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Why Your HR System Is Chugging To A Standstill

The majority of SMEs have human resources departments - teams of people who look after employees across the firm. They do everything from arranging training to scheduling holidays. In some enterprises, they also play a strategic role, telling management and executives the types of people the company needs for long term success. 


HR departments, however, are notoriously “admin-heavy.” Staff must continuously process emails, applications, spreadsheets, and goodness knows what else. It’s a nightmare. A lot of companies find that they are just scraping by with the resources that they have. Some come to a complete standstill. 

In this post, we’re going to take a look at why your HR department is grinding to a halt. 

You depend On Recruiters And Jobs Boards

Recruiters and job boards would have you believe that they take the effort out of finding suitable applicants to work at your organization. But when you actually work with these agencies, you find that you still must do a lot of work. They’re not just feeding you people who they feel would be suitable for your business. They’re also allowing a lot of unsuitable candidates through as well - and that’s a problem. 

What’s more, many job agencies charge high fees. It is not uncommon for a recruitment service to charge between 5 and 15 percent of an employee’s annual salary for filling a position or a post. That’s a large amount of money. 

Many HR departments, therefore, are now turning to social media. When you think about it, this makes a lot of sense. Social media is a repository of information that HR departments can use to find out more about potential employees. What’s more, it’s quicker and easier to use than a regular recruiter and doesn’t come with high costs. 

You’re Manually Checking Employee Payroll Data

Some companies still use manual methods to calculate benefits and pay for their colleagues. Clerks in the HR department sit in front of spreadsheets for days on end, working out who should get paid what. What most don’t realize is that none of this is necessary. 


Today, you can get a modern payroll system that deals with all of this admin work automatically in the background. You just set the parameters, and the software gets on with the job of allocating wages. There’s no need to use a mistake-prone tool like a spreadsheet - the system does it all for you. 

You Don’t Have A Process For Providing Real-Time Feedback

Executives expect HR departments to collect feedback on their employees so that they can continue their professional development and become more productive. Unfortunately, this puts a massive burden on HR professionals who then have to process and distribute mountains of data. 

It is much better, therefore, to automate the process if you can. Start using customer reviews and feed these into ratings for your workers. You can then use software to scan reviews to look for persistent issues that might be damaging the performance of a particular colleague. Setting up systems for real-time feedback is vital.

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