Four time costs that are reduced by employee self-service

HR self-service is often seen as a winning situation for everyone involved. Employees have more visibility to data services. HR can focus on value added activities as they have fewer administrative tasks. Where can you expect to see advantages? Here are four time costs that can be lowered once you implement a self-service module for employees.

1. The elimination of redundant data entry

Do you have any processes where an employee fills out a form and it gets routed to a data entry professional who then enters the data into an HRMS? Often there is a second step for someone to audit the data after entry. Both the initial data entry and later checking of it takes time. Depending on your employee population you can save a number of hours each week by allowing data entry via self-service. It is worthwhile to calculate the hours spent in redundant data entry to understand the time savings that you’ll gain from self-service.

Guide: six steps to HRMS self service success

2. A reduction in waiting times

How much time do your employees spend looking for confirmation that data was successfully entered? What if there are questions about the data they submitted? Once the employee provides clarification does the case then return to the bottom of someone’s work list? Employees can become frustrated when simple administrative tasks like an address change have a day’s turnaround or longer. Self-service will reduce waiting times by allowing employees to do their own tasks directly in the HRMS.

3. The resolution of data errors and discrepancies

In a traditional HR environment when an HRMS is a back office system data access is limited. An HR team can do regular data audits which take up valuable time. Data problems are often seen after the fact, like when company mailings are returned due to wrong addresses. The company then contacts the employee to ask for an address clarification and then updates the HRMS. When you enable employee self-service data errors are resolved swiftly as an employee always knows their own data better than anyone else.

4. Turnaround times for new data collection

When you implement new HRMS functionality it often involves contacting employees to obtain data. If you have previously not stored emergency contacts or beneficiaries it’s an effort to send out communications by traditional methods. If you use employee self-service you can assign employee tasks in the HRMS. You can make it a necessary activity when they log into your HRMS for another task like viewing a paycheck. Enabling self-service will reduce the time it takes to collect new data.