The roles covered ranged from HR officer to HR director and 110 people took part, mainly from companies with more than 50 people. A total of 22 hours per person was spent on administrative tasks such as conducting inductions, dealing with holiday requests, and analysing absence records.

"By harnessing HR technology, more responsibility can be devolved to the employee" - Michael Richards, Snowdrop.

The point of the research was to suggest that life would be easier for HRs if they used online self-service systems, which gave managers and staff access to some HR records. Individuals could book their own holidays, check and amend contact details along with a range of other services. It is estimated that HR practitioners could save ten hours of administrative work each week.

At the moment, only 13 per cent of HR professionals get help from line managers and staff; 43 per cent spend two hours a week coordinating training and setting up network and e-mail privileges for new recruits. Around one third spend up to five hours each week running reports. Ten per cent take six hours to complete such a task.

The top five administrative tasks are:

• setting up and coordinating induction training
• checking data is accurate
• running reports
• recording progress on training and development
• dealing with admin around departing employees, including returning company property, dealing with benefits, closing e-mail and network accounts, recouping training costs and informing payroll.

"It's no surprise that administrative tasks take a large chunk of time out of an HR professional's day. What's disappointing is that these are tasks that line managers and employees could easily do themselves. By harnessing HR technology, more responsibility can be devolved to the employee. Creating online access to certain information, like holiday time or appraisals details, means employees can find the answers for themselves and let HR get on with other duties," said Michael Richards, chief executive of Snowdrop Systems.

By Andrew Mosby