Self-driving cars. Facial recognition to unlock your phone. Intelligent systems handling everything from accounting to customer service. And now, a chatbot that can write texts, compose songs, and provide answers to all your questions. AI is now all around us. But can we leverage this technology in payroll and HR as well? The answer is a resounding yes!
Imagine being able to delegate the most tedious routine tasks at work to technology, allowing you to focus on what feels more enjoyable and important. Generative AI, with tools like ChatGPT leading the way, is rapidly transforming the workplace. In addition to helping us automate repetitive and time-consuming tasks, AI tools can also manage large volumes of data with high precision, identify errors, and provide us with data-driven insights to make smarter decisions.
But how can we leverage these advantages more concretely when it comes to payroll and HR? And what new opportunities will AI technology unlock in the future? Let's take a closer look at six areas where AI and automation can make a difference for payroll and HR—both today and in the future.
1. Boosting the Onboarding Process
Digital onboarding tools are already in use in many organizations to ensure a seamless process where nothing is overlooked. Many see significant potential in AI technology to further enhance this process. For instance, solutions could automatically distribute the correct contracts, forms, and policies to new employees with minimal involvement from managers and HR staff.
Or imagine a chatbot in the personnel system that welcomes you during your first days and answers any practical questions you might have as a newcomer.
3. Uncovering New Talents
Recruitment and selection processes are other areas with ample opportunities for automation and time-saving through AI technology. It is highly likely that in the future, we will see an increasing number of AI services for these purposes, such as digital assistants for testing and interview scenarios, and text analysis tools that help recruiters sift through relevant information from resumes and other application documents.
2. Catching Errors Before Payroll is Processed
Unexpected costs. Unnecessary extra work. And in the worst case, a loss of trust from employees who don't receive the correct amount in their paychecks. Errors and mistakes in payroll management can become significantly troublesome for the company, and catching them in time requires a meticulous and time-consuming review process. By integrating AI into payroll management, we can save a great deal of time on manual checks and also receive assistance in identifying discrepancies that would have been difficult to spot on our own.
3. Time Reports and Expense Claims Sorted in a Tap
The ongoing administration of time reports and expense claims can become significant sources of frustration and time-wasting. Fortunately, digitalization and automation continuously offer new opportunities to streamline and simplify these processes. For instance, today's smart apps for time reporting and expense claims allow you to record your car journey and let the app select the correct project or client to log your time against using your phone's location services.
As AI and machine learning technologies advance, there is also great potential for intelligent services that automate even more aspects of time reporting and expense management—by having systems "learn" user behavior, identify recurring patterns, and provide informed suggestions during the reporting process.
4. Less Receipt Hassle with AI-Supported Receipt Interpretation
Dealing with travel expenses and lost receipts is a common issue for many who travel and incur expenses for work. Additionally, it takes time and effort for the traveler to manually enter amounts, VAT, dates, expense categories, and other necessary details—and for the approver to manually review all the documentation. However, thanks to today's technology, there are fortunately smart solutions that eliminate the chaos of expense reporting once and for all. Imagine parking your car on a business trip. You pay with a card and take a photo of the receipt with your phone. With the help of AI, the receipt is automatically interpreted, meaning that amounts, VAT, and other important details are automatically entered in the correct place in the expense report. It's like magic!
5. How satisfied are the employees? AI can provide the answer.
It's clear that AI technology offers us incredible opportunities to eliminate tedious administrative tasks. But can it also assist us in working more intelligently on the strategic aspects of HR? Absolutely! Here are some intriguing examples:
- Real-time employee surveys – AI can evaluate feedback from surveys or employee questionnaires, offering insights into the work environment and engagement levels, and suggesting areas for improvement.
- Personal development plans – By analyzing data on employee performance and career goals, AI can create tailored development plans to enhance their engagement and provide optimal growth opportunities.
- Predicting employee turnover – AI can detect patterns and signals indicating that an employee might be considering leaving the company, enabling proactive measures to retain them.
- Preventing absenteeism – Similarly, AI can predict patterns in absenteeism that might otherwise go unnoticed, providing insights into when and why it occurs, allowing employers to take timely action.
These types of applications also bring us to the ethical questions surrounding AI, such as the risks of violating personal privacy. What kind of information do I really want my employer to be able to find out about me? And how should I, as a manager, act on the information I receive about my employees? Indeed, as major technological advancements are made, new boundaries and questions continually arise that we need to keep discussing.
A Smarter Workday with Flex HRM
At Flex Applications, innovation and smart technology are at the core of everything we do. That's why we continuously introduce new intelligent methods to automate, enhance, and simplify all aspects of HR and payroll work. Less time on administration and more time for what truly matters! Learn more about how our web-based HRM system, Flex HRM, provides managers and employees with a smarter workday, or contact us for more information!
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AI (Artificial Intelligence) – Technology that enables machines to mimic human thought processes, such as learning, decision-making, and problem-solving without direct human intervention.
Generative AI – A type of AI that not only analyzes or classifies data but also creates new content, like text, images, or music, based on what it has learned.
GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) – An advanced form of generative AI trained on vast amounts of text, capable of producing its own text that resembles human writing by predicting what comes next in a sentence or conversation.
Machine Learning – A branch of AI where computers learn and improve by analyzing data, without being explicitly programmed for each specific task.
