Case Study: How HR Automation Strengthened, Empowered HR

HR automation was my lifeline when I joined the startup MyPlanAdvocate as its first director of people and talent strategy. I’d never worked for a startup, nor had I built an HR department from scratch. My experience was with established companies where HR systems, usually manual, were in place.

When I joined MyPlanAdvocate, the company was at its inception stage and I was employee No. 8. I was tasked with spearheading a robust recruitment strategy, hiring an average of 20-25 agents monthly while building out departmental teams in preparation for the company’s launch.

With a goal to scale our headcount to 150-200 employees in six months, my three-person department soon struggled to keep our HR practices on pace. With no systems or processes in place, I wound up handling everything manually in my first year. I often found myself working late, sending multiple emails to get our new hires set up with IT and payroll. I began to see that scaling our workforce would take more than the late-night manpower I could give it. That’s when I turned to HR automation.

I know many HR pros might be afraid that HR automation may lead to their role getting eliminated by AI. For me, leaning into HR automation has elevated my impact and changed how I view my own professional potential. HR automation really did live up to its promise: It shifted my daily workload from repetitive, time-consuming tasks to more meaningful strategic work.

For the HR automation-curious, I’d like to share what happens to an HR department after it automates the bulk of its menial tasks — how HR automation reshaped my day-to-day work experience and gave me a better seat at the table.

HR Automation of Onboarding, Employee Transition Tasks

HR automation had a major impact on how I managed internal communications and employee transitions — whether employees were joining, leaving or moving within the company. As the head of HR, it was my job to relay information like start and end dates, necessary application access and other critical details across departments.

Onboarding was a particular headache. To keep up with our aggressive hiring plans, I was onboarding 15-20 new employees every few weeks. I used to spend my evenings emailing finance to set up hires in payroll, and IT to issue apps and equipment. The process drained my personal time and was a constant source of stress. One missed or forgotten email could leave a new employee without a laptop.

I’d never automated anything before. I’d worked with systems like Workday and ADP that offered some level of automation, but not the kind of intuitive workflows I was ultimately able to build in Rippling.

Automating our employee transition workflows dramatically streamlined our internal communications. For new hires, promotions or terminations, HR automation automatically triggers the necessary actions across departments. For example, when we hire a new employee, our platform executes a workflow that handles the entire process, from paperwork to payroll to deployment of apps and equipment.

When an employee is terminated, it automatically prompts IT to shut down their laptop and network access, and notifies payroll to process their last paycheck. I no longer worry about communications or work falling through the cracks because I know every department is acting on accurate, timely information. Plus, I got my evenings back.

It used to take me two or three weeks to onboard new hires. Now I can wrap up the process in just a few minutes, confident that employees will start their jobs fully equipped and ready on day one. They get a smooth and welcoming introduction to the company, establishing a groundwork of trust with my team.

Using Workforce Data to Advise Senior Leadership

Knocking out menial work is a huge boost to productivity, but it’s only half of what HR automation can do. The other half is making good use of your new free time. Like lots of HR pros, I used to be bogged down by repetitive, manual tasks. Daily admin left little room for the kind of strategic thinking that helps HR show value to the C-suite. HR automation helped me concentrate on higher-level planning and analysis for the first time.

In the past, my workload kept me from staying current with labor market trends and state-level legal changes that could affect our business. Before automation, we were caught off-guard by new local regulations, forcing us to make hasty updates to our policies. Now, I have the bandwidth to monitor market and regulatory changes more closely. For example, I observed the cost of living is increasing near one of our offices, affecting our ability to compete for talent.

I also use data analytics to get insights into our workforce. In particular, I’ve been analyzing data on our sales agents to inform decisions about office expansion. By pulling detailed reports from our HRIS, I can get the locations of top performers, along with average salary and performance metrics. By combining this data with my research on cost of living, I’ve been able to identify our most successful hiring regions, and advise our executive team on our regional talent strategy.

My new ability to deliver detailed and strategic insight positioned me as a key advisor to the leadership team. Both our CFO and CEO now involve me early in the decision-making process, relying on the comprehensive data I provide to shape company strategy.

Professional Potential

The benefits of incorporating automation into our workforce management practices has already extended beyond operational efficiencies and strategic HR impact. It’s also inspired a mindset of curiosity and experimentation.

The early success of our automated onboarding workflow encouraged my team to explore the possibilities of automation for themselves. Whether they’re setting up a new workflow, generating reports or tweaking an existing workflow to make it even better, they’re thinking creatively about solving problems and improving our systems. That’s all you can really ask for as a manager.

I find that the biggest impact of HR automation isn’t in the number of tasks I streamlined, but how I was able to redirect my time as a result. It didn’t just take the busywork off my plate.

Automation transformed my job into something bigger, where I could really dive into strategic planning and help the executive team make data-driven decisions. It’s completely changed my role and the way I provide value to the business. I see automation in HR as a way to unlock our deeper potential, sparking proactive contributions and creating roles that are even richer and more rewarding.