient

Looking to enhance the efficiency of your company’s HR administration? Here are some tips for doing HR better.

1. Partner with a professional employer organization (PEO).

As the most comprehensive, all-inclusive HR outsourcing option, PEOs offer several distinct advantages to companies seeking to build up their HR infrastructure and streamline their HR function.

For example:

• PEOs can handle as many HR responsibilities as companies assign to them, freeing up management to focus on business operations. This includes everything from routine administrative tasks to recruiting, workforce management and bigger-picture, wider-reaching strategic initiatives. In fact, by acting as a co-employer, PEOs assume many key employer responsibilities (payroll, benefits and taxes) along with the liability associated with having employees.
• For a single, flat monthly or annual fee, PEOs can provide an instant plug-and-play HR team with expertise in various aspects of HR, including the most niche topics, and covering diverse geographic locations. This can be an attractive, cost-effective option for companies that don’t want to assume the time and cost burden of sourcing and maintaining a large number of in-house HR personnel, including their salaries and benefits.
• PEOs provide guidance and advice on a number of issues, including HR policies, procedures and processes. This ensures the application of streamlined, organized and proven processes.
• PEOs help to write employee handbooks and job descriptions.
• PEOs have compliance specialists who keep up with the evolving legal landscape.
• PEOs often use and facilitate companies’ access to HR technology, specifically an HR information system (HRIS) that houses all employee information and documentation. Or, they can help companies select the optimal technology for their business and unique needs.
• PEOs have competitive, cost-effective benefits packages that companies can access, helping to improve the employee experience and boost the company’s reputation. Furthermore, PEOs thoroughly investigate plan options and negotiate with carriers to contain costs.

2. Be open to adopting HR technology.

HR technology can:

• Streamline and automate many routine HR functions.
• Empower employees to handle simple tasks on their own via a self-service portal, such as managing benefits selections or monitoring vacation time.
• Enable advanced functions, such as analytics of workforce data, to uncover trends and insights and inform future decision-making and strategy.
• Eliminate hassles from processes and improve the employee experience.

A great example of a popular HR technology that significantly improves HR administration is an applicant tracking system to aid in the recruiting and hiring process.

3. Operate as proactively as possible.

Always look ahead and anticipate what your organization will need and how HR can support that objective. Try to predict problems and challenges. Look for opportunities. Prepare for likely scenarios. How will HR provide the solution and rise to the occasion?

For example, if you know that your company will need to boost staff levels in six months, start the recruiting process sooner.

Otherwise, your HR function will fall behind and operate in a reactive, unprepared mode while it attempts to respond to emergencies and put out fires. Efficient, smooth HR administration can’t happen in this type of situation.

4. Align HR activities with company goals.

Keep HR relevant and effective by maintaining communication between company leadership and HR professionals about the company’s needs and goals. This helps HR to better support company strategy by:

• Revisiting and updating policies, programs and processes.
• Redirecting employees’ efforts, responsibilities and development.
• Generating innovative solutions that address actual challenges.
• Focusing analytics and planning activities.

Summing it all up

Together, a well-built HR infrastructure and efficient HR administration are the pillars of business success and the key to doing HR well. The benefits for companies are vast, including reducing administrative burdens, thereby saving the time and resources of HR professionals to focus on more valuable initiatives, strengthening legal compliance, adapting nimbly to rapid growth or contraction, ensuring consistent and fair treatment of employees, and improving workforce management along with the general employee experience, which helps boost performance, engagement and profitability. To get started reaping these benefits and enhancing the efficiency of HR administration, consider working with a PEO to outsource some or all HR functions, implementing HR technologies that target efficiency, adopting a proactive mindset, and integrating HR into strategy discussions with leadership.

For more information on how to stop doing the things that make your HR infrastructure and delivery inefficient and ineffective, download our free e-book: 7 most frequent HR mistakes and how to avoid them.