What is a business without their processes? Most people would agree that even the most free-thinking, flat-org startups need some kind of processes that help define the expectations for employees, outline business goals, and more. Processes can also help to track business progress over time – changes and improvements usually indicate growth and change necessary for a business to be successful. Having a record that can display accurate process changes that have helped to improve the business can be important for business units to be able to review.
The way that processes are being handled across business enterprises is changing. Technology allows for better management and exchange of important information. ECM has developed into a way to help businesses manage this. ECM stands for Enterprise Content Management and refers to the way that any content – from forms to processes to handbooks – are handled across a business. ECM helps to manage and store the important documents and content pieces of an organization. According to AIIM, ECM is defined as “systematic collection and organization of information that is to be used by a designated audience – business executives, customers, etc. Neither a single technology nor a methodology nor a process, it is a dynamic combination of strategies, methods, and tools used to capture, manage, store, preserve, and deliver information supporting key organizational processes through its entire lifecycle.”
At its essence, HR processes tend to be forms and processes – essentially a collection of dynamic information that a business needs to operate. HR departments can benefit from overall business ECM practices, then, as they have content that needs to be organized, updated, and accessible. Here are some ways that enterprise content management can help achieve better HR automation results.
- Some ECM software solutions, like Square9 softworks, can help to automate tasks directly from their platform, noting that in addition to helping businesses enhance access to information and improve collaboration over shared content and processes, it can also, “automate workflow and easily design well-defined processes that enforce business rules, set escalation schedules and systemize manual tasks like notifications and approvals.” Considering that many steps in the HR process require approvals, this could be a handy business asset.
- As businesses begin to automate HR functions, they’ll want to document the process of automation, whether that process refers to actual installation, running, and troubleshooting of the HR automation software or just documentation around how it works. For instance, if automated recruitment starts with a screening of digitally submitted resumes and is then followed by a resume review by HR recruiters and then works through to interviews and selection and approvals. Having this process outlined can help get new HR employees up to speed, as well as serve as a good tool to reference when a process is new. ECM can help to facilitate these HR automation processes, changes, and other content to help support the actual implementation and running of automated procedures.
- ECM has been shown to help create better implementation overall. This means that if a process is new or being updated, it has a better chance of being successful if there is structure around it. ECM’s main purpose is providing structure, inside and outside of HR, and can help manage the bringing on of automation into an organization and help to better communicate important changes.
ECM helps to give structure and support to businesses through better content collaboration, storage, and access. It can be a key component to successfully managing HR automation programs and HR planning processes in general. With automation’s ability to help streamline and simplify processes and to help to improve the HR planning, having the right support in place can help to make automation a meaningful, measurable, success for everyone.
