Employees Expect Self-Service HR Tools

Are employers ready to deliver?

HR technology has sparked an evolution in the role of HR professionals. New solutions for recruiting, onboarding, benefits administration, and more provide HR departments more time to focus on strategic priorities like employee engagement, winning the war for talent, and ensuring the company is complying with employment laws and other regulatory-related requirements.
 

 
According to the 2018 Paychex Pulse of HR survey, 80 percent of today’s HR leaders feel they are a strategic partner within their organization. Part of the reason for that is HR technology has changed employees’ roles in completing tasks traditionally handled by HR managers, making them more self-sufficient versus needing to contact HR for everything. Ten years ago, employees looking to update their address, enter a life event, fill out tax forms and more, would contact HR to do so. In fact, according to a separate Paychex study, 73% of employees today expect to be empowered to independently initiate and complete such tasks on their own. According to our research, the top five tasks workers would rather do independently instead of going through HR are as follows:
 

 
For employees, it’s not only important that they independently have access to manage their own HR responsibilities, but that they can do it from almost anywhere. On average, 80 percent of employees would prefer to accomplish HR tasks online via desktop or mobile device rather than submitting a paper form to HR. However, many small and medium-sized organizations appear to be falling short in meeting those expectations. Paychex’s study revealed more than half (53 percent) of businesses with 500 employees or less do not make employee self-service tools available to their workforce.
 
The same survey revealed that the likelihood of an employer offering some level of employee self-service – generally defined as a portal through which workers can access various HR-related information about themselves and take the appropriate actions – strongly correlates with an organization’s size. Of those business owners polled, more than 65 percent of those with 20-500 employees empower their employees to complete simple administrative HR tasks via self-service. Conversely, less than half (46 percent) of respondents with under 20 employees are doing the same.
 
Fortunately, HR technology is scalable and there are solutions available for businesses of any size. In fact, if an HR department is small – or there is no dedicated HR manager in the company – it’s even more important that employees have the tools to manage at least some HR tasks on their own. Doing so will help free-up time valuable for HR to focus on the strategic and compliance tasks that only they can do.
 
Enhancing the employee experience through technology that empowers workers to be self-reliant will reduce the overwhelming HR workload many employers face and help enable such businesses to attract and retain top talent, boost employee engagement, and ultimately grow their business.