Evolution Of Process Of Automation Of Hr Departments Of Russian Organizations

Beginnings of process of HP processes automation

The automation of business processes began in mid-1960s, when the first PCs appeared (Table 01 ) and further the MRP (Manufactory Resource Planning) and ERP (Enterprise Requirements Planning) systems developed, which were intended for planning provision and use of organization’s resources in the process of production activity.

According to data of Monitoring development of information-oriented society in the Russian Federation as of 03.10.2018 the coverage of organizations that incorporated ERP systems remains as before at rather low level, though it grows from year to year (Figure 01 ). It is related, first of all, to the fact that such integrated systems can be afforded by big corporations only.

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The development of so-called HRM systems (Human Resource Management) has taken place in parallel with automation of management of production processes. This term has synonyms: HCM (Human Capital Management) and WFM (WorkForce Management). These systems have been initially designed to solve two basic tasks: harmonize calculations and record keeping of operations related to personnel management as well as reduce losses related to personnel flow (Alekseeva, 2017).

In 1980s both Russian and foreign organizations possessing their own ACS (automated control systems) divisions developed the local software products for personnel record keeping. This software has been supported by different hardware platforms and software tools. Further, the development of HRM systems has taken place in two directions: local software products intended for automation of individual HR processes (selection, training, labour remuneration, etc.) and integrated systems most frequently integrated into ERP systems (Figure 02 ).

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Assessing degree of automation of individual functions of HR systems

Proceeding from the results of investigation performed by Antal recruiting company from September 14 till October 31, 2017, in which 235 Russian and international companies took part in the format of in-depth interview (50 companies) and computer-assisted web interviewing (185 companies), 81% companies automate the HR processes. At that, the majority of poll participants have subjectively assessed the level of HR automation in their own companies as medium or high. Only16% of respondents have assessed the level of automation in their companies to be low. In the course of investigation the respondents declared most frequently about automation of HR record management (90%), calculation of remuneration (68%), recruitment (56%), training and development (62%) and personnel evaluation (52%). The internal service lines (26%) and process of adaptation of employees (21%) were automated less frequently in the companies (Antal, 2017).

The automation in HR department gets developed quite dynamically. The results of investigation performed by recruiting company HAYS showed after two years in 2019 that HR experts understand that the HR department will not do without automation of such HR functions as daily performance record – 45%, HR analytics – 34%, keeping track of disloyalty of employees – 15%. A significant revaluation of necessity of automating processes of internal communication (46%) has taken place, this indicator has become two times higher than two years ago (New Retail, 2019). As previously noted, the function of personnel administration and managerial control is the most automated one in HR divisions. Many successful HR practices of automating this function have been accumulated today. The processes of formalization of leaves, vacations and dismissals related to tiresome agreements, and paper chase have been automated in many companies. Business performs a number of standard actions with the use of information technologies. According to the results of opinion polls and data of website tadviser.ru the most popular in the course of the recent years are the software products of 1С and SAP companies (Antal, 2017; New Retail, 2019).

Digital profile of Russian HR divisions

At the beginning of 2019 SAP CIS and Deloitte companies assessed in the context of joint investigation the successes of personnel management automation in 434 commercial organizations of Russia based on a four-point marking scale. One was awarded for HR on paper, two – for factionary automation (individual processes, isolated systems, there is no consolidated data storage). The maximum mark – four points – was awarded for personnel intellectual management: with artificial intellect, predictive analytics, use of virtual augmented reality for training. It emerged that the overwhelming majority of Russian respondents got “stuck” between paper HR (90 companies) and fractionary automation (293 organizations). More than 2.5 points (which corresponds to mature automation with standard processes and consolidated storage of personnel data) have been gained by 51 companies only. Nobody has hit the highest level, intellectual personnel management (Bersin, Pelster, Shwartz, & van der Vyver, 2017). The last fact raises up especially the scientific and practical significance of author’s opinion poll conducted in 2019. As expected, big organizations with regular office staff exceeding 10, 000 persons have appeared to be the most automated ones. The banks, metallurgical and mining companies from the sphere of IT and telecommunications, even the organizations of retail trade, pharmaceutics and production of consumer goods are the most progressive in automation of HR processes (Bersin, Pelster, Shwartz, & van der Vyver, 2017).

The results of our investigations show the emergence of new trends in Russian economics. Practically every second respondent has stated that automation of HR processes is the most relevant for overwhelming majority of big and medium Russian companies seeking optimization, and only every fourth respondent is of the opinion that automation is the path for overwhelming majority of big companies. A variant of answer “all are equal before digitalization, big, medium, and small companies” has been chosen by almost 40% respondents, practically every third one considers that automation of HR processes is relevant for virtual organizations too, since the emergence of new software IT products opens promising capabilities for management of remote employees. Thus, understanding is observed on the part of HR experts that automation has a significant potential and will be eagerly sought by HR divisions of all companies irrespective of size thereof. The fact that there exists presently a sufficient range of tools for fulfilling a wide spectrum of managerial functions of HR systems in organizations different by size will contribute to this.

The investigation has shown that understanding is growing among managers and HR experts that the particular technologies in themselves do not guarantee transition to a new level of development and efficiency. Not a set of individual technologies is important for Industry 4.0, but a degree of integration thereof into social-economic and labour relations, a permanent character of automation. Nearly 93% of respondents consider that the process of automation of HR processes should pass continuously on the basis of stepwise implementation of small projects and integration thereof in the framework of developed HR strategy and 7.2% only – through implementation of a large-scale project, uneven development, incorporation of the cutting-edge IT products.

A transition from digitalization of HR processes takes place in the course of transformation of the modern companies into digital organizations to introduction of digital workstations, digitalization of personnel work, deployment of technologies, which change the methods of working and interaction between people. New technological capabilities have appeared for the development of automation of HR systems at the modern stage of development. Big companies begin to actively use the cloud technologies, which helps work with the use of individual electronic resources effecting management from customary computers, laptops or tablets. A reduced role of human-factor aspect by means of M2M system has been observed, since particularly this is the “bottleneck” of automation systems. Besides, a direction of employee’s self service system on personnel issues is being developed, since the cloud technologies and automated platforms help an employee independently request and acquire the personnel documentation.