HR industry survey reveals admin still drain on resources in New Zealand

Key challenges for HR in NZ revealed

HR industry survey reveals admin still drain on resources in New Zealand

During the last 12 months, HR professionals have been doing more with less at a scale of change we’ve never seen before. But a new survey reveals that in New Zealand, admin is still a drain on resources for many HR professionals.

ELMO Software’s HR Benchmark Survey found that while 79% of respondents in NZ have implemented HR tech, 69% say too much time is spent on admin work. This is despite HR leaders playing a crucial role in leading the strategic response to COVID-19 throughout 2020.

Speaking to HRD, ELMO’s CHRO, Monica Watt, said leveraging technology is valuable for reducing manual processes.

“A question I would ask is are you doing admin for admin’s sake?” she said. “We tend to do things because we're doing repeat behaviours. But now, we should also be starting to question how many steps are needed for a specific piece of work to be done.”

In an agile work environment where decision-making is decentralised, some tasks may not need as many steps. Reworking the current policy and way of doing things could be the first key to reducing the admin burden.

Read more: HR tech trends of 2021: Four key areas to watch

COVID-19 may also have played a role in the weight of admin thanks to the greater need to collect data, for example, who is in the office and when. As we go forward and reimagine what the future of work looks like, it will key for HR to rely on technology to overcome some of these challenges. No doubt, COVID-19-related record keeping will endure, especially once employees are being widely vaccinated.

The survey also highlighted key focus areas for the HR industry. In New Zealand, 60% of the respondents noted that aligning pay and performance was a top priority.

Now in its second year, the survey is the largest of its kind in Australia and New Zealand and is a joint initiative between ELMO Software and the Australia Human Resources Institute (AHRI). The results found a positive sentiment for the future of the HR industry across ANZ, with 85% saying they expected their headcount to rise or remain the same.

Read more: HR Analysis: How to implement a successful WFH model

ELMO CEO and co-founder Danny Lessem added: “The survey results suggest a general sense of optimism among human resources professionals that reductions in workforce sizes won’t be taking place in the year ahead.

“The results show that the economic recoveries in Australia and New Zealand are underway and that businesses are beginning to focus on the many other workforce management challenges that lay ahead.”

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