Employee and manager self-service facet of HR service continue to be the focus for organizations of every size, with significant gain in efficiency, employee satisfaction and reduction in overall costs being the primary drivers to make this shift.

Basically, almost every HR department struggles in two areas that prevent them from managing their time and being more strategically involved in the organizational on-goings. They are –

1. Remaining compliant with the government and corporate regulations

Regulations put forth by the government put their effect in every aspect of HR, whether it is recruitment, compensation, training & development or retirement. These laws are equally complex and complying with them is not a child’s play. From proper documentation to recordkeeping, everything has a significant importance in complying with the laws, but with a set of 30-40 documents to be filled in by the employee, chances of making errors increase radically. Moreover, filling the same information in various forms tend to make the process even more hectic and time consuming.

2. And, efficiently processing employees’ requests and documents.

Another problem faced by HR department on almost daily basis is handling employee queries; answering the same questions again and again to the employees. According to surveys, most of the HR’s time is consumed in answering employee queries regarding any basic rule or issue like leave policy, salary slips, holiday list, etc. And the task is not limited to one occasion; almost every day one or the other employee has some query and HR is bound to answer it, no matter how busy he/she is.

Apart from these, there are several more considerations which increase the need to adopt a self-service culture in every organization.

The boom of millennials

Millennials are fast taking over the current workforce with Baby Boomers reaching their retirement ages. This generation is very fond of technology and that’s what they seek in their workplace. Thus, working according to this generation is extremely fruitful for their motivation and act as a performance booster leading to an overall organizational development. Manual processes don’t appeal them and HR professionals need to move on to a much advanced alternative.

Providing information anytime and anywhere

With the advancement in technology and providing solutions on the go, employees look for similar solutions from their employers too. Moreover, with the increase in the number of remote workers, providing a centralized solution for routine tasks is an immediate need for organizations to stay connected with each and every one of them.

Need to become more strategic and informed

Another criticism that HR professionals face often is that they haven’t moved on from their traditional tasks. Their roles have not changed much since then, but the requirements have changed drastically. Today’s organizations want their HR departments to be more strategically involved in business decisions and provide solutions to various organizational challenges, which HR doesn’t manage to deliver in lack of a technological solution.

The best way to deal with these problems is to get rid of all the paperwork and take every process online where Employee self-service portals provide the best alternative to this. Feed all frequently asked questions, policies, rules and regulations, forms, employee data and everything else at a centralized location and make it available to your employees using their unique login credentials. This kind of a solution also eliminates the need to fill the same data again and again as everything can be pulled out from the database. From onboarding to payments to training and development to benefits, everything can be easily automatized using an employee self-service solution. On the whole, the organizations are sure to experience a happier workforce having instant and anywhere access to all the data.