Over the past few years, as founder of HoorayHR, I’ve spoken with at least 2,000 HR managers. And what strikes me every time is how service-oriented HR professionals are, and how much they want to help their colleagues and organisation move forward. But also how much of their week is taken up by work that has nothing to do with why they chose this profession in the first place.
HR managers spend a lot of time on administration. On maintaining spreadsheets. On filling in separate documents. They answer the same questions about leave or that one policy from the employee handbook for the tenth time. They manually update personnel files, chase contracts, check whether that one manager wants to pick up the 1-on-1 cycle again, monitor processes and try to think strategically with management in between.
And all of that together… it just doesn’t work. Or at least: not well enough. Because the real value of HR isn’t in the administration. It’s in understanding people. In building trust. In seeing what’s going on in a team before it becomes a problem. In helping leaders make better decisions.
There’s chronically too little time for that work. And that’s what AI is going to change, and the reason we developed the HoorayHR AI assistant! More on that shortly. But first… what changes will AI bring to the HR domain.
AI doesn’t make HR redundant; AI makes HR more human
I hear a lot of discussions about HR. Many of these conversations focus on efficiency: faster, cheaper, fewer people.
For HR, I believe this is too simplistic. The most interesting thing is not that it becomes cheaper, but that there is finally room again for the work that matters: the human aspect of HR. It is no coincidence that the H in HR stands for Human.
The role of HR is changing in three key areas simultaneously, particularly when it comes to HR automation:
- From data entry to data analysis
- From operational delivery to strategic advice
- From answering questions to helping people move forward
Yes, this makes managing your HR administration more efficient. Yes, this finally frees up time to really develop your team, think strategically and focus on the development of people within your company. From HR admin to a fully-fledged HR business partner. Not by working harder, but by doing fundamentally different work. And for small HR teams, that’s a game-changer. At last, you can do what you really set out to do: help people progress, provide strategic advice and make a real impact!
What this means for HoorayHR
If the future of HR lies not in less administration but in greater human and strategic value, then we need to build software that supports that. A platform that allows you to work with the data, not in the data.
That’s why HoorayHR is set to become the AI-first HR platform. With our AI assistant, we ensure that you can handle all your HR admin tasks in a fraction of the time. You’ll gain strategic insights and get instant answers to your questions. For every role, from board members to HR managers, from line managers to employees.
Structured HR data from your organisation, accessible via the tools you use. Naturally, it’s secure and compliant with the GDPR. And that’s exactly what AI needs to work for you, rather than just providing generic answers.
Would you like to know what our AI assistant can do? And what we’ll be working on in the near future? Then read our product vision & roadmap at hoorayhr.io/ai.
What I hope for as an HR tech founder…
Ultimately, my hope is simple: that HR will once again be more about people and less about the administrative tasks that surround it. That producing analyses won’t take days of work to get everything into Excel and compare it manually. That HR managers will have more time for meaningful conversations, for development, and for leadership. And that, together, we’ll spend less time on work that keeps us from where we really make a difference.
If that works, HR won’t shrink because of AI. It will grow. In relevance, in impact and in value.
