Workplaces are evolving to keep up with the changing needs of the modern team. As companies shift the way they work and how they portray their work environment,  modern HR is also refining their processes.

From going digital to focusing more on building a positive team culture, each workplace has different human resource goals. But to cater to the multi-functional role of an HR, it is important to enable them with powerful work management tools. To keep them organized, productive and most importantly, take some workload of their plate.

Take, for instance, communicating with the team on a regular basis. Apps like Slack have made it so much easier for HR to connect with team members today. It’s like dropping in a message to your friend on WhatsApp now! But why restrict it to only this one on one conversations, when HR could do so much more with it?

With more than a thousand applications built to integrate with Slack, modern HR has a vast toolkit to choose from. They can automate their day-to-day tasks, manage everyday functions effortlessly, and focus on team culture more with the right apps installed.

But with so many of them offering to ease a certain aspect of work for HR, which ones will really power up the department on Slack?

1. Donut – Foster positive team culture, even when hiring and onboarding

Donut is your all-in-one Slack app for enabling positive team culture, onboarding new hires effectively, and setting up support systems to ensure employees are more efficient. Companies like InVision use this app to power their HR capacity and boost productivity, aiding their modern HR to make the most of their role.

One of the most popular features within Donut is its automated pairing feature that pairs team members from different teams to build connections and encourage collaborations across the company. Donut pairs team members within Slack every few weeks and makes introductions to help them start a conversation.

“As a largely remote company Donut helps us strengthen personal connections and InVision’s company culture.”
Clark Valberg
InVision, CEO & Co-Founder

Besides this, Donut’s Onboarding sequence is coveted by companies like Automattic and Culture Amp. As the HR, you can create a well-designed and structured onboarding process to welcome new hires into your team, make intros, gather feedback and seamlessly onboard the new employees. Donut shortens the time you spend on onboarding, allowing you to focus on more important tasks.

2. AttendanceBot – Track and manage employee schedules without the hassle

As your team grows, it’s not always possible to keep a manual track of each employee’s schedule. This is where AttendanceBot can cut your workload by half. AttendanceBot allows employees to punch in and out within Slack, recording the hours each employee is working without relying on any manual systems.

Tracking leaves is a painstaking job in any HR’s plate. With AttendanceBot, leave management is automated. Employees can just drop a message on Slack and the Bot records their absence. This means that employees don’t have to reach out to HR every time they take a leave, allowing you to focus on HR tasks that are important.

For companies with shift work, Attendance Bot makes scheduling and managing shifts simpler too. Instead of keeping a spreadsheet and spending time dividing shift hour, this app will simplify the way you plan shifts with a robust visual dashboard.

What’s more, shift workers receive reminders about their upcoming work hours and reassigning hours is easier and quicker since it is inbuilt on Slack.

“Easy time tracking and seamless integration with Slack. Overall, it streamlined everything for our company!”
Adam Grim at Sparrow Websites

3. ExpenseTron – Keep your spreadsheets away and manage your expenses within Slack

Slack takes the hassle out of finance management. The changing role of human resource management means that modern HR also manages expense approvals and reimbursement requests. Power your Slack with an expense management tool that manages all the different expense needs you have on a daily basis.

ExpenseTron does all your expense reporting and more, cutting down the time you spend on finances. This smart app enables you to submit expenses in seconds, as scanned receipts and forwarded emails.It works on a chat-based interface within your Slack which means that all your important details can be retrieved within Slack itself. One of the most helpful features of ExpenseTron is how it allows you to design approval systems within the app, making expense approvals quicker.

The app has powerful reporting, allowing you to view real-time expenses and understand expenses across departments and even based on each employee.

“Great addition for our staff to simply expense tracking and it works right out of Slack.”
Matt K., Executive Director

4. OfficeAmp – Smartly manage everyday queries and needs

Your office is likely to have multiple requirements every day. From stationery and documents to frequently asked questions, issue management is a daily ad-hoc task on your plate. In many companies, the modern HR is also the office manager. And ad-hoc requirements like these can be a distraction from the larger things that need to get done. This is why every HR needs an office management tool that works within their communication platform. It should also be able to assist them to manage issues smoothly.

Use OfficeAmp to manage issues and questions while managing time more efficiently. OfficeAmp allows you to build a question library. So that employees looking for work files like company logos or trying to understand a process at work don’t have to come to you every time. Instead, they just have to refer the question library with the keywords and they have their answer! This feature makes onboarding much easier.

What makes OfficeAmp stand out is its ticket management feature. The modern HR gets multiple issues on their plate. Instead of creating lists or post-its, keep your issues within Slack.

OfficeAmp creates tickets out of any issues raised and allows you to track, assign, and manage them within a Kanban-style dashboard. It also sends you instant notifications when an issue is raised, keeping you updated as new requirements come up.

5. Polly – Automate employee feedback with workflows

One of the most important parts of your job is managing the people within the company across their journey. From hiring and onboarding to check-ins and employee performance and lastly, with exit interviews. Feedback is an important part of company management to ensure that your people are happy. And to help you improve your work. Polly makes your workload lighter by automating your feedback systems across different employee stages.

Polly especially enriches the new hire’s experience with your organization, checking in with them about how their first few days are going, and following up with them on any needs or roadblocks they have, all within Slack. It also automates feedback collection, allowing you to easily analyze them.

The feedback that is collected can also be filtered according to department, office location, and keywords. This makes it easier to dig up insights and trends within different parts of your company. And make changes accordingly.

“After replacing our weekly Google Forms email with Polly, responses to our meeting feedback questionnaire increased by 40%”
Nik Baron
Head of PR at Grammarly

Ready to power up your Slack for HR?

When there’s so much more you can do with Slack, why just restrict it to team communication?

These five smart apps can transform how your HR manages work on a day to day basis. They keep them productive and at the top of their game.

After all, when the rest of your team is becoming more agile with new technology. Why not fast track your HR team too? They’re the ones who are going to keep everyone motivated to do their best.

Why should you make Slack your best friend? Read about it here!

Now sure how these apps can empower your HR? We host weekly webinars on Wednesdays. The aim is to show you how to make the most of Slack with smart apps such as these. And some modern-day HR practices.

If you’re looking at optimizing the work process in your HR department, don’t forget to join us. We share some of the best HR modern best practices!

Sign up for our webinar today!