Increase efficiency with Employee Self-Service

Employees will appreciate taking charge of their own information and HR staff can be freed for more significant tasks…

Can employee self-service (ESS) systems allow employees to take care of tasks usually reserved for the HR department? Yes! Employees will appreciate taking charge of their own information and HR staff can be freed for more significant tasks. Here is a list of what employees can do, typically through a portal that can deliver HR, payroll and benefits information.

• Change their own personal information.
• View scheduling and payroll information.
• Submit time-off requests.
• Coordinate with managers regarding vacation approval and similar requests.

You can turn even more complex systems into self-service. For example, consider open enrollment. If life changes have occurred, employees would rather control their own information. Also, workers can take their time to research various benefit options without feeling time pressured when working with a busy HR professional. Consider the advantages:

• The disruption that open enrollment often presents is avoided.
• It makes the application process simpler.
• Information provided may be more thorough due to the interactive format.

Should your company consider adopting Employee Self-Service HR? Consider all the advantages.

• Many companies note an immediate increase in productivity and efficiency.
• It saves hours of frustration for managers and HR personnel in not having to work through scheduling issues and time-off requests, or open enrollment questions.
• Since employees can access scheduling, time-off and benefit information from home, they report saving time and experiencing a feeling of empowerment.

Of course, some training will be required and there’s an initial expense; but typically, the time and money investment quickly pays for itself in greatly increased efficiency.

Getting Started

To ensure a smooth rollout:

• Research how frequently employees anticipate using the system. This will affect the ROI your company can expect.
• Research will help determine which system is best for your company. Compare self-serve system pricing/implementation promises from several different vendors.
• See how companies in similar industries worked out implementation.

Also, think about what kinds of requests your HR folks deal with. A typical list includes:

• Forms requests.
• Emergency contacts.
• Beneficiary maintenance.
• Internal job postings and applications.
• Primary care physician selections.
• Flexible spending account selections.
• Employee directory.
• Employee development.
• Retirement plan transactions.
• Organizational chart.
• Stock purchase plan transactions.

This makes you see that self-serve systems certainly don’t take away your need for HR, but let HR concentrate on doing their jobs better by taking away administrative tasks employees can handle themselves.

Freeing HR from clerical and compliance work — letting Employee Self-Service handle much of the administrative transaction processing — lets the HR team remain free to deal with issues of strategic importance to your company.

What system is right for your company? Learn more about our ESS system and mobile app.

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