HR leaders know where they want to go. The challenge, according to Sage vice-president for medium business, Africa and Middle East Gerhard Hartman, is finding the time and capacity to get there.
Speaking during the The Future of HR & Payroll: Navigating rising expectations and capacity crunches with care webinar, Gerhard unpacked findings from Sage’s latest independent research, which surveyed 1000 HR and payroll leaders across South Africa, the UK and Ireland.
The research points to an HR function undergoing a significant shift. While HR professionals remain deeply focused on their people, they are increasingly being pulled between strategic expectations and the administrative demands that continue to consume their time.
For Gerhard, the starting point was understanding what HR leaders are dealing with on the ground.
“We're doing this research report every year. We surveyed 1,000 HR leaders between South Africa, the UK and Ireland. The businesses were between 20 employees to 2,500 employees. First of all, we wanted to understand, from a Sage perspective, the challenges that businesses are facing. We want to make sure that we listen to what is happening within the research and understand what businesses are currently experiencing,” he said.
“The report is showing us that the HR profession is changing from being admin more to strategic leadership. “How do they play a role in making sure that, at the end of the day, they have an impact in the organisation? Very importantly, it is about looking at how the HR profession is evolving, making sure that they stay ahead of the curve, adapt and ensure their business is successful.”
The evolution of HR
That evolution, however, is happening alongside a familiar problem. When asked how their day-to-day workload had changed, more than half of webinar respondents said they were buried under administrative paperwork and manual compliance, leaving little time for strategic value.
Gerhard said this creates a particular problem for a function whose influence increasingly depends on its ability to focus on people.
“I mean that's exactly what the report highlighted is that HR leaders are pressured. They feel that they are only there to do administrative burden tasks.”
“If people power a business, which I think all of us believe, then the HR and payroll professionals is powering the people within the organisation and they cannot spend their time doing exactly that because they are bottled up within the administrative burdens.”
The opportunity, he said, lies in using technology to take some of that repetitive work out of the equation.
“When you automate something, you’re able to spend your time on something else. That could be attracting talent to your organisation, introducing a great performance management matrix to make sure you have high-performing colleagues or, very importantly, identifying gaps and finding ways to uplift colleagues within the organisation. It could mean putting a training or skills development plan in place for them.”
Tech that gives back time
But while automation can create capacity, the rapid arrival of AI is also creating a new set of questions around trust, compliance and control.
The research found that 86 percent of HR professionals believe AI will transform HR and payroll within the next five years, while 87 percent expect it to free up time for strategic work. Yet only one in 10 currently use specialist AI-powered HR tools, while 61 percent are concerned about compliance and data security when AI is introduced.
Gerhard said organisations need to look beyond the excitement around AI and consider what they need the technology to deliver.
“Compliance and accuracy are two of the biggest themes within the report. You need to bring technology into your organisation to ensure that it can help you automate compliance and improve accuracy because, let’s be frank, if you pay people incorrectly, they’re not happy and that’s obviously going to have an effect.”
For Sage, this has included introducing AI agents into its products, with Gerhard emphasising that the technology is designed to support rather than remove human judgement.
“We created agents within our product that are associated with your business and its data. We’ve created these agents to identify gaps, and we call them Copilot within Sage. These agents can help with payroll queries and month-end processes, for example, on the accounting side.”
He explained that the process is deliberately designed to leave the final decision with the person using the technology.
“The human stays in control of the technology. When they receive these answers, they apply their own level of feedback, confidence and judgement, and then the agent updates the systems. We’ve seen very good success with that.”
Gerhard then highlighted that businesses need to approach the journey through three areas.
“There’s the pillar of technology, the pillar of the partner that helps you fulfil it, and within Sage, we’ve got a partner network that implements and supports our customers on our behalf. Then, lastly, there’s the learning gap. As leaders within the HR and payroll remit, let’s make sure that you take your teams on a journey to learn.”
“The research also highlights why that learning cannot be treated as an afterthought. 69 percent of HR leaders said they are concerned about skills gaps, while 80 percent believe technology and AI expertise are now essential within their roles.”
Keep learning
Gerhard’s answer is to make learning part of the everyday rhythm of the organisation.
“Create a culture of continuous learning within your organisation. Never think that you can’t learn something new. Pick the themes that you want to address and make them part of the conversations when you have these meetings.”
The technology conversation also brought another longstanding HR challenge into focus: the relationship between HR and payroll.
“If you look at technology and integrated systems, it shouldn’t be fragmented anymore. You should be able to have an integrated system that shows you leave management, payroll, what people are getting paid and the reporting behind it.”
For organisations with multiple systems, locations or countries, however, getting there can be a significant undertaking. Gerhard advised leaders not to make transformation unnecessarily complicated.
“It’s really about analysing where you can make things better. Don’t start with the full, massive project. Think about smaller increments of automation that you can implement.”
In the final webinar poll, low morale and engagement emerged as the biggest workforce pain point at 41 percent, followed by manager burnout at 25 percent and widening skills gaps at 24 percent.
“The challenge isn’t the ambition at the end of the day. The challenge is the capacity,” he concluded.
