The Human Element

How much is HR really costing your organization?

If your answer stops at payroll, software licenses, and an annual retreat, you're missing the bigger picture. HR is often burdened by hidden costs that never appear in a budget review: hours of lost productivity, latency, and disengaged employees stuck waiting for support.

Consider that…

• A Workday report earlier this year showed that outdated HR technology costs the federal government nearly $1 billion a year in lost productivity.
• Employee engagement sank to a 10-year low in 2024, and Gallup reports disengagement costs businesses $8.8 trillion a year.
• 90% of HR managers spend at least 25% of their time on administrative tasks rather than strategic work.

Together, these costs create an invisible tax on people operations, and while none of these numbers show up in budget reviews, every extra approval, manual data entry, and delayed policy answer adds to the total.

Now, the good news: Agentic AI can help not only eliminate these hidden costs, but give HR the capacity it needs to turn invisible drains into strategic gains. 

Below, we'll break down four common hidden costs that hold HR departments back—time loss, latency, compliance risk, and employee disengagement—and show how agentic AI eliminates each one. How much value is trapped beneath the surface of your day-to-day HR work? Let's find out.

Hidden Cost #1: Time Lost to Low-Value Work

Strategic initiatives stall when HR capacity is consumed by repetitive, low-leverage tasks: correcting data errors, tracking forms, routing policy links.

Deloitte research shows that HR professionals spend 57% of their time on administrative tasks. That's more than half the week gone before any meaningful work has even begun.

Agentic AI flips the equation by absorbing high-volume, low-value requests. Wisq’s AI HR Generalist, Harper, resolves up to 80% of routine HR queries at first contact, automating everything from PTO balance checks to policy lookups. When 8 out of 10 tickets never hit HR’s inbox, low-value work disappears.

The result isn’t just reclaimed time—it’s restored strategic focus. HR teams use that capacity to consider other programs that benefit your organization and its people.

Hidden Cost #2: Latency That Slows the Business

Administrative drag doesn’t just affect HR’s calendar; it delays output across the organization. Approvals take too long. Questions go unanswered. Hiring stalls. And every extra day lost to back-and-forth is a day of missed impact.

Stanford’s Future of Work with AI Agents study found that 70% of employees want certain tasks automated because it frees up more of their time for higher value work. They aren't just looking for speed—they're looking for momentum.

Take McDonald's for example. After deploying an AI hiring assistant, the company cut time-to-hire from 21 days to less than three. That 85% acceleration doesn't just lower recruiting costs—it means all new hires, from cashiers to cooks to shift leads, get onboarded and up-to-speed weeks sooner, increasing productivity across the board.

Hidden Cost #3: Compliance and Risk Exposure

Audits, fines, and inconsistent documentation rarely make the roadmap, but they drain time, money, and trust. HR teams often scramble to fill gaps retroactively. Mistakes go unnoticed until they create risk.

Agentic AI changes that by standardizing answers, automating policy adherence, and flagging gaps in real-time. There are no conflicting responses from different departments—just one consistent, compliant source of truth.

One company launched an AI agent in 2024 to help healthcare organizations with manual work like recredentialing, sanctions monitoring, and document management. The company later announced their agent is able to process more than 7 million applications per year and reduce time spent on credentialing tasks by 75%.

Agentic systems don't just prevent mistakes. They raise the bar for consistency and trust.

Hidden Cost #4: Engagement and Opportunity Loss

When employees chase HR for answers, they disengage. Every delayed response erodes trust. Every repeated question chips away at morale.

When employees wait days for answers (or juggle endless follow-ups with HR in addition to their regular tasks) it only erodes confidence in people ops—and tanks employee engagement. Gallup pegs the annual cost of global employee disengagement at $8.8 trillion in lost productivity. Agentic AI reverses that dynamic by delivering instant, policy-aligned answers—24/7, through employees' preferred channels.

That speed and reliability creates a perception shift: HR becomes a trusted source of clarity, not a bottleneck. And the time HR regains gets redirected to the work that elevates engagement, including manager coaching, recognition programs, career development.

The result: a healthier employee experience that scales.

Unleash HR’s Strategic Capacity

The moment agentic AI deflects its first ticket, the clock starts turning in HR's favor. Reclaimed minutes don't just sit idle; they stack up into hours, days, and eventually, full-time capacity you can redirect toward the work you wish HR had time for.

Busywork, latency, noncompliance, and employee disengagement aren't line items, but they quietly drain business value every year. Agentic AI eliminates these and other hidden costs by handing back HR time that can be reinvested in value-adding strategic work.

"Stop thinking about how much money we save on headcount (which is a fleeting benefit, by the way) and focus on value creation. That’s the big benefit of AI: customer service quality, time to market, and innovation." -Josh Bersin, HR analyst

Even small wins compound quickly when invested in culture, capability, and growth. The sooner AI lifts administrative weight, the faster HR can become the strategic multiplier your leadership team has been waiting for. 

Ready to eliminate your hidden costs? Download "The New Economics of HR" to learn how to turn AI potential into bottom line results.