How Employee Self-Service Tools Improve Accuracy and Reduce HR Admin Time

Human Resources departments are designed to support employees, but they can get bogged down in a bunch of individual tasks. In the modern era where employees are tech-savvy and willing to take on some of their own management, employee self-service tools can maximize efficiency and ensure accuracy.

What Are Employee Self-Service Tools?

A self-service platform like Workforcehub allows your employees to access HR-related information securely and safely. Available data may include:

• Shift scheduling
• Payroll
• Time off requests
• Available vacation and sick leave
• Hours worked in a time period
• Benefits donations, such as to FSA, HSA, or retirement accounts
• Tax forms

Instead of putting in a request to HR to find answers to these common employment questions, employees can access their personal records at any time.

Benefits of Self-Service Tools

Review 5 benefits of implementing self-service tools.

1. Improve Accuracy and Compliance

Accurate employee information is not only important to the company, it’s also required for legal and tax reasons. When employees have access to their personal information, such as legal spelling of their name, mailing address, and bank accounts, they can ensure it’s always accurate. Periodic reminders within the program can prompt employees to check and make any updates as needed.

Proper records ensure your company stays in compliance with federal and state laws concerning recordkeeping, without the burden of paperwork that can become outdated without anyone realizing it. Employee access to tax forms ensures their payroll deductions are accurate, along with bank account information for direct deposits. Employees can look over benefits information and make changes when life dictates it, such as a child aging out of health insurance or a change in marital status. This helps put the onus of accuracy on the employee updating their own situation as it happens, rather than HR playing catch-up when the information gets passed on.

2. Reduce HR Time

HR professionals may sometimes feel like all their time is taken up with checking the PTO of an employee who wants to take a trip next week to helping someone locate the correct forms to sign up for FSAdue tomorrow. Scattered requests like this, while part of the job, can eat into the workflow of a day and cause less urgent tasks to get pushed lower on the priority list. Add to this the time burden of onboarding a new employee, and HR may feel pulled in a hundred directions before lunch.

According to Greenhouse, the average time spent onboarding a new employee is 11 hours, where automated onboarding through employee self-service tools can cut that time by half, saving the company money and the HR department significant time. Newer, younger members of the workforce tend to be inherently trusting of software, and most prefer the ability to manage things on their own as much as possible without contacting superiors.

Individual employee access to company policies, benefits information, payroll info, time off availability, and schedules drastically reduce the one-off questions that can fill HR’s inbox, without reducing trust. It may also allow your company to reduce the number of HR staff per employee, saving money without overburdening existing HR staff.

3. Scheduling in Real Time

For shift workers reliant on the schedule to know when they’re supposed to work, access to a real-time, accurate schedule promotes accountability and reliability. If your company is still relying on paper or spreadsheet for scheduling, you run the risk of having to scramble when employees inevitably need to call out for sickness or life emergencies. The burden of contacting and rearranging the schedule then falls on the manager, and the updates don’t always reach the employees in time. 

Employee self-service tools allow employees to arrange substitutes and swaps for themselves, with parameters set by management to determine which swaps may need approval and which ones can happen independently. This can save hours of manager time and promote a sense of teamwork and accountability among the staff that contributes positively to company culture.

4. Simplify Time Off Requests

Self-service tools can also be a centralized way for employees to schedule time off requests. By using a single platform as the standard tool, you eliminate the worry of lost emails or forgotten conversations. Employees can see what time PTO they have available and make their requests accordingly. Managers can see all requests at once and make quick work of accepting or rejecting the requests.

5. Manage Remote Employees Efficiently

If your company has remote workers or employees who start or end work on the road or in the field, it can be a challenge to get accurate time-tracking data. Employees can access self-service tools from their devices no matter where they are physically located, ensuring proper clock-in and clock-out procedures even in different time zones. Integration with payroll software takes efficiency one step further, eliminating tedious HR work to sync all your data for payroll.

Adopting an employee self-service tool promotes accuracy, compliance, and trust. HR departments can cut down on busywork and focus on the bigger picture tasks that lead your company to success.