From Novelty to Normality
Take-up of HR self-service may remain patchy across the private and public sectors, but there’s little doubt that the concept has now won widespread acceptance. Compared to just a few years ago, when early pioneers could expect to encounter resistance both from inside the HR function and among line managers and employees, today’s self-service projects tend to be less fraught with political and cultural opposition.
The change management challenges are still significant – after all, self-service fundamentally transforms roles – and some of the core technology is still relatively new. But the adoption cycle has shifted from early pioneers to mainstream business practice.
In some respects, this shift reflects broader acceptance of the principles of self-service in the consumer and business-to-business environments. Most internet users are familiar with web-based customer service applications, ranging from sites that answer ‘frequently asked questions’ (FAQs) about your telephone bill or PC problems, to more sophisticated websites that offer live online ‘chat’ with a service agent through instant messaging. As an alternative to calling a service centre, navigating through an automated voice directory and listening to hold music while you wait for an agent, customer self-service has a lot going for it.
The same benefits have now become apparent in the HR field. At its most basic, the aim of self-service is to remove one or more layers of administrative HR bureaucracy, primarily by allowing employees and managers access to systems that were once the preserve of the HR function.
Instead of filling in a paper form or Word document to change their bank details or home address, employees can enter their own information through secure online access. No rekeying is required, which cuts down HR administrative overhead and also reduces the potential for errors.
Some of the early resistance to self-service was based on the fear that HR was using it to push its administrative burden onto line managers and employees. Today, however, many employees simply expect to be able to interact online. For ‘Generation Y’, brought up in a world of social networking and 24-hour online banking, the idea of filling in paper-based forms to change their address or waiting days to get sight of a past-month payslip is simply arcane.
As acceptance of the concept has grown, so the capability of HR systems has increased, and self-service applications now cover a wide range of functions. Some of these are informational – allowing employees to check their outstanding vacation days, check their benefit entitlements, or access and print-out their payslips. Others are more interactive. Many self-service applications allow employees to sign up for training courses, for example, and then direct the request to their manager for approval through pre-defined workflows. Some self-service applications also allow employees with cafeteria-style benefits to carry out ‘What if?’ analysis to assess potential changes in circumstance and model the most beneficial set-ups.
As the concept of self-service spreads, it becomes embedded in the way that organisations carry out their day-to-day activities. Self-service functionality in recruitment applications allows line managers to check on the number of applicant responses and chart the progress of individual candidates through the interview process. Likewise, managers can input summary information and action points from performance reviews via self-service, triggering follow-up actions (such as training requests) and providing a central information pool where they, their employees and HR can check on progress. At this point, self-service is no longer an HR application – it’s a mechanism for more effective people management and a tool for generating workforce intelligence.
Computers In Personnel Ltd
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Marlow, SL7 1DD
0870 366 2345