Five reasons to use employee self-service (ESS) in your organisation
Over the past two decades, employee self-service (ESS) has evolved to take on many different forms. Advances in technology, particularly in regard to process automation, user experience (UX) and mobile apps, have made it possible for ESS to provide the modern, specialised and intuitive solution needed to meet the complex HR needs of large organisations.
In the fast-moving, ever-changing world of HR – especially one that has been drastically affected by the COVID-19 outbreak – there’s a strong case for ensuring your organisation is using the best possible ESS system. In this blog, we’ll take a closer look at five key reasons why.
1) Building a stronger employee experience
Creating a stronger experience for your employees is undoubtedly one of the primary benefits of ESS – after all, it’s in the name! But how exactly does it do this?
First and foremost, it allows them to assert greater control over everyday HR activities, such as booking leave, claiming expenses, and reviewing their payslips. It can be incredibly frustrating for employees to be restricted in which activities they can and can’t process independently, since it causes delays, increases the chance of errors, and damages productivity when they’re forced to ask their managers to process and authorise various requests which could otherwise be done in minutes.
A self-service portal also supports employees by bringing everything together in one convenient place, including pay and reward, benefits, learning and development, and expense management. All too often organisations rely on a number of disparate systems for different HR requests and this creates an inconvenient and siloed experience.
On the theme of convenience, it’s becoming increasingly important for employees to be able to manage their activities flexibly. In other words, as we move towards the consumerisation of HR technology, a quality mobile experience is a must. Sooner rather than later, employees will start to expect a standard of user experience on par with that provided by Netflix or Amazon.
2) Reducing admin for HR teams
At its core, the HR function has always been about engaging, developing and supporting people. There are few HR professionals who would advocate for making admin a greater part of their role, and yet for many it feels like an unavoidable reality without the right technology in place.
Employee self-service is a prime example of technology that can drastically reduce the amount of admin that the HR team has to process on a day-to-day basis. It effectively removes HR as the middleman between an employee and their managers, so that more time can be put back into the activities that really add strategic value.
Despite HR professionals’ concern that automation could replace them, a sophisticated ESS system allows them to concentrate on the aspects of effective people management that technology can’t yet easily replicate, such as implementing innovative and inclusive workplace policies, supporting employee wellbeing, and enriching company culture.
3) Improving the accuracy and quality of people data
‘Data’ could well be the single most important word in the world of business today. In recent years, organisations have come under immense pressure to improve how they collect, store, share, protect and use data. And which function consistently represents one of a company’s biggest and most important sources of data? That’s right, the HR function.
Along with a range of other technologies, ESS plays a vital role in improving how you manage HR data. Fundamentally, it helps your organisation to establish a single source of truth about its people, eliminating the data silos that would be created by using a number of separate systems. This means that analytics are based on a comprehensive and consistent data set – and that important business decisions made as a result are well-founded.
On top of this, ESS helps to improve the accuracy of the data, because employees are held accountable for making sure all of their essential information is kept up-to-date. After all, why rely on the HR team to make these changes – potentially increasing the chance of errors – when employees themselves are best positioned to get it right the first time?
4) Sharing organisational knowledge
In large businesses in particular, it can feel like a real struggle to access key organisational knowledge. You often have to rely on a colleague having the right information to share with you or, at the very least, to point you in the right direction. And, with many employees working remotely during the COVID-19 outbreak, effective knowledge sharing is paramount.
With an ESS system, it’s possible to electronically store all of your HR documents – from your benefits guide, to your Code of Conduct, to various workplace policies – in one place so that employees have unhindered access to information when they need it. It’s also possible to build organisational charts into the system, which are extremely helpful when it comes to understanding how the business is structured and which people fulfil certain roles.
This is yet another example of how ESS helps to streamline key HR activities, thereby improving productivity for both employees and HR managers.
5) Saving on unnecessary costs
Last but not least, organisations which use an ESS system realise a return on investment through cost savings. These costs savings come in a variety of forms, but the most notable are:
- The cost of working time spent on HR administration, including answering employee queries and fixing problems
- The cost of hiring and employing additional HR administrators
- The cost of printing physical copies of HR documents
Time to re-evaluate employee self-service?
Employee self-service may not be classified as a ‘new’ development in HR technology, but it’s continuing to evolve in order to help tackle key HR challenges. For many organisations, it may be time to consider whether their current ESS system is keeping pace with changing employee and manager expectations.
