[AI] - When HR’s Pain Goes Unheard: How to Make Leadership “Listen” to the ROI Voice of Human Resources

1. When HR Gets Stuck Between “Understanding Problems” and “Proving Value”

HR professionals know their daily pain points all too well — manual data entry, payroll delays, calculation errors, and employee complaints. Yet when it comes to convincing leadership to invest in technology, they often lack the financial language to express the transformation’s value.

Meanwhile, leaders need clear ROI evidence — every dollar invested must translate into measurable efficiency, data, or risk reduction.

Let’s explore ROI – the language of leadership, and how HR can make its voice heard through data-driven results.

1.1. Understanding ROI – “The Language of Leadership”

ROI (Return on Investment) represents the ratio of profit gained relative to the cost invested.

Simply put, if you invest $1 and gain $3 in value — whether through profit, saved time, or reduced HR costs — your ROI equals 300%.

For leadership, ROI isn’t just about numbers. It’s the proof of performance behind an investment.

Every department has its own “ROI language”:

• Marketing measures ROI by cost per lead or cost per acquisition.
• Sales measures ROI through revenue per sales expense.
• Finance uses ROI to assess investment profitability.

And now, HR must build its own ROI voice, supported by operational data, productivity metrics, and employee satisfaction indicators.

2. Global Trends: HR Tech as a Growth Engine

Worldwide, digital transformation in human resources (HR Tech) has become a strategic driver of business growth. When data replaces paperwork, efficiency rises – and ROI becomes visible and measurable.

ATALIAN – Saving $4.76 Million Annually Through Automated Timekeeping

ATALIAN Global Services (France–USA) faced a familiar challenge: tens of thousands of employees across dispersed sites, fragmented time data, and manual processes.After implementing EPAY Systems’ automated workforce management, every step of the process was digitized in real time.
Result: Annual savings of $4.76 million and nearly total elimination of time-tracking errors.
Source: Atalian_CaseStudy_05032021-1.pdf

Unilever – Turning Data into a Common Language Between HR and Leadership

Unilever developed a People Analytics system to empower HR with data-driven decision-making instead of intuition.With this platform, HR can predict turnover, plan succession, and measure ROI for each HR initiative.
This mindset — “HR must speak the language of business” — helped Unilever reduce rehire costs by 22% and significantly increase operational efficiency.
Source: MyHRFuture Podcast – Unilever’s HR Transformation

Hudson’s Canada – Saving 45 Hours per Payroll Cycle Through Accurate Timekeeping

Hudson’s, a Canadian restaurant chain, once spent dozens of hours reconciling inconsistent time data each payroll period.After adopting Push Operations, which integrated scheduling, timekeeping, and payroll on one platform, the results were immediate:
40–45 administrative hours saved per payroll cycle and near-perfect accuracy in payroll processing.
A small HR Tech upgrade — a giant leap in financial efficiency.
Source: HUDSONS PUB UPGRADES WITH ALL-IN-ONE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

3. HR Tech in Vietnam: When Data Becomes Proof of Performance

In Vietnam, many organizations have begun their HR digital transformation journey. However, most remain at the “form digitization” stage — digitizing documents, not transforming data into measurable value.

The real differentiator of modern HR Tech lies not in software features but in its ability to prove ROI through real data.

Phương Linh Factory – Tangible ROI from Real-Time Data

As one of the early adopters of aiTimelog, a Vietnamese-made facial recognition attendance solution developed by COMIT Corp, Phương Linh’s HR department reported:

• 90% fewer payroll errors thanks to eliminating manual entry.
• 75% reduction in payroll processing time through real-time data synchronization.
• Enhanced transparency among HR, workers, and management via instant data access.

This is visible ROI – concrete numbers leadership can see, measure, and base investment decisions on, not just intuition.

When HR Tech operates effectively, every small process produces valuable data  from on-time attendance rates to per-shift productivity and labor cost per output unit.

Such data not only help HR work more accurately, but also enable leaders to:

• Forecast HR costs in real time.
• Evaluate workforce productivity based on data, not perception.
• Make investment and staffing decisions faster and with greater confidence.

4. HR Cannot Wait for Data to Speak – HR Must Make It Speak

The world has shown that when HR owns data, HR owns a voice. And in Vietnam, that journey is just beginning.

Start measuring, optimizing, and transforming HR effectiveness through HR Tech  where every decision is guided by data, and ROI becomes the shared language between HR and leadership.

Contact us to explore how HR Tech is helping Vietnamese enterprises prove value and elevate their position in the national digital transformation landscape.