Moving from HR outsourcing to HR process automation – the first steps

Most fast-growing organizations are tempted to focus on revenue-generating areas of business while leaving the more operational or administrative areas like HR or Payroll to an outsourced agency. In fact, HR software usually takes the back seat after support, sales, marketing, and other tools, even on their software wish lists.

Thoughtful leaders on the other hand understand the impact of the HR function in building a great organization that radiates quality and connection in its products and services. Relying on an agency to do this isn’t the best option when considering rapid and holistic growth. Many organizations continue to outsource HR because of the lack of awareness about HR automation software, its simplicity, cost, and benefits.

There are plenty of long-term benefits in choosing HR automation over outsourcing. The top four being,

  1. Steady and fast growth of in-house HR expertise 
  2. Short-term and long-term cost benefits
  3. Data security and confidentiality
  4. More power to craft your company’s culture

We will show the first steps in the transition – 5 core HR processes that you can easily automate instead of outsourcing to kickstart your HR automation process. It will cost you 1/3rd of the cost of outsourcing and can be set up in minutes. You can also automate your HR processes for free for 21 days and see the difference for yourself!

  1. HR communication 

    HR teams spend a lot of time ensuring swift communication – sending out emails, following up on messages, keeping track of reminders/ notifications, and so on. Though it sounds transactional, it is not – the quality and frequency of communication directly affect candidate and employee engagement; it impacts timely communication with leaders and other stakeholders, making this an ideal piece of the process to automate first.

    Instead of relying on a third-party vendor to own these communication channels for you, you can use simple canned responses to stay in control. This gives you an opportunity to network, engage and build trust for your employer brand, first-hand.

    Besides this, there is also the Freshteam Autopilot that enables you to set up customized communication control – where communication gets automatically sent out to respective stakeholders based on actions or events, saving HR a ton of time and effort.

  2. Candidate sourcing

    Candidate sourcing is one of the most outsourced processes in HR. If you hire for seasonal, part-time jobs, sometimes an agency is a better way forward because they can step in and out for you based on your demand for candidates. But for fast-growing organizations who ambitiously hire for full-time jobs, outsourcing is not scalable or reliable. As the company grows, it’s important to own the engagement channels with prospective candidates to connect meaningfully, and to build a robust talent pool for hiring success in the long run.

    One reason companies outsource candidate sourcing is that they don’t have the time to juggle multiple platforms or sift through a sea of resumes. But with HR automation software, you can publish to multiple jobs in a single click. Draft a job description (or choose one from the in-built library), and publish it in one click to all the major job boards such as Indeed, Naukri, Adzuna, and ZipRecruiter.

    Freshteam also enables seamless social recruiting, a personalized career site that you can set up in minutes, referral drive portals, and more.

    What’s better? All the candidate applications automatically flow into the software as candidate profiles, which can be shared with the team and assessed. No more juggling and managing multiple platforms or sorting resumes! Freshteam also attributes applications to the source they are coming in from, giving you insights as to which channels are working or not working for you. The source attribution also simplifies vendor payments and employee referral rewards!

  3. HR Reporting 

    Another common need for which organizations rely on HR outsourcing agencies is HR reporting. This happens for two reasons: a) To understand what’s happening in HR and what interventions are needed, b) To communicate progress, results, and reasons for the next steps to the top management.

    With Freshteam, you can schedule reports to automatically be sent out to the respective stakeholders at the right intervals. It simplifies insight gathering, unifies meeting rooms, and drives your HR success. Once you have automation software for reporting needs, you will wonder why you even considered outsourcing it in the first place because it will be so easy and perfect. You can pull out any report – name it and you will have it. Some examples of important HR reports:

    • Cost per hire 
    • Cost by source
    • Hire by source 
    • Time to fill
    • Employee turnover 
    • Employee retention 
    • Time in interviews
  4. Time off management 

    Organizations either outsource this to an agency or invest in an exclusive time off management system to reduce the administrative burdens of the internal teams. But what if we told you that all it will take is a few minutes to configure holiday calendars and time off approval workflows and you are all set for a lifetime of time off management at the price of peanuts?

    Handling time off internally will gradually improve your employee experience. Most good HR automation software come with a handy mobile app to enable employees to access or act on important updates even on the move – they can apply for leave, view the holiday calendar, see which team members have upcoming vacations, and so on. Gradually, this will lead to more connected and productive teams.

  5. Onboarding/ Offboarding employees 

    Onboarding and offboarding are very crucial touchpoints in an employee’s life cycle at your organization. The quality of onboarding determines how quickly new hires are assimilated into their teams and ramped to be productive within the organization. A study by Brandon Hall Group shows that in the long run, a strong onboarding process can improve employee retention by 82%. That’s why it’s important that you own these first impressions and make them count instead of having a third party do it for you. It is also an opportunity to communicate or showcase your vision, mission, and values at an early stage.

    Similarly, when an employee leaves, it’s important to give them a frictionless offboarding experience – and who better to do that than your own HR equipped with the best HR automation software?

    With HR automation software, you can automate your new hire onboarding process:

    • Configure onboarding kits for different job roles or levels.
    • Use checklists and workflows to coordinate with the teams involved, such as IT, HR, Finance, etc. You can create and assign tasks with due dates, and get the team rolling for the new hire’s arrival.
    • Automatically notify stakeholders when an event occurs.
    • Use reminders to nudge new hires into completing their onboarding process.
    • Reduce time to productivity with a well-thought-out plan for the new employee’s first day, week, or month.

The Autopilot: Custom HR automation that takes less than a minute to configure

The scope of HR automation software is way beyond the processes we have discussed. Taking this into account, Freshteam offers a fantastic and intelligent autopilot feature that enables you to easily set up your own automation to reduce administrative burdens. You can set up an automation to execute an action when a certain condition is met or an event has occurred.

Here are some examples:

  • Screen candidates based on test scores, years or experience, location, certifications, visa status and more
  • Send reject emails to candidates who don’t get through
  • Send a tech test to engineering candidates who get advanced to the technical round
  • Notify the respective stakeholders when an interview is scheduled 
  • If a candidate was rejected because he/she was overqualified, tag them as overqualified and save their profile to the talent pool
  • Update data on other HRMS systems such as Payroll via webhooks

The autopilot gives you the comfort of configuring such simple automation which can reduce up to 75% of your operational tasks, relieving time and resources for more important tasks.

Here’s a quick peek into how simple it is to configure custom automation with Freshteam.

This automation would send out an email to notify candidates who are rejected by the panel members.

If you would like to ask us any questions, drop us an email at support@freshteam.com or go ahead and sign up for a 21-day free trial and test the automation yourself!