Holiday Tracking with Sprinter Time and Attendance Systems
It wasn’t very long ago that keeping track of every employee’s sick days, personal days, company days, and holidays was simply an administrative nightmare. Time and money were lost having to figure out who had taken which day off and how many days they had accrued and used – a frustrating and time-consuming job. In the past, these days were tallied in individual employee files, creating a completely inaccurate system. Some companies may have even used spreadsheets or time-consuming computer programs that did little to get the job done. So, let’s fast forward to today, and Utilizing electronic time and attendance systems is now a perfect way to eliminate inefficiency, saving time and money for all.
No matter which type of Sprinter time and attendance system you choose (whether it be Face, biometric, PIN, or card), the software that couples with it allows you to tailor each employee’s hourly wage with their individual paid and unpaid time off. This can easily be linked to any department, allowing them to accurately track days off as well as pay. In addition, these systems can also be aligned with and take into account any state and federal holidays – and the software greatly increases the efficiency of the entire process.
In addition, Sprinter time and attendance systems allow for employees to be able to request time off, usually by logging into the system through a web-based program and requesting a certain amount of days. This is especially useful if a sudden illness requires an employee to take a sick day immediately, negating the need to wait until morning to try to contact the administration. With this, management can be notified of the absence right away and may also have the ability to accept, reject, and, most importantly, track this time.
Sprinter T&A systems can also record and accrue vacation time for each employee, beginning as soon as an employee comes on board. This automation allows for management to spend more time running day-to-day operations, instead of grappling with vacation and holiday time off for every individual employee. It also allows the employees themselves to always know when they have available time off.
In the end, these systems literally lift the burden of all the guesswork that goes hand in hand with tracking holiday time off. It makes the process much more clear-cut and confusion-free, allowing payroll departments and management to easily see allotted time off minus the countless meetings and paper trail.
So, use time and attendance software for all your holiday tracking needs, and save yourself a lot of time and, of course…money!
Employee Scheduling Tips for Effective Management
Employee scheduling is an important concern for every business manager. Managers can feel the pressure mounting when there is a lack of an effective scheduling process. Similarly, it hurts employee morale when they do not have a schedule that serves their skills and needs. To make matters worse, often the person in charge of staff scheduling is dealing with piles of timetables, schedules, availability calendars, and employee requests that they must managed manually or on a large spreadsheet. Some schedulers dedicate whole days or even weeks to developing, publishing, and editing employee schedules!
There are dozens of schedule-related problems that need the attention of managers and staff alike. A well-managed schedule keeps the organization moving and resolves many complex situations. Let’s take a look at five ways to make the process easier.
- Know your team
The first step to effective employee scheduling is to create list of staff on Sprinter Software, who are currently working for your business or department. Along with their names and roles, you should also keep contact information handy, as well as any relevant skills and certifications. Additional information can include whether they’re part-time or full-time, as well as any overtime restrictions. - Create a process for staff availability
Give employees a chance to communicate their preferred work hours. Giving staff the option to voice their preferences offers managers a way to promote a collaborative environment. Additionally, knowing employee preferences can allow you to place staff in an available work shift that’s convenient for both parties. Availability can be kept in a calendar format or as a form. Employees should be able to pick more than one preferred shift. They should also be aware that they may sometimes have to work others shifts to cover all open business hours. - Make the schedule easily accessible
Once you’ve created the schedule on Sprinter Software, make sure that it is easy for staff members to view and access it. Often times, staff members can forget to look at the schedule if it is not in an easily visible place. Moreover, it’s easy for staff members to lose or misplace paper copies of their individual schedules. If the staff doesn’t have easy access to the schedule, they will often show up late to work (if they show up at all). - Plan for the worst
When you design the work schedule, keep the emergency factor in mind. A well designed schedule includes a plan B, so the manager won’t have to panic if any employee doesn’t show up or has to leave for an emergency. Having a well-organized availability chart will help here as well. Managers should also have clearly defined rules about shift trades and absences. - Schedule the right person for the job
Use your staff list to ensure that you are scheduling employees according to their talents and skills. Sometimes, especially in understaffed environments, managers are forced to fill the shifts even with staff who do not best suit the jobs. This may get the work done; however, your business will benefit greatly from processes that are perfected versus being just completed. Constantly scheduling staff members in positions that do not suit their preferences or abilities can also have a negative effect on employee morale.
To make employee scheduling easy, you may want to consider replacing the manual management process with a software solution. Effective scheduling software will offer conflict management to produce error-free schedules and deliver the flexibility to handle your particular needs. However you do your scheduling, covering all your shifts with the right person while making the process more efficient and less stressful should be your ultimate goal.