Every HR leader knows the struggle: endless hours spent pulling data from different systems, cleaning up spreadsheets, and preparing reports for stakeholders. But have you ever calculated what this actually costs your company?
Let’s take a simple example: a Head of People Operations Manager earning €50,000 per year who spends 20 hours per month on manual reporting tasks. Sounds like just another admin task? Think again.
Breaking Down the Cost of Manual Reporting
Many companies don’t realize how expensive inefficient HR reporting can be. Here’s the math:
✅ Annual Salary: €50,000
✅ Average working hours per year: 1,920
✅ Hourly cost: €50,000 ÷ 1,920 = €26.04 per hour
✅ Time spent on manual reporting: 20 hours per month = 240 hours per year
✅ Total cost of manual reporting: 240 × €26.04 = €6,250 per year
That means 12.5% of this HR leader’s salary is spent on something that could be automated.
And that’s just one employee. If your HR team consists of multiple people handling reports, the cost escalates quickly.
What Could HR Do Instead?
Imagine what could be achieved if these 20 hours per month were freed up. Instead of drowning in spreadsheets, HR could focus on:
🔹 Strategic workforce planning – instead of just reporting last month’s numbers.
🔹 Employee experience & engagement – making HR a driver for culture, not just compliance.
🔹 Diversity & pay equity analysis – rather than spending hours aligning data from different sources.
HR is supposed to be a strategic partner, but manual reporting keeps teams stuck in the past instead of driving the future.
Time to Rethink HR Reporting
HR teams shouldn’t be spending thousands of euros worth of working time on tasks that software can do in seconds. It’s time to shift from reporting mode to strategic mode.