The company’s HR processes depended heavily on spreadsheets and paper records. Résumés and employee files were maintained in hard copy, and the employee roster and workers’ compensation information were tracked on spreadsheets. Employee paperwork was frequently lost, and data inaccuracy led to payroll going to the wrong departments and employees appearing in the wrong cost centers. The company didn’t want to add more people to the HR department, but the existing team of three HR reps, two administrators, two trainers, and a vice president was overwhelmed by the work, and errors in employee data were widespread.

    It was not uncommon for employees to have three different social security numbers recorded in three different databases, Morton says, and because of the legacy system’s limited reporting capability, managers could not track changes. "Because the information had to be entered manually into each separate system, there was incorrect and inconsistent data all over the place."

    The need to combine greater accuracy with less effort led them to the idea of employee self-service. "It just makes sense for employees to enter their own data directly," Morton says.

    Already a client of Oracle, they implemented the software vendor’s HR self-service application and immediately saw improvements in their processes. Once all of the HR documents had been moved online, routing time for document approval shrank dramatically. Instead of paperwork being sent through inter-office mail to be approved by managers who are often out of town for days at a time, now it is e-mailed so anyone can sign off on documents from anywhere there is Internet access, she says. That means that approval of employee documents, such as a promotion or a salary change, which used to take two to three weeks to complete, now takes two days.

    And because the data is entered directly online by employees, the amount of paperwork handled by Morton’s team has been reduced by 80 percent, allowing her to avoid hiring six new people to manage the growing workload. Accuracy has also improved significantly now that fewer people handle the data.

    Along with saving money, the self-service system has given management a better overview of its resources, allowing them to act more tactically, she adds. They now have up-to-the-minute employee data on such things as head count, training, and employee review details. "Having access to this kind of information enables them to make more effective decisions for the company."

    For the most part, employees supported the transition to self-service. Morton’s group marketed the switch through e-mails and the newsletter but offered little training. The only push-back they received was from a few engineering folks concerned about privacy, she says. "They were afraid that someone could use the refresh button on the browser-based application to access their personal data," she says. The fear was unfounded. Once data is taken off a screen, it can’t be refreshed, she says. "Once we put their minds to rest, they accepted the technology."

    Selling managers on self-service, which will be rolled out by early 2003, has been tougher than winning the support of employees, she adds. "In the past it was easy to blame HR when information got lost or was incorrect. We were the convenient scapegoats." Now managers will be expected to complete such tasks as online performance appraisals, status changes, promotions, and hiring and firing documentation.

    Managers have been reluctant to undertake this responsibility, but Morton and her team have met with them on several occasions to help ease the transition. In staff meetings, lunch-and-learns, and computer-based training sessions, they’ve introduced the managers to the new system, answered their questions, and impressed upon them how cost-effective self-service can be. "Everyone here is very cost-conscious," she says. "As we point out the benefit self-service brings to the organization, the managers begin to accept it."