Employee Self-Service Applications
Much to the dismay of Human Resources professionals worldwide, HR activities tend to be dominated by "administrivia" - paperwork, telephone inquiries, and drop-in visits. These demands often force HR staff members to be reactive - rather than proactive - in their pursuits. One benefit of implementing an employee self-service (ESS) application is that HR groups are freed up to play more strategic roles in their organizations.
Chances are, many of your processes are already automated: An employee completes a form - vacation request, beneficiary change, training registration, etc. - then that same information is entered into the appropriate database by HR. Multiply that by the number of HR transactions processed in a week, a month, a year... Quite a duplication of effort, isn't it?
An ESS, on the other hand, allows employees to make changes directly to the system. More importantly, employees are given the opportunity to explore "what if..." scenarios before committing to a change: What if I increase my payroll deductions? What if I switch insurance carriers? What if I use five vacation days? What if I select different mutual funds for my 401K? You get the picture.
Once an employee makes a change, his or her personnel record is updated instantaneously.
The types of transactions supported by ESS applications are almost limitless. Besides benefit and payroll issues, they can be used to automate procedures related to internal job postings, time and attendance reporting, and training enrollment, to name just a few.
In addition to transactional capabilities, ESS applications can provide employees with a wealth of useful information (hence the frequently-used term "knowledgebase"). An organization's plans, policies, and procedures are transformed into meaningful answers to its employees' inquiries. With the use of a search mechanism and/or site map, employees can easily locate the information they need. Once there, they have the option of "drilling down" to more specific information or jumping to linked pages that contain related information.
Two attributes of ESS applications make them especially powerful: (1) intuitive approach to the information and (2) personalization of content.
Employees oftentimes know exactly what they are looking for: Their co-pay amount, number of unused personal days or taxes withheld from last week's paycheck. Other times, however, an employee experiences something in his or her personal or professional life - marriage, birth of a child, serious illness, layoff, retirement, etc. - and is not aware of the steps that should be taken as a result. The "life event" approach characteristic of many ESS applications addresses this issue. By simply selecting his or her specific circumstances, the employee will be presented with a comprehensive "to do" list. This list, which is generally not limited to work-related tasks, is often supplemented with a directory of related resources and links to useful websites.
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