The Pros and Cons of Recruitment Automation
Currently, many organizations are embracing recruitment automation through information and management systems. This has elicited a lot of controversy with some people being for it and others against it. If your firm is considering automating HR processes, you should take time to understand the different advantages and disadvantages that come with such a step.
An HR generalist job description includes hiring new employees in an organization. By automatizing the process, the recruiting process might be easier. Or it might be more difficult. Below are some of possible pros and cons.
Pros
1. Reduced Paperwork
The hiring process always involves a lot of paperwork. The HR department has to sort through numerous CVs in order to pick their preferred candidate, which could be tiring. It also has to send letters to these candidates after the selection process is concluded. With HR automation processes, the paperwork is greatly reduced, which, in turn, brings down the costs of buying printing papers. Employee details get captured by the system and stored in digital data form in the company’s database.
2. Saved Time and Money
This is one of the strongest selling points of recruitment automation; it saves time and money. The automation software takes care of posting job vacancies and sorting through the sent resumes to determine who the right candidate is. This is good news for recruiters as they will have to spend limited time finding the most qualified applicant for every position. This translates into a cost-efficient recruitment process.
Once a company advertises a job vacancy on the web, applicants can send their resumes by a simple click of a button. This helps reduce the number of applicants. Later, the application tracking system (ATS) helps the HR department in going through all the applications and matching specific keywords in the CVs to match the set criteria. This saves the HR the time they could have spent going through all the resumes.
3. Keeping Track of Employee Performance
A coordinated HR system simplifies the process of comparing performance and improvement of individual employees. It also makes it easier to plan for different employee programs like orientation and training. Such analyzed data can help the HR department select new employment approaches, employee recognition, and a measure of merit ideas.
4. Faster Updates
With an automated system, a company can easily update employee details. The database administrator simply has to input the required information for it to get updated automatically. This saves the company a lot of useful time. If an employee gets fired, his details will get removed easily from the database. This reduces chances of having ghost workers in an organization. It also minimizes the chances of errors surfacing up at a later date by a huge percentage.
Cons
1. Issues with Accuracy and Reliability
These automation processes are not perfect. An applicant tracking system has one major problem; it usually gets confused by non-standard formatting options. Some of these ATSs fail to scan resumes simply because of the bullet point’s style that is used in the application. A certain applicant might follow a very smart resume writing guide only for them to be disqualified for no apparent reason.
2. Privacy Breach
One big disadvantage with automating HR processes is the heightened risk of privacy breaches. There’s a lot of laws and measures that are supposed to protect employees’ privacy in a firm’s database. However, in a case where a third-party or a hacker gets access to this database, it could lead to infringement of the employees’ sensitive details.
A password on its own doesn’t guarantee that your employees’ private details are safe since technologically savvy individuals can easily bypass it. This is why the database should be enforced both internally and externally to ensure all the data stays safe.
3. Keyword Problems
Any applicant who is familiar with how ATSs work can simply use keywords to manipulate the system into viewing them as a perfect fit for the position even when they are not. In the same manner, a perfectly qualified applicant can easily get dismissed simply because they don’t know how these keywords work or because they were poorly set.
4. Down Time
Computers and software systems are prone to technical hitches that could sometimes lead to downtime. This can come with serious consequences, bringing your business to a stop. When introducing a new program that needs to access the employee database, downtime could prolong or halt such an exercise.
5. Preference of Formulaic Resumes
Applicants can have different work experience and still qualify for the position. However, it would require a manual recruitment to decide that, and it is highly unlikely that such a resume would go through the ATS scrutiny and get presented to the recruiter. This reduces hiring diversification.
A candidate with vast experience but trying to switch careers can get locked out by the automation processes. This denies the company the chance to recruit valuable employees.
6. Wrong Employee Assessment
Although automated HR processes can be great tools in assessing your employees’ performance, they only rely on different types of information like talents, performance scores, and skills. This means that the human factor gets locked out. For example, automated HR processes will fail to capture an employee who habitually mistreats customers.
Although the pros of recruitment automation might outweigh the cons, it is prudent for recruiters to combine the increasingly refined technology with human help when selecting the right candidate. This will bring a balanced hiring process since using both data and automation will help them make appropriate decisions; without feeling the need of being controlled by technology.
