Like many HR professionals, Grace Orr always dreaded the end of the month. It would be time to sort out the company payroll – one of the most time-consuming and admin-heavy responsibilities of her department.
As director of people at audio and media company Communicorp UK, the monthly payroll would take Orr a day or two to complete – giving her less time to spend on the more human part of her role: building strong relationships with staff and ensuring they have what they need to thrive in the workplace.
While Orr was already using digital systems to streamline the admin, she felt they weren’t as effective as they could be. So, about a year ago, she decided to try a new system that incorporates AI. She now spends just an hour paying staff each month and hasn’t looked back. The payroll platform is from Employment Hero, a global employment management platform that uses AI to make life easier for SMEs. Orr describes it as an “enabler” that provides the consistency, structure and extra time needed to focus on more creative and fulfilling tasks. “Why spend all your valuable time on [admin] when a system can do it for you? Let AI do its job and we humans can do ours, which is working with and getting the best from our people,” she says.
For Orr and her team, the new AI-powered system goes beyond automating the payroll process. They are also using it to transform other essential areas of the HR function, including hiring, onboarding, probation check-ins, and feedback. “We have had a lot of roles to fill this year, and with 16 new hires, it is incredibly time-consuming to bring people onboard in the right way, with the right compliance and workflows in place to engage them with us and create the best impression,” she says. “We have been blown away by the feedback we have had from new hires on their hiring and onboarding experience – like the best I’ve heard in my career.”
The company now also conducts one-to-one meetings with staff via the platform – something that had previously been difficult to do regularly because line managers were extremely busy. But Orr notes that AI has helped to create more consistent and well-structured employee check-ins that lead to “better, more inclusive, more accountable” conversations.
More recently, Orr has been rolling out performance reviews and goals via the platform. And in 2025, her company will begin using Employment Hero’s talent-matching tool to handle recruitment, as she’s been impressed by its potential to transform hiring. The AI-enabled product has a strong understanding of candidate profiles and can suggest suitable candidates for live job vacancies.
With all these different capabilities, Orr says AI can help her spend more time on “deep work” – tasks that typically require critical thinking skills and have a more profound impact on the company – and automate “shallow work”, which is usually anything logistical or administrative. For Orr, the most significant form of deep work is improving employee engagement and performance. Orr says the AI “smartens” shallow work that can be draining and time-consuming.
Implementing AI for a business function such as HR can raise eyebrows, though. Over the years, concerns have been raised that AI tools can sometimes be biased and discriminate against underrepresented candidates. Plus, of course, there is the general fear people have about this technology that it will one day replace human jobs en masse. Such concerns present challenges for the teams rolling out AI systems in companies. But Orr’s experience implementing it has given her valuable insights into how to do so. She says it’s possible to tackle people’s fears by being clear on how the technology will affect people’s roles and how it’ll benefit them. This helps staff see AI as an asset and a partner that helps the entire company achieve its goals. For staff new to this technology, she says regular training and support is vital.
Orr says another way to convince staff to embrace a new innovation such as AI is to “lead from the top down” by getting senior team members to engage with and use the technology on a regular basis. She says it’s also essential to choose a technology vendor that is “the right fit for your business”, adding that Employment Hero has provided regular and effective support to ensure her team gets the most out of the AI platform.
Nearly a year later, Orr has no regrets about turning to AI. “When we have launched each new feature, we have felt confident, and the instant positive reactions have been a joy to see and hear,” she says. “It’s not very often you get a CEO ringing you up to tell you how smart he thinks it is and how easy it was for him and his 18 reports to hold review conversations and set goals for the year ahead.”
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