From onboarding to offboarding and everything in between, HR professionals have a ton on their plate. In addition to processing payroll, running open enrollment, and launching performance review cycles, they also constantly field questions from employees.
Answering these routine questions on top of all of their other responsibilities can be time consuming and overwhelming. Luckily, that’s where employee self-service comes in. Using an employee self-service system enables your workforce to access their personal information on their own, giving you time back so that you can focus on innovative people strategies.
So what exactly is employee self-service, and how can it be an invaluable tool for your HR team?
Let’s take a look.
What is HR Employee Self-Service?
Before we dive into the benefits of having such an HR platform, let’s start at the beginning: What is employee self-service?
HR employee self-service empowers your employees to view their information whenever, from wherever. Through a self-service platform, employees have the flexibility to see and update their data without having to contact their HR team. Since data protection is crucial at every organization, employee self-service also ensures that when employees view their information, their access is private and secure.
What is a Self-Service System?
We’ve covered what HR employee self-service is, but what is a self-service system?
An employee self-service system is an HR platform that allows your workforce to access information throughout the entire employee lifecycle. Not all HR solutions are considered employee self-service systems, and even the ones that are may not be easy to navigate–which still leaves employees with questions for their HR team.
So what kind of information can employees access through a user-friendly HR employee self-service system? Starting with onboarding, new hires can fill out important forms and tax documents, like their W4 and I-9, on their own. Once they’re onboarded, they can use the employee self-service system to access their pay stubs, request PTO, view their benefits, fill out performance reviews, and update personal information if needed, such as their bank information or home address. Then if someone leaves a company, they can still access their pay stubs and personal tax documents through the employee self-service system without having to get help from their HR team. Overall, using such a platform significantly decreases the amount of questions HR teams receive from current and former employees.
What is an employee self-service portal?
How do employees actually access their information? That’s where the employee self-service portal comes in.
In most cases, the portal that employees use to sign into their HR platform is the employee self-service portal. Once an employee inputs their username and password, they are able to navigate the system on their own to find any information they need. Having an all-in-one HR platform makes this even easier for employees because their HR, benefits, and payroll data all live within the same centralized location. This way, they only have to sign into one system to access all of it.
What are the Benefits of Employee Self-Service?
Now that we’ve discussed what an employee self-service system is, how can using one help your HR team?
Here are 5 benefits of employee self-service:
Attract Top Talent
Employee self-service will not only help you seamlessly onboard new hires, but will also help you attract top candidates during the hiring process. In today’s job market, candidates want to work for companies that use modern and intuitive technology. In fact, 59 percent of Millennials–which make up 35 percent of the US workforce–said that state-of-the-art technology was important to them when considering a job. As companies continue to hire for remote positions, that percentage will only keep increasing.
Improve Employee Engagement
Using an HR employee self-service system can help keep your workforce engaged and informed. Through the employee self-service portal, employees have direct access to resources, including directories, org charts, announcements on your company newsfeed, and so much more. These employee self-service features empower your workforce to access information at any time, from anywhere.
Impact Your Bottom Line
In addition to keeping your workforce engaged, employee self-service enables both your HR team and employees to be more productive. From direct access to benefits information and pay stubs to year-end tax documents and performance history, an HR employee self-service system saves your entire organization time so that you can focus on the initiatives that impact your bottom line.
Automate Time Off Tracking
An employee self-service portal allows employees to request time off and track their PTO balance all in one, centralized place. With an HR employee self-service system, managers across your organization have the ability to approve or deny requests from any device. By streamlining the process, employees, managers, and your HR team can say goodbye to time-consuming, manual PTO tracking.
Ensure Employee Data Accuracy
Employee self-service eliminates duplicate data entry and increases accuracy by empowering your employees to confirm their own personal information. Since an employee self-service portal gives them direct access to update their banking information, change their home address, and sign documents, you can ensure that the data in your system is always accurate and secure.
Employee Self-Service Software
Employee self-service enables companies to take their HR to the next level.
That’s why HR professionals at mid-sized companies love using Namely’s employee self-service portal software—but don’t just take our word for it. Hear what our clients have to say:
“Namely provides my team with a modern and intuitive experience. As an admin, I’m able to empower our employees to be at the helm of their HR information. With Namely’s assistance, I can provide them with a seamless experience to navigate aspects of HR on their own.” — Adrian Gajda, People Manager at Vita Coco
“Since Total Expert is a technology company, our employees are pretty tech-savvy and needed a platform that was user-friendly. The feedback I’ve gotten from them about Namely has been very positive. They can easily access information, from company resources to their performance records.” — Allison Stevens, People Operations Manager at Total Expert
“From an end-user standpoint, our employees can easily navigate the system and find everything on their own.” — Sarah Stafford, Senior HR Generalist at Affinivax
To learn how your company can benefit from using Namely’s employee self-service portal software, request a call today.
