Which businesses need to introduce HR software and to what extent? What processes need to be automated and which ones should remain manual? How much time does it take to introduce and what results can HR solutions help you achieve?

Why is it the case that small and medium businesses most often ignore automation

The answer is simple: everything depends on economics.

Often, small and medium businesses don’t get a perceptible economic benefit from automation.

Firstly, such automation can make things even more complicated. For example, HR electronic document circulation may just add work: whereas before, only two people were needed to approve a visa, with automation, more people are needed.

That’s why it’s important for the business process itself to be ready for automation, or it should be clear what result is expected.

Secondly, the cost of innovative solutions can be repulsive. However, you can wait for a time and get the product at a more affordable price.

As we know, over time, innovations can get cheaper, since vendors begin to optimize their expenses, reduce costs, and create off-the-shelf solutions.

Over the past few years, the majority of services have significantly reduced their costs, and many automation offers have appeared on all segments of the market.

For example, 5 years ago, an ATS (applicant tracking system) was a privilege for companies with a big budget or high demand, but now enterprises can purchase an ATS for just a few thousand dollars, and in a few clicks they can introduce it by themselves, set it up, add users and start working with it.

What businesses need to automate HR processes and why

Anyone can automate HR processes, but it’s important to understand why.

In small and medium-sized business, and especially in the Enterprise segment, it’s important to know who is behind this initiative and who is behind the automation on the customer’s side.

If the leader clearly understands the final goal of automation, then the implementation process will go smoothly.

It is most important not to have automation for the sake of automation. It should nevertheless be for a certain purpose.

For example, if we’re talking about introducing automated recruitment, then it’s important to be clear which candidates are being considered, what communication channels are being used, and can the company afford automated interaction with the candidates.

Moreover, it’s important to have a good understanding of how the hiring process is structured manually from the viewpoint of applications, agreement on wages, and which business customer the recruiter is interacting with.

If the process isn’t debugged manually, then automation won’t bring the expected results.

Which processes need to be automated and which need to be done manually

It’s important to find the right balance.

For example, customers often ask why they shouldn’t have all communications with a candidate via a chat bot, for the candidate’s responses will be digitized and this will free up the recruiter’s time.

But sometimes it’s important to preserve an individual approach.

Let’s imagine you’re searching for an engineer for a unique machine, and there are around 10 people who can do the job. You have 3 options: train someone, hunt for someone, or keep track every day to see if one of them is on the labor market.

Obviously, a chat bot won’t be of use here, the candidate won’t even bother talking with it. They’ll think, what kind of employer is this that can’t even call.

If it’s something on a bigger scale, like supermarket cashiers, for example, then it is not so important the brand in the store of which they are working, because the working conditions are very similar. Such candidates choose according to their own criteria, such as perks, distance from home, pay.

In this case, a chat bot is more useful to jobseekers, and they can do so in an app they use often, such as WhatsApp.

Automation may be appropriate in certain areas depending on the company.

If we come back to our engineer, then after some personal communication at the offer issue stage, we can add automation. Here the recruiter doesn’t need to put together any kind of offer text template, this can be done automatically.

How long does HR software implementation take

Implementation can be done in a day, or it can take forever. Off-the-shelf solutions can usually be introduced quickly, in less than two weeks.

But we have customers with whom we’ve worked with for over 5-7 years, since we continue to help the software development after its introduction. Development processes, piloting new projects, and scaling them for an entire corporation simply do not end even to this day.

If we talk about custom implementation of a single product when the process isn’t built for the product, but the product is built for the process, then the ideal time period is 3 months.

During this period, we take a whole series of steps with the customer, such as pre-project research, in-depth interviews, hypothesis checking on focus groups, etc. All this extensive work mean you can be sure you’re introducing something the customer needs.

If we talk about full-cycle HR automation, when the customer introduces several solutions at once, such as automated hiring, adaptation, and training, then 6 months is a good benchmark.

In this case, more analytics are required, so that one product doesn’t contradict another, and they can all work together as one process.

But most often, the customers themselves aren’t ready for such speed. They also need to introduce all these products for their employee; prepare documentation, promote its value, train and make changes after the pilot project.

So, from an organizational viewpoint, this kind of HR transformation takes around 1-2 years for employees to gradually immerse themselves in new services and solutions.

A good benchmark for introducing one custom product is three months. A set of products, however, is more like six.

How long does it take for HR solutions to become value for money

If we’re talking about small and medium-sized businesses, then it can differ from company to company.

Let’s say your company has 150 employees, and you’ve introduced automated adaptation, which costs 400 dollars per person.

After implementation, you realize that new employees reach full productivity 2 times faster. Whereas before it took a developer three months to adapt, now they can reach 80% efficiency within a month and a half.

For a business, this is big money. So, in practice, it’ll be value for money within around two months.

In the same company, we introduced electronic document circulation for 5,000 dollars per person. You’ve become more transparent, you don’t lose contracts, it’s easier for employees to access documents, they’re more comfortable working, and retention is indirectly impacted.

But this has a certain passive effect that you might not notice right away, and you’ll not feel the results for, say, a year.

In a large business, it’s oddly easier to calculate the economics because of the large volumes. Any improvement will actually be visible almost right away.

For example, reducing the time needed to close an application from 7 days to 3; if you have 10 thousand applications every year, then the saving is immediately clear.

If you reduce or optimize the cost of communication from 5 dollars to 4, then the average amount you save in a year from all contact with candidates or employees will be apparent.

Overall, the economic effect on big projects will be achieved by the second year.

Is additional training required for employees

It’s obvious that any vendor always has training programs. There are free sessions, where vendors tell new employees how to use innovations.

For example, we have a separate program for training experts, and we give a certificate at the end. We provide extensive training for specialists within the company, so that they can administer processes at Hiberty.

We have low-code tools, which means that we don’t need developers to change business processes within the company, work that would normally require special skills.

Some customers are happy to pay for such training, since it saves them money in the long run, since they no longer need to ask us for some fine tuning, but can make the changes themselves within the system.

We also hold many other events, where speakers can share their cases and experience.

These formats mean you can look at processes in different companies and then implement improvements in your own, as well as formulate your own goals and desires, and achieve an in-depth understanding of how best to introduce it.

Why is it the case that small and medium businesses most often ignore automation? The answer is simple: everything depends on economics.

Often, small and medium businesses don’t get a perceptible economic benefit from automation. We’ll look at what businesses need HR software, what processes need to be automated, and what HR solutions can help achieve