Employee self-service (ESS) is a popular and widely used human resources technology which enables employees to perform job-related functions like applying for leave, updating personal information, applying for reimbursement. All of the above functions are normally maintained by administrative staff manually. Employee self-service system is often available as a part of a large enterprise resource planning (ERP) or Customer relation management software (CRM) which often delivered by SaaS platforms.

How Can Employee Self-service Help Businesses?

At a basic level, employee self-service leverages technology to allow employees to perform tasks which were previously handled by company’s HR department manually. Employee self-service applications are generally made available through company’s portal or a third-party portal which employees can easily access at home or work or via company’s intranet. Employee self-service saves the valuable time of your business and also increases employee engagement in a better way. When you give you remote employees and on-site workers the flexibility to access their work schedules and manage leaves online, planning becomes easier.

Empowers employees

With a CRM for Employee Management, employees are able to view their schedules, time cards etc. without having to go to HR department. Instead of waiting for their supervisors to circulate requests manually, the staff can simply place requested on ESS system dashboard. Everyone can view the status of the request under the account tab and administrators can monitor request for all employees.

Eliminates confusion

When it comes to applying and approving leave, employee self-service makes things easier as administrators can view the leave status and hence adding responsibilities accordingly. When schedules and shift changes are centrally managed managers can access the data anytime. Automatic notifications inform all involved parties about leaves and important scheduling and thereby eliminating confusion.

Reduces admin time

When an automated system takes over tedious manual assignments, it significantly reduces admin time and facilitates supervisor to work on other important projects. Growing startups also need not worry about hiring an HR executive to handle a growing workforce, as everything is automated.

Advantages of Using Employee Self-service

The potential advantages of adopting employee self-service for business are wide-ranging and vary with businesses. Some of the common benefits are:

  • Reduced manual and paperwork for HR department.
  • Fewer data entry or clerical tasks for HR and administrative team which frees them for other major works.
  • Potential to reduce HR/administrative staff count.
  • Better transaction accuracy due to less paperwork.
  • Ability to recognize some type of data entry errors.
  • Opportunity to improve employee engagement.

Benefits of Employee self-service

Easy access anywhere, anytime

An Employee self-service portal allows employees to access leave application data from a smartphone, laptop, computer or any mobile devices either from office, home or any remote locations. The staff doesn’t have to make a special request to know how much vacation time they have before the year ends as all the information will be displayed on the dashboard. This instant access to information relieves stress for both employees and management and they can start making arrangements to stay productive.

Increases labor efficiency

HR and administration personnel are tasked with several major administrative duties which are interrupted by certain data entry works by entering leave information and work schedule of employees. However, an employee self-service system encourages and empowers employees to take control of their time management and this lessens the burden of HR team. Real-time data is captured in the cloud and can be retrieved by employees and managers whenever needed. Employees can also view their profiles and make leave requests which managers can easily accept or deny.

Manage absences in the most productive way

Employee absenteeism is a costly and disruptive affair for any company, regardless of their niche. But the great news is, it is also manageable. Employee self-service makes it possible to view and manage the leave status of all employees which allows managers and administrative task to reschedule responsibilities accordingly. You can also detect absenteeism trends and take necessary actions and gain real-time visibility of your workforce.

Make staff scheduling easy

Organizing and managing staff scheduling is one of the biggest challenges a business faces. Employee self-service system allows automatic scheduling and forecasting which helps managers to harness data like rates of availability of staff, pay, skills etc. which automatically generates the most productive roster.

In the conclusion

Employee self-service is a feature which is available in employee management system which is beneficial for managers to allocate yearly leaves for their employees and also import annual holiday list. Employees can also apply for leave online and the leave request status would be displayed in their dashboards automatically. With an Employee self-service system, staff can easily access key data from their desktop, mobile devices, tablet or any device remotely. Both small and medium enterprise can benefit from employee self-service and will see an immediate increase inefficiently and productivity. Managers and HR department can save labor hours and confusions on a daily basis when not faced with working through leave allocation issues, scheduling problems, time off requests etc. Additionally, entry errors and other manual mistakes can be avoided by allowing employees to input their own information in the system.