3 HR tasks to automate with Power Automate

The labour shortage in the job market is causing major ripple effects—and is not about to abate any time soon. Human resources professionals are overloaded with recruitment work. Managers therefore implement strategies to ensure the company's viability and support employees who must carry out their tasks with fewer people on deck. That is when business process automation comes into play and makes smart business sense.

What is business process automation?

Business process automation consists in entrusting a set of repetitive and/or time-consuming tasks to computer systems rather than to human resources. This allows employees to focus on tasks where they have added value and, by the same token, feel more valued in their work.

Which tool allows me to automate my HR tasks?

Power Automate is a Microsoft tool that allows you to automate many tasks. Its great strength lies in its simplicity to deploy as part of your automation strategy. Thanks to the automated and preconfigured workflows, you can connect various applications and services, automate various procedures between them, and transform manual tasks into automated processes.

That's sounds interesting. But concretely, what is the added value for HR?

Power Automate can be used to automate many HR tasks, saving time, improving efficiency and reducing errors. This allows HR to focus on more strategic initiatives and add value to the organization.

• Recruitment process

Human resources can use Power Automate in their recruitment process. For example, when an application is submitted, Power Automate can automatically send a notification to the recruiting team members. It can also automatically schedule interviews with candidates and send reminders. It can then be used to do post-interview follow-up, a step that is often overlooked but adds value to the overall employee experience.

• Welcoming and onboarding new employees

The arrival of a new employee generates a large number of documents to complete. You can create and automatically send all the documents to be completed by the new team member. Once the documents are returned by the employee, you can initiate a process that automatically saves the documents received in the employee's file, thereby saving precious time by limiting the number of clicks and reducing errors.

• Leave request management

Power Automate also automates the leave request process. The employee must complete a leave request form in Microsoft Forms. The form is then automatically sent to Power Automate, which creates a leave request workflow. The employee's manager is notified and receives an approval request.

Once the leave request is approved, the workflow automatically sends a notification to the employee, updates the human resources system with the leave information, and sends a confirmation of the leave request via email to the employee. If the leave request is rejected, the workflow also sends a notification to the employee to inform them of the rejection. Power Automate can also update the payroll system to reflect the leave time.

In sum, when it comes to approval requests, automatic document creation, document registration or sending standardized emails, Power Automate is a great tool that saves precious time. Something we all need!