Imagine being able to correct a payroll error from your couch while catching the latest episode of House of the Dragon, just by saying “Okay, Google…” Well, now you can.

Last month, HR and payroll software company Paychex launched Paychex Voice Assist. Using artificial intelligence and voice recognition, the new feature allows HR and payroll admins to tackle basic payroll tasks without lifting a finger.

Its creators call it a natural evolution in HR tech. As more HR tasks are managed online and on mobile devices, experts say the technology is evolving to make people professionals more efficient, freeing them up to do more high-level work.

With Paychex Voice Assist, HR pros can make quick changes and fixes to employee hours and pay rates, and even submit payroll using Google Assistant-compatible devices like a phone or smart speaker.

The data Paychex collected demonstrated that more flexible, mobile-friendly, employee-centered solutions would allow HR pros additional time to focus on workplace safety, talent and retention, understanding diversity needs, and looking into issues like pay equity.

A seat at the C-suite table. Tom Hammond, Paychex’s VP of corporate strategy and product management, pointed to the Covid-19 pandemic as one catalyst for new HR technology focused on efficiency and automation. Companies needed their HR teams focused less on tasks and more on building and maintaining systems for their new distributed workforces.

“All of the job duties and tasks that are lower value that HR has on its shoulders should be rethought,” said Peter Norlander, who directs Quinlan School of Business’s HR and employment relations program at Loyola University Chicago. “HR has been burdened for many years with a lot of administrative work that’s important and essential, but not necessarily going to deliver as much value.”

Fixing employee self-service portals or automating some of the payroll processes may lighten the load. Keep reading here.—AD

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Welcome to our regular HR advice column, Ask a Resourceful Human. Here to answer all of your burning questions is Erin Grau, the co-founder and COO of Charter, a media and services company that aims to transform the workplace. Erin has over 15 years of experience at the intersection of talent and operations in global organizations and startups, including the New York Times and Away. You can sign up for the free Charter newsletter about the future of work here.

NYC’s pay transparency law goes into effect on November 1. With just one week to go, you may be wondering: What more can I do to prepare my company?

Let’s take a step back: When New York City’s pay transparency law takes effect, it will become the biggest US city to require that employers (with at least four employees) include minimum and maximum salaries or hourly pay in all job postings, joining states such as Colorado, and municipalities including Jersey City, New Jersey, and Ithaca, New York. When similar laws go into effect in Washington State and California in January 2023, about one-fifth of all US workers will be covered by some form of pay transparency legislation.

Preparing for pay transparency is, of course, a multi-step process, not to mention one that can’t be done overnight. But once you’ve set an equitable pay structure and conferred with leaders throughout your organization, as HR Brew reported earlier this month, there are a couple of steps you can take to effectively communicate it.

Audit all active job postings and update templates to include a specific salary range, with minimum and maximum pay. You might also want to include:

• Your compensation philosophy: Contextualize the salary range by sharing the factors that are used to determine pay.
• Your interview process: If the salary range is for multiple levels of a position, note that and share how a candidate will be evaluated and placed.

Keep reading here.—EG

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Today’s top HR reads.

Stat: 94% of employees want to work flexible hours. (Future Forum)

Quote: “Companies will say that employee well-being and DE&I efforts are top business priorities, but all the important, extra work that women managers are doing in these areas is going unnoticed.”—Rachel Thomas, CEO at LeanIn.org, on why women are leaving their leadership roles (CNBC)

Read: A documentary about a restaurant worker with Down syndrome is teaching employers to be more inclusive. (Florida Trend)

Invest in them: Engaged, connected employees do good work—and stick around longer. And Leapsome’s all-in-one people enablement platform makes work more fulfilling by facilitating everything from performance feedback to employee engagement. See how here.*

^{*This is sponsored advertising content.}