Employee Self Service (ESS): On site or to go?
Self-service is becoming more and more common in the customer area: in your everyday life, you have probably already served yourself at the petrol station, in a fast food restaurant or at an automatic checkout. The principle of self-service is also becoming more and more prevalent in personnel administration: It's called Employee Self Service (ESS). Employee portals and self-service systems offer companies and employees many advantages, but can also cause problems.
But first on the daily menu is the definition of Employee Self Service. Do you eat in or take away?
Definition: What is Employee Self Service (ESS)?
An Employee Self Service (ESS) is a digital system or a company web portal in which employees can access personnel-related information: They have access to their digital personnel file and can manage it. Employee portals are a feature of most modern HR management systems (or HR software) that allow employees to directly perform work-related tasks that have traditionally been handled by the HR department, such as
- Changing contact information,
- Recording travel expenses,
- Downloading payslips,
- requesting holidays and absences, etc.
Why Employee Self Service?
In an increasingly competitive market for talented employees, Employee Self Service technology helps to create a positive work culture and retain talent by giving employees direct control over their HR data.
ESS systems are increasingly optimised for mobile use on social media-like platforms and are often part of larger employee engagement strategies that can include wellness programmes, recognition, learning management systems and company-wide social activities.
Benefits of Employee Self Service
When Employee Self Service is implemented correctly, an organisation can see immediate productivity and efficiency gains.
Meeting employee expectations
Some employees can no longer be satisfied with having an intermediary. However, as organisations grow, it's often difficult for every voice to be heard. With self-service systems, it is now easier for employees to be heard directly by the relevant departments. This allows companies to better fulfil the expectations of their employees.
Rationalisation of processes
Previously, all personnel data had to be entered into the system by a specially trained person. Payroll information was often created by another department or possibly a third party, and other revenue information was handled by another department or organisation.
Self service portals help streamline all of these processes by linking these systems together and making the information accessible to all. Communication between HR staff and employees is made all the easier, saving time for both parties.
Saving time
A major advantage of the self-service of some HR processes is that the workload of HR staff is reduced. HR departments are often overloaded: What employees can do themselves is very helpful for HR. Employee portals allow employees to view their own schedules, check payroll, clock in and out, adjust timesheets, update benefits, change their personal details and much more.
In this way, HR managers have much more time to focus on more important tasks, such as people: HR managers' time is no longer taken up with data entry or simply processing employee information. Accordingly, they can concentrate fully on issues that require human contact .
Reduction in data entry errors
Employee self-service not only makes data entry and transfer faster and more efficient, it also helps to avoid errors.
Human error has always been an important factor when entering information manually. With Employee Self Service, errors in data transfer are virtually eliminated and HR managers can recognise errors in recently added employee or applicant data much more easily.
More personal responsibility for employees
Direct access to their information improves employee satisfaction and engagement. Transparency and data quality are actually ensured through employee self-service. Employees can also view information about training and development, giving them more control over their own careers. More engaged employees are generally more loyal to their organisation and also more productive.
Promotion of remote working
Another advantage of a self-service portal is that it is usually cloud-based. Employees can access the portal from anywhere, whether they are working from home, on a mobile device or in another office building. No one has to wait until they are next in the main office to log in to the self-service portal.
What's more, employees can access their information at any time. They do not have to wait for working hours or the presence of a member of the HR department. Employees can get their questions answered or update their information as soon as they need it.
Disadvantages of Employee Self Service
Of course, there are also some potential difficulties with using an ESS.
Data security
As an Employee Self Service has personal and sometimes sensitive employee information, the highest level of data security must be guaranteed. In the HR solution, there are access authorisations that can be assigned individually so that not all employees can access and change all employee data.
Employee training
The use of self-service means that employees need additional training. With so many different aspects of the system, training can be more time-consuming than with other types of software, even if the individual sections are relatively simple.
Change management
It can also be a lengthy process to educate employees about the capabilities of Employee Self Service systems and get them to use them.
Moving from old to new self-service systems can involve difficult decisions about vendors, such as whether systems from different vendors are compatible or whether a standalone ESS system should be replaced by a specialised module from an HR or ERP software vendor.
Article translated from German