How to Get Your Employees Adopt Self-Service Tools

Do you remember the last time when you handed over the keys of your car to one of your friends? Though you were confident about his expertise, you must have felt a little apprehensive! After a while, you would have enjoyed sitting quietly while he was sailing your car smoothly through the messy traffic.

Similar is the situation within a company where an HR person might feel apprehensive about making employees the in-charge of their details. However, it’s important for them to ease off the burden of monotonous tasks and focus on core people operations.

As an HR professional, you need to give your employees the right tools to take the self-service wheel confidently. Also, you need to put them on the right path with proper training for employee self-service tools.

Only then, you can eliminate worries and focus your efforts on fulfilling other significant HR and payroll tasks.

Having said that, employee self-service is equally important. It enables improved efficiency with employees getting the information when and where they need it. Self-service portals help in enhancing employee experience by giving them the information they need in the desired manner.

So, why not roll out this amazing portal in your organization soon! The road to self-service doesn’t have to be bumpy for your employees. Adopt these practices to achieve better results:

Understand Your Changing Workforce

Millennials constitute the significant slice of today’s workforce. Once having a bad rap, it’s now considered to be more aligned towards contentment in the workplace than you might think. They are labelled as the generation that is always glued to iPhones. However, research shows that meaning and purpose in the work excites them as much as the next-gen gadgets.

Many of the people coming through your office doors also belong to the Gen Y. They are not just tech-savvy, but also demand access to the information when and how they wish to receive it. More than anything, they value their time. And, complexities in your employee self-service tool can dissuade them.

So, make sure that the employee self-service tool you are investing in, is tailored to the expectations of your modern workforce.

Invest in Enabling Technologies

The employee self-service tool you implement in your organization should make information accessible, efficient and informative for every employee. While your millennial workforce demand time, they value flexibility in terms of the tools of the trade. Instead of using multiple technology applications, they prefer a central online portal where they can access all information at one place.

Adopt Change Management Practices

Don’t put your employees on the self-service tool without giving them the right instruction and training. Transitioning to self-service requires proper skills and training on the part of employees.  If you give the self-service wheels to your employees, they are likely to head towards a dead end.

Instead, you should follow the change management strategy suggested by Proski. His ADKAR model suggests four steps to change management – Awareness of the reasons for change, Desire to participate in the change, Ability to implement the change, and Reinforcement to ensure that the change stays. Communicate clearly with your employees about the reasons for change, and how employee self-service tool would empower them.

At the same time, you need to consider the need of every employee within your organization. If your workforce consists of remote workers and those travelling to vendor’s locations, you need to provide them the flexibility of mobile access to an employee self-service tool.

Foster Communication with Employees

What millennials seek is a collaborative goal setting with clear performance expectations. They crave for challenges and want their work to have meaning and challenges. All this is possible only when they are communicated properly about their roles and responsibilities. Managers need to align their team members to the right set of responsibilities as per their skillset. At the same time, they need to be conveyed about any change in processes. Your employees won’t make the transition to a self-service function unless they are informed about the purpose of the change.

You can advertise the change on the intranet platform within your organization, and also communicate in person with every employee to covey the self-service benefits.

Long gone are the days when employees logged their working hours at the workstation, waiting to clock out at six on the dot. Today’s millennials want to be involved in the organizations’ journey to growth and success. Help them understand that an employee self-service tool will give them an opportunity to fit into the bigger picture!