The Power of Personio
What intelligent HR brings to your business
Everyone has the same days in the week. Except for HR teams, maybe.
As businesses change how work gets done in the wake of AI, HR is stuck in the middle. Support, prove, plan, transform: you're simultaneously building a great place to work, showing HR's impact, and anticipating what's coming next — all while juggling the small operational tasks that bite huge chunks out of each week.
Everywhere you look, time is slipping away. A couple of hours spent on reporting there, a few more on screening CVs and updating data there. Before you know it, you've lost days to getting just the basics done.
Something has to give. But it shouldn't have to be you.
For the third year running, we've surveyed 200 people professionals located across Europe and the UK to find out how work gets easier when HR teams have the right solution in place.
One of our most important findings: Our customers are saving almost two days per week offloading their routine tasks to Personio.
A note from our CEO
HR has always lived between two worlds — the deeply human one of leading people strategy, and the process-led one of keeping the organisation running.
The data is clear: people and process are no longer separable. That's the central finding of this year's Power of Personio report.
HR teams across business sizes are prioritising future-proofing their people function — one that's strong enough and adaptable enough to keep redesigning itself as skills and technology continue to shift. And the strongest teams are the ones using better systems and data to connect the human side of HR with the processes that support it.
Time and cost savings are the visible proof points of those worlds coming together. But they're not the end of the story — they're what makes the rest possible. When teams offload the processes that slow them down, HR stops being the department that manages admin and starts being the one that shapes decisions.
In 2026, HR teams have renewed confidence in their decision-making, are more motivated by a sense of purpose in their job, and are gaining credibility in the boardroom.
The future of work is less predictable than ever. The HR teams that will lead it aren't the ones with all the answers — they're the ones who've built the foundation to move fast when the questions change.
Hanno Renner
CEO & Co-Founder at Personio
Business impact of Personio
34% of Personio customers see value within weeks of implementation
Most businesses understand the value HR creates. We all know that engaging employees makes them more likely to do their best work. We know that retaining them keeps hard-won knowledge within your business, instead of walking out of the door.
But proving that impact can often feel difficult, because some of HR's most valuable work often shows up as an absence: lower risk, reduced hiring costs, and less time spent on ramping.
In this year's survey, our customers reported measurable business impact across cost, avoidable risk, time-to-value, and productivity.
For finance leaders
13%
overall HR cost savings, meaning more room in the budget
13%
reduction in recruiting costs due to more efficient processes
40%
report reduced costs due to minimising errors, rising to 44% when teams had no prior software solution in place
30%
saw fewer compliance risks, meaning fewer costly fines
Reducing costs and avoidable risks
78%
of customers see value within the first six months of use, while 34% see value within weeks
47%
report increased time-to-value due to more effective onboarding
For the executive team
78%
report increased HR productivity due to automation — giving HR teams capacity for higher-impact work
21%
saw increased employee productivity, meaning workforce gains beyond the HR team
Increasing productivity and time-to-value
Lower HR friction = big business wins
Automating processes and reducing manual tasks is just the first domino, and what HR teams gain in additional capacity and efficiency becomes the organisation's gain in cost reduction, time-to-value, and productivity.
But the biggest gains came from a less mature starting point. The organisations consistently reporting the biggest value from Personio were the ones without a previous software platform in place — moving from manual, fragmented processes to a single connected platform.
HR operations and productivity
34% less time spent on HR processes
Recurring admin work keeps HR teams stuck in the wrong gear, churning and whirring instead of moving forward. But when it comes to doing that work, the HR teams using Personio are spending less time actually doing, and more time doing the strategic thinking and decision-making.
Overall, using Personio cuts the time teams spend on HR processes by one-third (34%). Across the productivity factors measured, the biggest gains show up in the caretaker tasks that keep things running behind the scenes: updating data, approvals and changes, and planning headcount.
67 %
say time spent on rework somewhat or significantly decreased, rising to 71% for first-time users of an HR system
54 %
say their workflow scalability improved as business needs evolve
43 %
less time spent updating employee data, because a connected platform keeps data in sync
63 %
report a reduction in manual payroll effort
29 %
decrease in HR work due to automations
21 %
decrease in time spent managing stakeholder coordination and communication
Better processes, better workdays
Being more productive isn't about squeezing more out of the working day. Time saved may turn HR into a well-oiled machine — but HR professionals aren't machines. And sometimes, the real value of increased operational efficiency means clearing just enough breathing room to remind you why you're in the job in the first place.
As a result of using Personio, HR teams feel they have more space to do the meaningful work they came to do, leaving them more satisfied, motivated, and energised for what lies ahead.
