It is said that ‘self-help is the best help’!
Employee Self Service portals or ESS portals empower the employees to help themselves with common HR-related tasks as well as provide information whenever they require. They have become synonymous with HRMS software in 2021. However, that was not the case at the early stages of the HRM software.
What was once envisioned as a simple payroll calculation platform eventually evolved to accommodate multiple modules such as recruitment, onboarding, administration, training, attendance, leaves, etc. Along with the addition of all these modules, the size and complexity of the HRMS also grew and eventually, the HR department looked towards implementing additional modules for either automating their tasks or improving the employee experience.
ESS Portals play a major role in enhancing the latter.
Employee Self Service Portals helps the employees with the administrative tasks by providing them access to their details and enabling them to do basic functions such as applying for leaves, marking daily attendance, editing their personal, educational or professional details, etc.
Without an ESS portal, the employee would have had to jump several hoops to accomplish even simple tasks such as correcting a simple spelling mistake on their employee profile.
An ESS Portal helps a lot in improving the employee experience and engaging them by actively encouraging them to mark their attendance, provide feedback as well as inform them of deadlines or upcoming events using timely notifications.
An ESS Portal would also consist of a dashboard with all the details which can be edited by the employee. It will also possess a dedicated sections that provide important information regarding the different types of leaves available, attendance as well as payroll.
How are ESS portals beneficial for HR managers in 2021?
We have already understood how ESS portals help the HR department in general by resolving the employee doubts, providing access to their payroll as well as notifying them of important announcements.
However, when it comes to the HR Manager, there are several other benefits across the board, especially in 2021, when the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has changed the very definition of the workplace:
Improves Efficiency:
A good ESS Portal will be able to perform most of the administrative tasks as well as answer most of the employee queries with relevant information by the usage of specialized chatbots. All of this helps in relieving the HR personnel from repeatedly answering the same mundane queries from different employees which would take a major chunk of their daily routine.
The HRs would be free to implement other improvements advised by the HR manager, thereby increasing their overall effectiveness. This also leads to highly engaged employees which have proven to elevate their and productivity.
Decreases Cost:
The ‘cost’ here refers to both the decrease in the money spent as well as the decrease in the efforts required to undertake daily tasks. The HR manager is required to oversee the daily tasks as well as make the process more efficient by reducing the overall cost, thus ensuring that the HR department remains efficient in terms of both time, money and efforts spent. Implementing a good ESS portal ensures that all of these factors are taken care of.
We have already discussed how it improves overall efficiency. Similarly, the employees need not waste their working time after HRs for verifying various details. All of these factors lead to improved productivity, which will eventually lead to increased revenue for the company.
Engages Workforce:
Due to the 24/7 availability of the ESS portal, employees would be able to resolve their doubts as and when they occur, which will lead to a happier and content labour force. It would lead to the HR managers implementing employee-friendly initiatives such as training and development and other fun activities which would also improve the workforce retention numbers for the company.
The HR manager can also implement polls and 360-degree feedbacks via the ESS portal to get valuable insights from the employees directly, which helps in increasing employee engagement.
Increases Autonomy:
An ESS portal implements autonomy in various administrative tasks, that leads to further automation in related processes. For example, since the employees can apply for leaves via the self-service portal, the managers or supervisors can approve them from the same portal itself.
This ensures transparency in the leave management system while also requiring no human intervention in the calculation of the payroll as the system is fully automated. Several such examples can be cited that improve the autonomy of the organization with the help of the ESS portal.
This reduces the strain on the HR manager who would have to go through the details individually if these processes were being completed manually.
Increases Transparency:
As mentioned earlier, implementing an ESS portal ensures that all the staff members in an organization are on the same page since it offers relevant information to each employee. For example, while the employee would be able to view their leave and attendance details, a supervisor would be able to understand the view these details of their entire team.
Similarly, all the employees can be notified of the latest policy changes via their ESS portal. This is especially significant in 2021 when remote working has become the norm which has led to a rise in the frequency of these updates. As the HR manager is the one who implements these policies, transparency is another factor that rises by deploying a well thought out ESS Portal.
Reduces Errors:
As the employees can manage their data and fill in missing details from their Employee Self Service Portal, there will be a reduction in the overall errors in the central database. Similarly, other details about the employment such as payroll details, number of attendance and leaves, training sessions attended, etc. can be updated as and when required using the portal.
All of these factors lead to an error-free database which helps the HR manager spend less time on resolving such errors.
As we have discussed until now, ESS Portals have become a significant part of any HRMS system simply due to the various advantages it provides. It has helped a lot in reducing the stress on HR managers due to its ability to provide instant access to the required data while also keeping the employees engaged.
Due to the increased transparency, the HR department is also able to undertake their tasks remotely. This is especially crucial in 2021 when the focus has shifted to ‘working from home’ as more and more companies are adopting it to cope with the pandemic.
Hope it helps! Thanks for reading.
Author bio-
John Paul Davis is a content writer with Pocket HRMS, an innovative cloud-based HR software provider in India with over a decade of loyal clientele. His handiwork usually reflects the latest technologies in the HR domain.