Taking information into your own hands: Critical issues in the design and implementation of employee self-service

How can an organization empower its employees, reduce costs and improve data quality all at the same time? Implementing employee self-service tools is one direction that a number of leading companies are turning to as they look to build win-win propositions with their most important assets: their people.

By enabling employees to obtain information and process transactions without human intervention, organizations can begin to streamline workflow and lower expenses while, at the same time, enhancing the services provided to their employee population.

As margins continue to erode in many industries, there is significant pressure on executives to significantly lower administrative expenses. This includes reducing the costs and cycle time associated with managing employee transactions. At the same time, however, most senior leaders recognize the value of their employee assets and understand the importance of providing services that allow their employees to be engaged, productive and satisfied with their work environment.

Simultaneously, employees are looking for ways to improve their ability to manage their personal information and interact with the larger corporation. For one, they are looking to have more control over their time. In juggling increasing workloads with greater work-life demands, employees no longer have the time to spend filling out forms or waiting on hold for overworked service representatives. Not only do employees want to reduce the time it takes to conduct basic transactions, they want to be able to perform those activities when and where it is most convenient for them to do so.

Employee self-service is, for many processes, achieving mainstream deployment in organizations. Two recent studies have highlighted the increasingly widespread deployment of self-service across a range of employee processes. These studies indicate that 70percent to 90 percent of companies will have self-service enabled HR processes such as benefits enrollment, time and expense management, training enrollment and personnel records management this year. As employees become more accustomed to using self-service technologies, there are numerous opportunities to both expand the use of these tools and further incorporate them into day-to-day corporate life.

While firms are making notable strides in enabling employees through Web-based self-service applications, few have begun to consider the needs of employees who do not have regular access to personal computers as part of their daily jobs. We believe that addressing the needs of these groups is critical as they often reflect large percentages of the overall employee population. In this Executive Brief, we provide a framework for understanding the self-service needs of different types of workers and highlight potential scenarios for addressing their needs.

To read the complete study, download the PDF file at the top of this page.