Sakeena Adams, regional people director for Africa and the Middle East at Sage, believes the future of HR is about giving people more time to do what they do best. By using technology to take care of repetitive tasks, she sees an opportunity for HR to focus on people, nurture talent and help businesses grow.
Speaking to CHRO South Africa, she shares how automation and AI are changing the way HR works, why people must remain at the heart of progress and how organisations can turn time saved into greater impact.
Q: How much of HR’s potential is being lost to repetitive, manual administration?
I believe a significant amount of HR’s value is still tied up in administrative activity. Across most organisations, HR professionals enter the profession to help people, build capability, strengthen culture and support business performance. Yet many continue to spend a disproportionate amount of time managing transactions, reconciling data, responding to routine queries and moving information between systems.
The challenge is not that these tasks are unimportant. The challenge is that they do not fully utilise the capability of HR professionals. When repetitive work consumes too much capacity, it limits our ability to focus on strategic workforce planning, leadership development, employee experience and organisational effectiveness. Research consistently shows that HR leaders see technology as a way to reduce administration and create more time for higher-value work.
Q: How important is it for HR and payroll systems to be connected when CHROs are trying to make better workforce decisions?
It is absolutely critical.
Workforce decisions are only as good as the quality and accessibility of the data informing them. When HR and payroll operate on disconnected systems, leaders often spend more time validating information than analysing it. This creates duplication, delays and, ultimately, limits the ability to make timely decisions.
Connected HR and payroll systems provide a single view of the workforce, combining people data, organisational trends, labour costs, turnover, leave, skills and performance insights. That integrated perspective enables more informed decisions around workforce planning, retention, skills development and organisational productivity.
Perhaps most importantly, connectivity builds trust. Accurate payroll, reliable employee records and consistent reporting provide confidence in the data, which is essential if leaders are expected to make strategic decisions with confidence. Research indicates that most HR and payroll leaders see measurable business value when HR and payroll work together effectively, while many still believe there is room to improve connectivity between the two functions.
Q: How have you identified the work that is genuinely worth protecting human time for?
I always start with a simple question: does this activity require judgement, empathy, creativity or human connection?
If the answer is yes, it deserves human attention.
Conversations around performance, career development, wellbeing, succession, culture and change leadership are areas where people matter most. These are moments that shape trust, engagement and organisational outcomes. While technology can provide data and insights, it cannot replace the human judgement required to navigate complexity or understand context.
My view is that technology should handle the administration so people can focus on the conversations that create value. The goal is not to automate people management. The goal is to create more space for meaningful leadership.
Q: Which HR processes have you found offer the greatest opportunity for automation, and why?
The biggest opportunities are typically found in high-volume, rules-based and repetitive processes.
These include:
- Employee onboarding and documentation workflows
- Leave and attendance administration
- Payroll validation and recurring transactions
- Reporting and workforce analytics
- Routine employee queries
- Document generation and policy-related requests
- Recruitment administration and interview scheduling
These processes often involve significant manual effort but limited judgement. Automation improves speed, consistency and accuracy while reducing the risk of human error.
Importantly, automation should not be pursued simply because it is possible. The best use cases are those that remove friction, improve the employee experience and free HR teams to focus on work that genuinely benefits from human involvement.
Q: Looking at your own experience as a people director, what has technology enabled you to focus on that would have been much harder if your team was still spending significant time on manual administration?
Technology has enabled me to spend more time looking forward and being pro-active, rather than looking backward and being re-active.
Instead of focusing on compiling reports or validating data, I can spend more time supporting leadership teams, understanding workforce trends, discussing talent strategies, strengthening organisational culture, having capacity to be more strategically focused and helping the business navigate change.
Access to real-time insights also enables more meaningful conversations with leaders. Rather than debating the accuracy of the data, we can focus on what the data is telling us and what actions we need to take.
Ultimately, technology has allowed HR to become a more proactive business partner. It creates capacity for strategic thinking, better decision-making and a stronger focus on people outcomes.
Q: How do you think CHROs can turn the time saved through technology into a genuine competitive advantage for the business?
The biggest mistake organisations can make is viewing automation purely as an efficiency exercise.
The real opportunity lies in reinvesting saved time into activities that create competitive differentiation. That includes leadership capability, workforce planning, critical skills development, succession, employee experience and culture.
Technology may save time, but competitive advantage comes from how that time is used.
Organisations that use technology to create more capacity for coaching leaders, developing talent and strengthening organisational agility will outperform those that simply do the same work faster. Technology provides the opportunity. Leadership determines the value created from it.
In my view, the future advantage will not come from organisations having access to AI or automation. Those capabilities are becoming increasingly available to everyone. The advantage will come from organisations that successfully combine intelligent technology with strong, human-centred leadership.
