5 Tech Solutions

for Top HR Time Wasters

Boost morale, regain hours of your day,

and get your department noticed

5 Tech Solutions for Top HR Time Wasters

Introduction
Wishing for more time in your workday? Youre not
alone. Even the most seasoned HR professionals can find
themselves trapped in the same administrative time drains
day after day. We know what youre thinking. It comes
with the territory, right?
Not anymore.
You can break the time-wasting cycle, focus on more
value-added activities, and take your department to the
next level!
In this eBook youll learn five technology tips that
allow you to work smarter and reclaim hours of lost
time in the day. In addition, youll get interactive sneak
peeks at a one-of-a-kind solution thats helping thousands
of HR professionalsjust like youoptimize their
productivity, increase efficiencies, as well as streamline
company-wide employee communication.
With time and resource savings like these, your
department is sure tobecome one of the companys
most strategic assets!

2011 The Ultimate Software Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Page 3

Ditch the paperwork

Beat the clock with mobile apps

Dodge administrative distractions

Quit complex spreadsheets

Get ahead with real-time notifications

5 Tech Solutions for Top HR Time Wasters

1. Ditch the paperwork

HR Time Waster: Handling and interpreting even just one
hand-written form for hundreds or thousands of employees
can be a major source of wasted time and resources.
HR Time Saver: Implement more paperless, electronic
transactions to make everything move more efficiently.
Automating your departments human capital
management (HCM) can create a myriad of time and
cost savingsnot to mention the added benefits of
paperless HR for the environment! When it comes to
automation, HR technologyespecially solutions
delivered via Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)will be
one of your most valuable resources.

About 60 percent of employee HR questions or transactions can be answered

online by employees themselves.

With SaaS- delivered HCM, you can save hours of time and
substantial resources in areas like:
Benefits Enrollment: Say goodbye to manual data entry and deciphering hand-written forms!
Employees can make changes to their benefits and check coverage information online anytime.
Youll also save on costs of time-consuming enrollments and face-time with benefits practitioners.
Payroll: Process payroll from start to finish and pay employees without a single sheet of
paper. In addition to the time savings, your organization has the potential to significantly cut its
printing and mailing costs. And with time and attendance as part of your organizations unified
HCM solution, there is no need to agonize over time sheets, manual calculations, or duplicate
data entry errors.

2011 The Ultimate Software Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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2. Beat the clock with mobile apps

HR Time Waster: In your deadline-oriented environment, every second counts. And when youre
stuck running from meeting to meeting, those 10-15 minute lulls between start times can cut into
your day. What can you really accomplish away from your desk? How can you be productive
with limited resources and little time?

HR Time Saver: Use these short periods of time to

your advantage by getting quick decisions and
routine transactions out of the way.
More business is being conducted outside the office
than ever before. You need access to the right tools
to make the most of your time away from your desk.
Look to the smartphone for help. According to a
recent Forrester study, theyre already used by about
half of small business owners in America. 3

Watch M
HC
mobile ion!
in act

Nationwide, people spend 5.6

hours each week in meetings.
Only 34 percent are using
proven scheduling tools and
techniques to help them gain more
free time and balance their lives.

Page 5

Today, many HCM solutions provide mobile

applications that deliver important workforce
information in an instant, allowing you to
accomplish quick tasks on the go right from your
smartphone. With immediate access to your data,
you can conduct business regardless of your
location or the time of day.
Of course, when working with a mobile HCM
application, youll want to be sure all of your
mobile transactions are processed live in your
HCM system so no additional time is needed for
data synchronization.

5 Tech Solutions for Top HR Time Wasters

3. Dodge administrative distractions

HR Time Waster: Youre bombarded with day-to-day inquiries from employees and managers
for HR-related information such as benefits, company policies, payroll, etc. And no one has
time to wait for a response. With so much time spent on administrative functions, how can you
focus on more value-added activities?
HR Time Saver: A Web-based employee/manager self-service platform is truly a win-win for
any companyYou can recover hours of time in your day while improving employee/manager
satisfaction with HR.
With self-service, employees can view:

Employee handbooks

Key employment dates

Paycheck details

W-4s and tax withholding information

Benefits summaries

Company policies

And more!

