HR Departments have always struggled with the tedious administrative tasks like the management of employee data and payrolls besides other time-consuming paperwork. Many businesses still devote lots of time and energy to these tasks while others have leveraged technology to work smart. When HR teams look for ways to improve their efficiency and accuracy, Employee Self Service (ESS) turns out to be a boon. This small step to put your employees first can have several desirable outcomes.

What is Employee Self Service (ESS)?

Employee Self-Service is an online platform that enables your employees to view and edit their personal information, to manage their HR, Payroll-related, and benefits information. Employees get their login access to ESS portals and thus take care of many HR-related and job-related tasks that would otherwise need to be completed by HR personnel. When your employees have their ESS enabled, anything from making changes to their personal details to applying for leave is made easier. The introduction of Employee Self Service transforms many manual HR processes, thus resulting in more logical and efficient systems.

What are the common features of ESS?

Most Employee Self Service systems allow employees to change personal information such as an address, contact information, submit time-off requests, and allow managers to approve these requests. Some ESS systems also allow employees to view scheduling and pay history, company information and benefits information. ESS helps in adjusting timesheets, request for a loan, access to a healthcare plan, overtime payment, reimbursement slips, and other aspects that concerns with an everyday work life of an employee. With ESS, employees can access the sick leave hours, vacation hours, pay rate information, performance appraisals, and information about HR inquiries or reports under the same platform.

Though it appears as something focused on the employees, ESS has much more to contribute. By benefitting employees and employers alike, ESS makes it a win-win situation.  

Why do businesses need Employee Self Service?  

The following benefits are more than enough to explain why ESS becomes a must-have for businesses, irrespective of the size of the organization. When your employees have direct control over their employment information, it boosts their morale. Better satisfied workers are more empowered and productive. At the end of the day, when the employees benefit the organization also benefits. In an increasingly competitive employee talent market, ESS aids to create a positive work culture and has positive impacts on employee retention. Of course, it goes without saying that talent retention saves money. And, in that way, ESS saves you money.

Benefits for employees

With ESS you increase the value of self-service for your employees and encourage them to be autonomous. Since the ESS portal is cloud-based, employees can access the portal from anywhere, at any time. It doesn’t matter whether they access it from homes, on a mobile device, or in another office building. They don’t have to wait for work hours or for your HR staff to be available. Employees can get their questions answered or update their information in real-time. Sounds good, right?

Employee Self Service portals also have access to a cloud-based database of all HR-related documents like training materials, HR policies, etc. If your employees are out of the office but need more information about company travel policies and reimbursement, they can access that without involving HR. Thus, ESS also helps eliminate confusion. Don’t you think ESS is a real savior during remote work?  

ESS provides transparency of information. Employees can look back to the information stored on the ESS portal and confirm its authenticity whenever they wish to. Documents related to benefits, safety procedures, salary revisions, complaints, and other company policies can be accessed by employees as soon as they want to have a look. Since ESS provides information regarding leave balances and attendance records, employees can access and crosscheck these at any point.

The best part about ESS is that data entry errors and other mistakes can be avoided by allowing employees to enter their own information. When employees evaluate their information, the chances of inaccuracy decreases. 

Benefits for employers

It doesn’t require an explanation of how Employee Self Service eases the burden on managers and reduces administrative time. With ESS, all those hours spent accessing and updating employee data would be eliminated, allowing more time for improving the work environment and saving money on workforce-related costs. ESS boosts your business through increased productivity and improved time and energy savings.

Employee Self Service becomes a platform for employers to share and highlight company policies. Whenever a policy change occurs, alerting all employees using manual methods could be difficult, right? Be assured that with ESS, sharing policy changes or even highlighting existing policies becomes a matter of a few seconds.

ESS helps to track absences and attendance. This may be particularly helpful if some or all of the employees work telecommute since it allows employees to “clock in,” track hours, report overtime, or absences. This can make payroll management easier. You don’t need to worry about staying compliant with the FLSA during remote work.

For those employers who hire nonimmigrant workers, ESS will be even more advantageous. ESS allows your employees to scan and upload documents; access online pay slips; view and print federal and state withholding forms; confirm employer-initiated employment status, rate of pay, or other changes; update personal information and educational experience, etc. By making it all available in one place ESS makes it easier for employers when viewed from the Compliance and Auditing perspective. With the ease of data entry and the improved efficiency of HR functions, data has become easier to audit. This has improved data integrity, ensuring greater compliance with both company policies and existing legislature. So, ESS becomes the means to reduce mistakes and thereby avoid penalties and fines.

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OnBlick ESS provides everything you need to streamline the HR processes for your business. OnBlick mobile ESS makes it easier by letting your employees access the services on the go. OnBlick’s integration with payroll services of ADP is an added advantage. Know how OnBlick can take your workforce management to the next level.