HR fights back against paperwork, expense, and errors by instituting employee and manager self-service systems. Most employees love it immediately. It might take the managers a little longer to adjust.
By Sarah Fister Gale Comments 0 | Recommend 0
or decades, even the most experienced HR professionals have been forced to
spend much of their time doing tedious data-entry tasks and fielding support
calls. Because of the mountains of paperwork that flow into HR departments every
day, there is little opportunity to focus on critical human-management
initiatives. A recent Forrester Research study found that, on average, HR
managers spend nearly 80 percent of every day administering employee benefits
and answering routine questions.
It’s a poor use of the HR team’s expertise, but because of paper-based
information-management processes, there’s been no way to avoid these
tasks--until now. Many medium-sized and large companies are upgrading their HR
management systems, adding self-service capabilities that will forever change
the roles of the HR team. Self-service puts the responsibility for many
information-management tasks, such as filing change-of-address forms and
completing benefits enrollment, in the hands of employees, dramatically reducing
the amount of time that HR staffers spend on administrative tasks. It frees them
to focus their energy on achieving more strategic goals for the company, such as
reducing turnover and developing skills inventories. It can also enable
companies to deliver the same HR services using fewer people.
"If a company wants to take better advantage of the skills of HR professionals
or reduce the size of the HR department, self-service is an increasingly popular
decision."
If a company wants to take better advantage of the skills of HR professionals
or reduce the size of the HR department, self-service is an increasingly popular
decision, says DJ Chhabra, vice president of global HRMS development at Oracle
Corporation, an enterprise software company in Redwood Shores, California. "It
eliminates non-value-added tasks, shifting the HR team’s efforts to the
business side of HR."
But the payoff of self-service is more than just happier HR people or even a
smaller HR staff. It can also affect the bottom line in several areas, says Don
Chun, director of Global HRMS product strategy for PeopleSoft, Inc., an
enterprise application software company in Pleasanton, California. "Cost
reduction drives the investment in self-service for most companies, and they are
able to anticipate a quick return on investment in the software."
He estimates that most PeopleSoft clients see a return on investment in two
years or less, as a result of improved accuracy in data collection, reduction in
time to complete tasks, fewer calls to the HR department, and faster turnaround.
For example, one of PeopleSoft’s clients documented spending roughly $10 to
process a change-of-address form before moving to self-service. "With
self-service, that cost dropped to 25 cents," Chun says.
It’s an issue of efficiency. The $10 cost came primarily from the time it
took an HR staff person to copy an employee’s handwritten form into all of the
disparate databases. Using the self-service system, the employee enters the data
once online and it’s automatically updated in all of the necessary databases.
This level of savings is similar for every information-processing task formerly
managed by the HR staff, Chun says.
Paper and mailing costs can be dramatically reduced as well, Chhabra adds.
Pay stubs no longer have to be printed and mailed out--which can be a huge
monthly effort and cost--and all HR-related documents can be completed and sent
online, eliminating the need to print and distribute them.
Younger employees who have been raised with the Internet
expect the freedom and rapid turnaround of self-service. They want access to
company information and control of their own data.
Self-service HR tools also improve productivity and help attract and retain
qualified employees, says Tom Tillman, director of product management and
marketing for Best Software, Inc., a business management software company in St.
Petersburg, Florida. Younger employees who have been raised with the Internet
expect the freedom and rapid turnaround of self-service. They want access to
company information and control of their own data.
"Self-service is an inevitability for most mid- to large-sized companies,"
Chun says. That means in order to stay competitive, HR professionals must
evaluate and update their skill sets. As data-entry tasks are eliminated, so too
is the need for lower-level administrative employees, he says. "To move
successfully into the future, HR professionals need to transform themselves into
strategic business advisers."
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or decades, even the most experienced HR professionals have been forced to
spend much of their time doing tedious data-entry tasks and fielding support
calls. Because of the mountains of paperwork that flow into HR departments every
day, there is little opportunity to focus on critical human-management
initiatives. A recent Forrester Research study found that, on average, HR
managers spend nearly 80 percent of every day administering employee benefits
and answering routine questions.
