Waste in HR doesn’t look like waste in other areas of business. Think of a manufacturing factory line. You can visibly see waste created throughout the work of assembling, testing, and producing a finished product. HR processes and systems might not create tangible waste, but they do create friction that impacts the greater business. Slower hiring, administrative errors, and overburdened teams are all signs of issues where continuous improvement can make measurable change. As we wrap up one year and look ahead to the next, pivotal opportunities lie ahead. Budgets are being set, goals and objectives are in planning, and it’s worth an honest look at how HR supports the business. Here’s a framework for finding that waste, and a way to fix it without disrupting how your team operates today. The Eight Areas of Waste, and Where They Hide in HR Lean Six Sigma presents the concept of the Eight Areas of Waste as process obstacles that get in the way of providing value to a customer. It’s about maximizing the impact of the resources you have. Process waste in HR gets in the way of normal business as usual. Here’s what the Eight Areas of Waste are, and what they might look like across your HR operations: Defects: These are your errors caused by rework or incorrect information. You might find this waste in payroll corrections, incomplete I-9 files, and similar errors. Overproduction: This waste happens when work is completed before it’s needed. This looks like unread process documents, redundant approval processes, or reports that don’t get read. Waiting: How much wasted time happens while someone is delayed for the next step in a process? This could be a new hire waiting on onboarding items or system access, or an approval sitting idle because of a process inefficiency. Non-utilized talent: Every business has had moments where they are underutilizing the talent, skills, and knowledge employed across their team. This is where continuous improvement culture helps you connect with the people closest to a problem, so you can surface more effective solutions. Transportation: This is more visible in physical production work where waste is created through unnecessary movements of products or materials. In HR, you can still see this waste when employees input the same data into multiple disparate systems like an HRIS, payroll platform, and benefits portal. Inventory: This is created through acquiring an excess of product or material not being currently utilized. In HR, this looks like a stack of unapproved PTO requests or unclaimed 401(k) match contributions. Motion: This is unnecessary movement of people, such as a poor office layout that leads to people taking too many steps to get to the print room, to deliver a requested report, or meet with colleagues. In HR, this might also look like unnecessary jumping between different systems. Are employees hunting for the right version of a form across four platforms? That could be considered motion waste too. Extra processing: This waste is created when more work or a higher quality of work is done than is required. HR might see this in excessive review forms and processes, or in instances where multiple sign-offs are required for routine exceptions. So much of this HR waste is hidden in processes that are defended by someone saying “this is the way we’ve always done it.” READ MORE: Building a Culture of Continuous Improvement Where Small Businesses Lose Time and Money in HR Companies across Western New York experience similar operational bottlenecks. From manufacturing plants to professional service firms, administrative waste consistently creeps into daily workflows. Where is waste created as it relates to HR work? Onboarding is one area that is heavily reliant on a direct process. It also requires the involvement of multiple people and teams across multiple steps. Removing this waste means consolidating steps, eliminating handoffs, and relying on a single platform for data input. Compliance is an area where waste becomes risk that exposes the business. Multi-state employment, I-9 verification, and shifting labor laws demand consistent follow-through. Because most small businesses lack the specialized bandwidth to track every change, it is vital to build a single source of truth for documentation and standardize your processes. Another hidden form of waste occurs when a single employee becomes the default person for every HR request, even when HR isn’t their primary job. When that person becomes a friction point, issues don’t get resolved; they pile up on one calendar. Building a supportive team and standardized system ensures your business runs on collective knowledge rather than one person’s bandwidth. At Employer Services Corporation, we’ve applied principles learned from our sister company, Meliora Partners, focused on Lean Six Sigma training and consulting, to reduce waste in our own processes. Eliminate Waste Without Disrupting Your Team It’s easy to think big picture ahead of the new year: overhaul the handbook, replace the HRIS, rebuild onboarding from scratch. Too often, business owners bite off more than they can chew. Large-scale changes rolled out all at once create their own waste in the form of confusion, retraining, and a team that’s now managing the disruption on top of their regular work. Pick one process. Map out some improvements alongside the individuals doing the work every day. Find where these Eight Areas of Waste are created, and come up with solutions that work for how you operate and make a measurable improvement. That approach will surface impactful changes that help your business grow next year. Meliora Partners’ Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belts provide a structured methodology for finding and removing waste. And at Employer Services Corporation, our HR consulting team helps business owners implement the tools and processes necessary to remove waste from their people operations. If you’re heading into next year wondering where to start, we’re glad to be part of that conversation. Connect with our team to talk through where waste might be hiding in your current processes, and what a focused improvement could look like.