Employee Self Service (ESS) is a feature on HR software that allows staff to view or make requests such as: update personal data, request information about payroll, request for time-off, schedule or accept appraisals, etc.
Besides using it as a way of involving employees in the HR management process, companies use the ESS in their HR software as a platform for more efficient communication where employees can easily see company announcements or receive individual notifications.
Benefits of Using Employee Self-Service
Reduced Monotonous Tasks
One significant, yet time-consuming task for HR professionals is having to collect and frequently update employee data. Managing information collection and data entry is extremely monotonous, especially when it has to be often repeated (based on recruitment frequency at the organisation). This can potentially take up most of the time of HR personnel. However, using an HRMS with the employee self-service feature means that employees can update their personal information, freeing up HR for more critical work.
Increased Employee Engagement
The access provided by the employee self-service feature helps to keep employees engaged and create a sense of brand ownership in the minds of the employees. Additionally, it provides employees with a sense transparency and builds trust in the company management.
Accuracy of Records
HR can get overwhelmed with the tedious process of manually collating and entering data, which could lead to them making errors that could affect data accuracy. This can also lead to several issues for the company, including compliance and payroll-related errors. Using the ESS, there’s a better assurance of correct information being uploaded to the system as the employees are in charge of capturing their personal information.
Simplified Benefits Management
Managing employee benefits is another time-consuming activity for HR, but with the ESS feature, employees can take it into their hands. Employees can track their eligibility for certain company perks, bonuses, and benefits within the HR software as opposed to having HR track the relevant information when they are approached by employees.
Easy Leave Management
With ESS, HR managers can stay on top of employee leave management. Instead of managing employee time-off with paper documents or confusing spreadsheets, the employee self-service feature in HR software allows employees to request for leave with a few clicks. Based on set permissions, the system automatically routes the leave request to the approver.
The employee can see the approval or rejection of their request, while HR can see all of the employees on leave at a glance, drill down to find out how many leave days a particular employee has left, and view other related information.
With ESS, leave management becomes a breeze, and the confusions over the leave calendar become a thing of the past.
SeamlessHR produces a suite of robust end-to-end HR management software that allows organisations optimise HR processes, from entry to exit. With the ESS feature in our products, HR can streamline most administrative and HR tasks from personal data updates, to recruitment, onboarding, benefits management, performance management, time and attendance, and more.
