3 HR processes you should digitise immediately

We examine HR in SMEs and highlight 3 processes that can be digitised quickly to provide clear benefits.

The HR department is often underestimated compared to other company divisions. Yet no business can function without qualified staff. Furthermore, without appropriate payroll processes, employees would likely not stay for long. Beyond that, HR can significantly shape company culture. After all, you are usually the first point of contact for new starters during onboarding. It is a shame if things fall down due to cumbersome HR processes. Is this underestimation perhaps partly because HR processes can sometimes seem a bit dusty?

A large portion of communication and administrative workflows often still takes place on paper. Yet the HR department in particular stands to gain a great deal from efficient, digital processes. Here, medium-sized businesses, startups and SMEs benefit from their agility compared to large corporations. They can usually optimise digital personnel management more comprehensively and provide relief faster than large enterprises.

Which HR processes should you digitise? What are the benefits of digital HR processes?

Major incentives for digitising HR are the "war for talent" and employee satisfaction.

In many sectors, employees can often choose their employer. If recruitment processes are cumbersome and create extra work for applicants, this can be a deterrent. Recruitment is usually the first point of contact between a company and a potential employee. If there are unnecessary application hurdles, you lose talent before you have even had a chance to convince them of your company. The goal should be a user-friendly experience for applicants. This leads digitally from viewing the job advertisement through to online onboarding and the first simplified payslip.

Digital HR processes are also worthwhile for your existing workforce. Your administration, in particular, will benefit enormously from lean and efficient processes. Digital solutions help avoid a great deal of paper chaos and process bottlenecks. Paperwork and filing cabinets become clearly searchable digital archives or portals that can even send you reminders. This speeds up your processes. After all, old-fashioned application folders and payslips from the tax advisor create effort that can be avoided digitally.

1| How to design the application process digitally?

What is the best way for candidates to find you? By having an authentic and informative presence on relevant internet portals. Additional steps, such as using recruiters, can be added to cast as wide a net as possible.
Ultimately, however, you must ensure that the right applicants see your job advertisement at the right time and in the right place. Subsequent communication must also be swift and digital, so that candidates know exactly what they can expect from your company.

Most tools offer an end-to-end experience for the entire recruitment process, from drafting job adverts to managing applicants. In particular, Join and Taledo stand out with innovative solutions that allow you to establish a cost-effective presence across all relevant platforms with minimal effort. Through direct candidate communication within the software, you can get in touch directly and update application statuses. Furthermore, this digital HR solution ensures that all HR & recruiting processes can be accessed in the cloud at any time and from anywhere. No longer do you need to check Excel and Word documents to ensure you have the latest version. Reminder functions and the automated dispatch of HR documents are also included. In HR management, the paperless office delivers far more than just digital document versions. It provides real administrative relief, freeing up time for higher-value activities. With just one solution and minimal effort, you can digitalise and accelerate large parts of your entire recruitment process.

Another tip is the digital annotation of CVs. We have all experienced an interview where an applicant turns up with a whole stack of printed CVs. Or perhaps you have printed out the digital CV yourself. Usually, at least one of the interviewers makes notes directly on the paper CV. The rest of the HR team never sees these notes. If you are still reviewing or commenting on CVs on paper, digitising this is a great tip for more efficient processes. Centralising these datasets with an applicant tracking system makes it easier to stay organised. Other team members can even follow your notes live on the digital document during the interview. Later, your notes can be searched by keyword.

2| Pre- and onboarding roadmap

Have you found your ideal candidates? Is the contract signed? Fantastic! This is a crucial phase that can have a major impact on reviews on sites like Kununu. First impressions count. New employees cannot be left hanging before their first day. Not even unintentionally.
It is essential to maintain communication during the onboarding of new employees immediately after the contract is signed. This ensures the smoothest possible entry into the company.

Preboarding shapes the first experiences at your company and must therefore not be neglected. In addition, the onboarding phases during the first few days should not be underestimated. The where, when and how of your company must be clear to new employees from the onboarding plan at all times. Software such as Talmundo or Elearnio creates visually appealing and interactive processes that integrate new employees into your company before their first day. With individual digital training courses and an onboarding checklist, you can show immediately that staff development is important to you. Most HR tools support you in creating an onboarding checklist. They suggest known action points or intelligently generate suggestions from your system data. In addition, these tools can of course also be used for future personnel development via more in-depth induction plans and training.

3| Online payroll - digitising salary statements

The first few days are over, the new employees are happy - but of course, they don't work for free. Payroll remains an often cumbersome undertaking and is probably the process with the greatest need for action from a digitisation perspective. PayFit specialises in this. It supports you in automating the creation of your employees' payslips and making changes to data quickly at any time. You can then view and check the finished digital payslip in real-time in the preview.
In addition, online payroll with PayFit handles your reports to health insurance funds and the tax office. Alongside an overview of all tax and contribution payments, you receive a central repository for your relevant documents. With this wealth of functionality, you can approach the topic of electronic payroll with complete peace of mind.

Avoid too many tools

In general, SMEs can also benefit from opting for a flexible, all-in-one solution when managing payroll, expenses, holiday and absence management, and time tracking. Having everything in one place reduces transfer errors and keeps employees happy. Areas such as time tracking and shift rotas can otherwise be a major source of friction, which an end-to-end solution easily prevents. There is no longer any need to email file versions back and forth or update data to the latest version. Everything is centralised in one place and can be edited concurrently by multiple people in real time. As an added benefit, you avoid tool overload, which might otherwise overwhelm your staff.

In addition to payroll, PayFit also offers an intuitive HR tool. Involve your employees in HR processes and give them control via their own self-service portal. Here, they can view payslips, log working hours, submit expense claims, and request annual leave, for example.

There are numerous solutions available for digitising your key HR processes. You can choose to implement a step-by-step solution for your business or opt for an all-in-one package. In either case, your day-to-day HR operations and personnel management will become more efficient, allowing you to focus on what really matters.