Admin tasks include booking holidays, running reports and updating absence records activities which are taking their toll on the profession's ability to be more strategic, according to new research Snowdrop Systems.

Over 110 HR professionals across a range of sectors, from HR officers to HR directors took part in the research, with 84 per cent in organisations with 50 or more employees.

The main findings were:

HR professionals spend 60 per cent of their week (22 hours) on administrative tasks. The load is cut by more than half (to just 10 hours) when shared with line managers and staff, by giving them online access to HR records. Despite this, only 13 per cent of HR professionals get help from line managers and staff.

43 per cent spend two hours each week just coordinating training and setting up network and email privileges for new recruits, with almost a third spending up to five hours a day each week running reports.

Over 40 per cent spend two hours a week checking employee information already collated.

The top five administrative tasks are:

1. Setting up and coordinating induction training.
2. Checking data is accurate.
3. Running reports.
4. Recording progress on training and development.
5. Dealing with admin around departing employees (including returning company property, dealing with benefits, closing email and network accounts, recouping training costs and informing Payroll.

Other time-consuming tasks involve requests for and booking of holiday time, updating absence records, chasing material on appraisals, employee development, and alerting line managers about probation periods.

Commenting on the research, Michael Richards, chief executive of Snowdrop Systems, says:

"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 which 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 their other duties."

Further research by IRS Employment review, reported on HR Gateway last week, showed that whilst the aim was to give access outside of the HR department, many HR professionals were reluctant to do this or had been unsuccessful in achieving it.

Highlights of this research showed:

• Most companies struggled to allow anyone other than the HR department access to HR information. One third (34%) of respondents reported that senior managers were able to access computerised employee records but this was generally limited to monitoring absence figures or downloading forms for manual completion.
• Less than one third (28%) allowed line managers access to computerised employee records, and less than 5% of respondents allowed line managers to change pay rates.
• Just 13% of respondents gave employees access to data held in their systems, even though more than half the organisations surveyed (54%)said "giving control to individual employees" was a core objective of their HRMS implementation.