Rising labor and supply costs require businesses to do more, with less. Automation, or specifically process automation, is one area where businesses can allow technology to do some of the heavy lifting.
Process automation uses software to automate repeatable processes, including HR processes like payroll and benefits management. Implementing technology that automates processes provides several benefits including:
- Increased scalability and adaptability for future growth
- Better customer experience with faster response times and reduced service errors
- Improved employee satisfaction by decreasing repetitive, mundane tasks
- Reduced human errors
- Better visibility into your processes and teams
- Gaining valuable data insights for data-driven decision making
- Streamlined compliance processes
- Ability to respond more effectively, providing a competitive advantage
- Reduced costs like labor while optimizing resource allocation
- Improved efficiency, allowing companies to be more productive and focused on strategic goals
Possibly the best reason for process automation is eliminating paper-based processes, like tracking worker time.
Manual Processes Drag Down Productivity
Companies that use paper time cards to track worker hours are setting themselves up for failure. Paper time cards are filled with pitfalls as they can easily get lost, damaged, smudged and fudged. But what’s more, they take your team hours to manually decipher and log for payroll. According to the 2021 Construction Business Report, 32% of construction companies say manual processes are where their businesses experience the most inefficiencies, and payroll is one of those processes.
One Texas-based plumbing and HVAC contractor was seriously suffering from outdated HR processes. The company had more than 50 years in the business but while it was growing, its HR processes hadn’t evolved with it. Outdated, manual processes, like tracking time on paper and manually updating employee information, including benefits administration, were bogging the team down. Whenever changes needed to be made to an employee’s HR information, administrators had to stop whatever they were doing to complete the task. The tasks were both challenging and time consuming. But automating the process via HR technology provided a solution. The company chose Arcoro’s HR software to automate its HR processes, bringing them into the 21st century.
Biggest Automation Impact
There are more than a couple of areas where construction and field services companies can start to automate. The Texas contractor chose time tracking, Core HR and benefits.
Time Tracking
A digital time tracking solution, like ExakTime, eliminates the need for paper time cards, securely storing employee data and automatically pushing it to payroll. No human hands need to enter the data, eliminating errors, and staff never has to wait for employees to physically sign and submit their time records. The data is exactly where it needs to be when the HR team needs it.
One of the selling points of ExakTime for the Texas contractor was its ability to integrate with Sage 300. The integration matches Sage 300 time entries – Employee, Job and JC Cost Code – with the corresponding fields in ExakTime to transfer the data. Other important fields, like Certified Class, WC Code, Union Department and advanced Pay IDs, can also be exported.
Core HR
Core HR or human resource information systems are used to store employee data, like demographics, tax information, benefit elections, direct deposits and employee compensation. Whenever an employee has work change or a life change, like a marriage or a move, the information needs to be updated. Done manually, the update takes time away from other projects and might be entered inaccurately. Arcoro’s Core HR gives employees the ability to update their own information, taking the task off your HR team’s plate and putting the responsibility onto the employee. And employee data is safeguarded because it’s restricted to approved users. Plus, Core HR integrates with Sage 300, automatically sharing data between the two systems.
Benefits Management
Without automation, managing benefits can easily be an overwhelming task. Never mind printing tens to hundreds of updated benefits information sheets, HR staff needs to clearly communicate those benefits to all staff members during open enrollment.
Arcoro’s Benefits Management module makes open enrollment and benefits administration easier with configurable tools. It simplifies critical workflows, improves reporting and increases employee engagement during open enrollment and throughout the year. The Benefits Management module eliminates data entry and manual paperwork, ensures accuracy with compliance features and enhances the employee experience.
And it helped the Texas contractor maintain ACA compliance with built-in reporting and notification features and empowered employees with self-service coverage updates, personalized profile pages and 24/7 access.
Ready to Automate?
More and more contractors and field services companies are recognizing the need to automate and the benefits it provides. This Texas contractor is just one example of a company that was able to save hundreds of staff hours by automating its HR processes and it ended up with a secure, accessible system for its valuable employee data.
Read its entire story here.