61 %
say the HR team is significantly more satisfied
55 %
feel more motivated by the work they do
Reporting and analytics
42% less time spent on reporting and analytics
HR data is only valuable when teams can find it, analyse it, and use it to prove their impact. But when it's spread across disconnected tools or systems, it quickly becomes a breadcrumb trail. One system shows disengagement, another shows performance is down. But without a connected view, it's hard to tell where that problem is, or what's causing it.
Having a centralised source of data means teams spend less time elbow-deep in spreadsheets, and more time diagnosing what's happening across the business. It also makes it easier for HR to connect the dots between people trends, the actions they take, and the impact of those actions on the business.
64 %
report they spend less time generating reports — meaning HR can show impact faster
45 %
less time spent searching for employee data
44 %
less time spent getting insights from employee data
Decision-ready data for the AI era
Data is the spine of successful HR teams in the AI era. But 2025 research from Gartner found that the primary cause of AI failure is the absence of AI-ready data. Being ready isn't about having the tool — it's about having the data infrastructure to use it well.
For HR teams, that means centralising, cleaning, and connecting people data so it can support better reporting and decision-making, giving a strong foundation for AI to work from. For Personio customers, that foundation is already translating into clearer, faster, more confident decisions.
55 %
say Personio improves the quality of HR decision-making
40 %
say HR teams make decisions faster
41 %
feel more confident delivering on strategic goals
AI-powered workflows, grounded in HR data
AI's ROI in HR is still emerging. But one place teams are seeing the most value is in its ability to help them get answers faster from their people data. Personio customers are seeing an 18% overall increase in productivity from using our AI assistant, including:
21 %
less time spent managing HR reporting
20 %
less time spent managing day-to-day HR processes
15 %
fewer support tickets to manage
Employee experience
36% of HR teams feel that Personio improves employee satisfaction
According to 2024 data from Chief Martec, the average tech stack for organisations up to 500 employees runs some 150 tools. For employees, that means that a decent part of their time is spent pinballing between platforms. They only want to book time off, do some required training, or submit some peer feedback, and their company gives them three different logins for three different tools.
Each process comes with its own new tiny added frictions, and the tech fatigue starts to become real — especially when your tools overlap, employees aren't sure which one to use, and the rest sit gathering dust.
In a fully tech-enabled employee experience, some of the easiest and quickest wins HR can make are the most subtle.
81%
feel non-HR employees find asking for time off significantly easier, 55% strongly agree
59%
say payroll information is easier to find, meaning no more chasing HR for key information
43%
say employees ramp into their role much faster, because smoother processes mean quicker time-to-productivity
9%
improvement in employee retention, meaning less money lost on rehiring and lost productivity
34%
decrease in time for employees to update their data
21%
feel employee productivity has increased
19%
fewer HR support tickets
Removing invisible friction from the employee experience
HR tech isn't just designed to make HR's life easier — it's designed to help your employees do their jobs better. And when your tech adds friction to simple processes, it creates unnecessary frustration. But when it works well, it becomes invisible. That's the difference.
Product impact across the employee lifecycle
In any typical organisation, most people have a role that reflects their specialism. Engineers engineer. Marketers market. Sales people sell. And HR manages recruitment, performance, engagement, compensation, and learning and development, plus the entire system that stitches it all together into one cohesive thing.
That load is unequal by design — because as it turns out, managing other humans is the most complicated job of the lot. That's why we wanted to see how Personio's value to our customers translates across the entire employee lifecycle.
Raising the bar for performance
Employee performance is the engine of business success. But performance reviews are notoriously time-consuming and difficult to calibrate. That makes them hard to trust, link to compensation cycles, and scale across growth and progression.
35 %
report an improvement in review quality — meaning clearer feedback, and more consistent growth
34 %
saw a decrease in the amount of time spent on performance cycles, due to automated, always-on performance processes
Streamlining hiring and workforce planning
In the current market for talent, recruiting and workforce planning are getting harder to keep in sync. Headcount gets planned out a year in advance, but the skills needed to power the business can change much faster, leaving teams scrambling to fill gaps as they pop up.
With Personio, HR teams save 25% time on headcount forecasting and 27% overall time on hiring and recruiting — showing the power of a connected process.
40 %
reduction in the time spent screening and managing job applications
25 %
less time spent creating job offers
23 %
time savings when hiring new employees
22 %
less time spent sourcing new applicants
Simplifying the work behind pay decisions
Deciding to give people a pay rise is easy. Calculating, entering, reconciling, and updating that data across multiple systems is a whole other job. Every delayed, error-laden, or inconsistent pay decision can cost your organisation dearly — both in compliance fines and its people.