Administrative functions like adding a dependent, requesting vacation time, and updating
direct deposit information can all be done instantly online by the employee at any time from
any locationsaving the HR/payroll team from administrative hassles.
Self-service also helps managers spend more time making effective business decisions and less
time on administration. With self-service access, managers can analyze metrics with business
intelligence, post job openings, access critical employee information, generate reports, and so
much moreall without additional assistance from HR.

2011 The Ultimate Software Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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4. Quit complex spreadsheets

HR Time Waster: Manually compiling figures from hard-copy reports and employee generated
spreadsheets can be hugely time consuming and error prone. Hours can go by while searching
for information requested by executives or while trying to make sense of different sets of data.
Whats more, days can be wasted while waiting for reports from IT or a third-party. And since
the business environment is constantly changing, data can be out of date by the time its compiled.
HR Time Saver: HR should be relying on business intelligence (BI)skills, processes,
technologies, applications, and practices used to support strategic decision making. Intelligent
BI tools, combined with unified HR, payroll, and talent management, save time by combining
all of your companys workforce information into one, easily accessible database.

As companies progress in their use of technology to assist their HR processes and

business, they are seeing compelling benefits from integration. If the company has
reached the point where it is serious about HCM, adoption of a single, unified
HCM solution is the pinnacle of what is offered in todays market. 4
BI can provide your organization with expert
workforce visibility via accurate, customized metrics
and reportswithout frustrating delays or added
reporting costs. Additionally, you can save time by
creating templates for those reports you run frequently
to avoid continuously creating them from scratch.
View success stories from leading companies to
see real-world examples of how BI can help your
HR/payroll team save time and support informed
business decision making.

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5 Tech Solutions for Top HR Time Wasters

5. Get ahead with real-time notifications

HR Time Waster: With so much data to monitor, you and your executive team are operating
on information overload. Rather than practicing proactive workforce management, youre in
a constant reactive statescrambling to put out corporate fires day after day. This continuous
game of catch up is not only inefficient; it can also put your company at risk for compliance
violations and other costly oversights.

Information overload is now

a greater threat to HR effectiveness than a lack of measures. 5

HR Time Saver: Set up event-based notifications using a BI platform to notify you and/or
upper management of situations that require immediate action. With these automatic alerts,
managers and executives dont have to contact HR/payroll or even log into a database to
check on the status of time-critical events of key workforce metrics.
Delivered via phone or email, alerts can automatically advise decision makers of
overtime hours, upcoming performance reviews, etc.
By pushing information as it happens electronically, you ensure timely, routine
execution of your organizations business plansand executives,
managers, and others can make tactical decisions on HR-related
issues as well as proactively prevent escalated problems.
Get a
sneak peek
at using
real-time alerts

2011 The Ultimate Software Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Conclusion
In todays business environment time is money, and you cant afford to waste it.
With the help of these and other HR technology tools, you can empower your department to
work smarter while making your entire organization more productive. By streamlining and
automating your routine, time-consuming activities youll always be one step ahead of everyday
challenges. Youll be spending more time on strategic, value-added activities and less time on
administration. And thats something every organization can benefit from!

Is your human capital management solution helping you to do your job

more efficiently?
Watch a quick video to discover all the time and cost saving advantages of UltiPro from
Ultimate Software, a leading provider of unified human capital management SaaS solutions for
global businesses.
Get up close and personal with UltiPro! Go online to schedule an onsite demo and Q&A with
an UltiPro expert.

Contact
2000 Ultimate Way, Weston, FL 33326
Phone: 800-432-1729, Fax: 954-331-7300
www.ultimatesoftware.com

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5 Tech Solutions for Top HR Time Wasters

References

1. Ulrich, Dave. The New HR Organization. Workforce Management. December 2007.

http://www.workforce.com/section/hr-management/feature/new-hr-organization/
2. Microsoft. (2005). Survey Finds Workers Average Only Three Productive Days per Week.
[Press release]. Retrieved from http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2005/
mar05/03-15threeproductivedayspr.mspx
3. Swallow, Erica.49% of Small Business Owners Use Smartphones. Mashable. October
2010. http://mashable.com/2010/10/21/small-business-smartphones/
4. Unifying Human Resources for Greater Business Value. IDC Technology Spotlight. March
2011. p. 5.
5. Boudreau, John & Ramstad, Pete. Talentship: a decision science for HRWhy HR measure ment must focus on informing better talent decisions. Strategic HR Review. Vol. 3, Issue 2.
January/February 2004. p. 28.

2011 The Ultimate Software Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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