Your HR team has a lot to juggle every day, but not all of it has strategic value. For example, HR teams can spend around 50% of their time just processing information and answering questions. Add this tedious busywork to the pile of other administrative tasks they’re responsible for, and you can see how difficult it is for HR to commit any time to insights and strategies that can benefit the business as a whole.
HR inefficiency affects your employees too. Whether they’re in the office or working remotely, your employees may be using their mobile devices in some professional capacity. If they are, they know how effective mobile apps can be for getting things done quickly, accurately, and on the go. Unfortunately, when it comes to many HR-related processes, mobile may not be an option, and the cumbersome combination of clunky HR software and back-and-forths with administrators can negatively impact the employee experience.
So, how do you increase efficiency for both your HR team and your employees? By implementing a human capital management (HCM) system that includes employee self-service and mobile capabilities. When you do, here are three important benefits you can realize.
1. Reduce calls and employee questions
Typically, when an employee has a question or request regarding their own HR-, payroll- or benefits-related information, they have to contact an HR administrator. But a seemingly quick question can turn into a lengthy process if the administrator is consumed with a lot of other responsibilities or has to hunt through multiple systems to track down an answer. The employee then gets stuck in a waiting game until the administrator can help.
An HCM system that centralizes employee information in one place and includes an employee self-service portal, accessible from desktop computers and mobile devices, means HR no longer has to get bogged down with employee requests. Instead, employees can quickly and easily access their own information and make updates to it as needed — anytime, anywhere — reducing a significant portion of the calls and questions your HR team gets.
And because this type of system makes employees responsible for their own information, it can even help you avoid certain penalties for inaccurate or incomplete data. Employees ensure the accuracy of their data instead of administrators, thus reducing the chance of errors or duplication that can impact reporting and compliance.
2. Increase employee engagement
No one wants to be at the mercy of another team or department, but that’s often how employees feel when they have to rely on HR to do even the most basic things. Not being able to look up their PTO balance, update an address, or track down a pay stub on their own eventually erodes employee satisfaction, since, from their perspective, they constantly have to jump through time-consuming hoops just to get simple things done.
With self-service and mobile capabilities, employees have much greater control over the HR data and processes that directly involve them. They don’t have to wait until an administrator has time to fulfill a request. Instead, they can log in to the portal, and see all their related data and records — using the devices they prefer. When employees are empowered this way, they don’t have to depend on others and can take an information-on-demand approach that they’re accustomed to in other areas of their lives.
This type of regular interaction with a flexible self-service portal ultimately boosts employee engagement by giving employees a stake in their own workplace success. When employees are invested and engaged, businesses tend to thrive and can see as much as a 23% increase in profitability, an 18% increase in productivity, and an 81% decrease in costly absenteeism.
3. Spend less on paper and postage
All that paper routinely used for HR administration comes with costs: aside from the paper itself, there are printer and ink, postage, equipment maintenance, and other office supply costs. If your HR team is still reliant on traditional, manual, paper-based processes, you have to budget for equipment and supplies every year — begging the question: could the money be better spent on modern, more effective tools?
When you run a cost-benefit analysis of a mobile app for employees, for instance, you might see that the initial price of the investment is similar to the money you’d otherwise have to spend on printing, mailing, and filing hard copies of critical HR forms, reports, and communications. But over the long run, you can see a sizable return on your investment with the time and costly headaches it saves in HR administration.
An HCM with self-service capabilities that enables mobile employees eliminates the need for paper systems since all employee information can be entered, stored, accessed, updated, and shared in one digital place. No one has to search through a filing cabinet, risk the wrong version of a form, deal with the fallout of mistakes, or continue to waste money on outdated processes, tools, and methods.
Prioritize HR efficiency today
An employee mobile app and self-service capabilities align far better today with an efficient, cost-effective workplace than do the paper-based processes and poor workflow management systems your HR team may be used to.
With an HCM system that empowers employees to take charge of their own information — on their own terms and in their own time — you can free up your HR team to focus on higher-value tasks and initiatives that can make a positive impact on the business and solidify HR’s role as a strategic player.
Are you ready to see how a mobile-optimized HCM system with self-service capabilities can improve your HR efficiency?
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