Compensation management with Personio is faster, easier to control, and less exposed to errors.
29 %
less time spent on rewards and benefits management
32 %
less time managing compensation data
26 %
less time updating changes to compensation
Scaling effectiveness across business sizes
Different stages of growth have different needs from any HR tool. A 50-person startup may have been surviving on scrappy manual processes up until now, but they've noticed them starting to fail as growth accelerates. A mid-market multiregional might have all the people processes in place, but are struggling with data visibility and connectivity at scale.
What good looks like changes at every phase of maturity. But the need for impact never does.
For small businesses (<50 employees)
For medium businesses (51-200 employees)
For growing mid-market businesses (201-2,000 employees)
Delivering value at every phase
Growth and scale change the pressure points for HR's biggest operational challenges. Small organisations with under 50 employees see the biggest impact in reducing manual work through automation. Medium-sized businesses see the biggest cost savings and improvement in their decision-making as processes scale. And mid-market organisations benefit from reporting efficiency and data visibility.
But all point to the same underlying truth: removing that friction helps HR teams redirect their efforts to creating value where the business needs it most.
Scaling digital maturity
From scattered processes to intelligent HR systems, every HR team has to start somewhere on the road to digital maturity. Processes often have to break before they can get better, but when they do, they enable huge gains in cost savings, productivity, and efficiency.
Taking the leap from fragmented to connected
For teams only just transitioning out of the spreadsheets phase, the biggest impact is felt in removing the manual work that makes every HR process feel like a heavy lift. Reporting, data entry, and notes spread across endless Google docs are streamlined, giving teams time back to focus on the business of scaling.
Meanwhile, for teams with a more mature stack, the value is less about reducing the immediate chaos of scattered operations, and more about replacing "good enough" with "better" through a connected, consolidated approach to their tech.
Building the foundation for intelligent HR
Time saved, cost reduction, and efficiency gains are the language of every business exec. But HR's impact is so much more than a few lines on a balance sheet.
Because in a world where skills decay more rapidly, job security isn't a given, and economic uncertainty still reigns, HR's value is measured not just by metrics, but also how teams can help their organisation adapt.
In the AI era, HR teams are charged with designing the conditions that make better decisions possible at scale. Clearer data, connected workflows, and better employee experiences will shape how organisations hire talent, retain it, and move talent where it's needed next.
Explore intelligent HR. Our team is here to help.
Intelligent HR is automated, scalable, and insightful. Learn why 16,000+ organisations across Europe and the UK trust Personio to power their people processes. Book your demo now.
About this report
The 2026 Power of Personio report features survey responses from 200 HR professionals located in countries including Germany, the UK, Ireland, and Spain. Respondents hold various roles and levels of seniority across the HR function, and work at companies ranging from small startups under 50 employees all the way up to companies with workforces over 200 people.
FAQs
What is the Power of Personio report?
The Power of Personio is a customer benchmarking study that measures the impact of using Personio across HR operations, the employee experience, and business outcomes. Based on survey responses from Personio customers, the report explores where teams save time, reduce costs, improve decision-making, and see measurable value across core HR workflows.
What business impact do customers see from Personio?
Personio's strongest business impact is in its HR productivity and efficiency benchmarks. 78% of customers say that automating HR functions improved productivity. Customers also cited increased time-to-value from more effective onboarding and reduced costs as a result of reducing errors. Overall, Personio users see 15% cost savings through improved efficiency.
How do HR teams save time with Personio?
HR teams save almost two working days per week streamlining core people processes by centralising their data, connecting and integrating HR processes, and automating workflows in Personio. Customers see the biggest efficiency payoffs with reporting and analytics, recruiting and hiring, and operational tasks like data updates and management.
How does better data support HR AI readiness?
AI can only work when the data foundation behind it is solid. But all too often, people data ends up siloed in separate tools — or worse, locked into proprietary formats within those platforms, making it incompatible across the employee lifecycle. When people data is centralised into a single layer, HR teams can use it for better reporting and faster decisions. But it also gives any AI tooling you do integrate something reliable to work from — because data is accurate and consistent.
Which businesses see the biggest impact from Personio?
Businesses of all sizes see a different impact from Personio depending on their stage and maturity. Smaller businesses see larger immediate productivity and efficiency gains as a result of scaling processes with centralised data and automation. Meanwhile larger organisations typically improve overall data visibility, connectivity, and reporting capability.
