Employee Self Service: Definitions, Advantages and Benefits

Employee self service (ESS) is a cloud-based technology that helps automate and facilitate a number of fundamental HR functions, including:

• Accessing and updating personal details.
• Viewing leave balances and making requests.
• Downloading payslips.
• Claiming expenses.
• Getting company benefit details.

Crucially for most HR teams, it lets employees do this on their own, via self service. Done properly, this can make life much easier for managers and HR teams, while also providing a more consistent and high-quality experience for the employee. In this blog, we explain how this works and discuss the key benefits.

How does employee self service work?

ESS operates by bringing together an interactive web application on the user’s end with an organisation’s searchable knowledge database. It allows users to separately navigate around the site and access their information through their own personal accounts. As well as personal information, an ESS also tends to house key resources such as company policies, factsheets, FAQs and others. This allows employees to manage their own information, reducing the need for HR to handle as many queries and requests.

But it’s not just employees: Manager self service is another essential function of an ESS tool. Here, managers can oversee their team and check information such as absences, leave allowance, outstanding requests and more.

Today, ESS is typically used as part of a broader human capital management (HCM) platform or human resources information system (HRIS). The most popular and effective tools today are generally delivered via a software-as-a-service (SaaS) mode, where organisations are charged per number of active users.

Common features of employee self service (ESS)

When an employee logs in to their ESS platform, they’ll have access to a wide range of important information about their role and company. This includes:

• Personal information – Users can view and update next of kin details, address information, phone number, bank details and more.
• Payroll data – Information on pay, taxes and expenses.
• Leave allowance – Here, employees can submit time off requests, view the status of existing requests and see their remaining allowance.
• Company benefits – Employees can view policy details and enrol in benefits programmes.
• Company policies – Including company handbooks and other shared policy documents.
• L&D – Some tools also include L&D functionality, creating a single shared area for all HR services.

Read more: 7 Benefits of Talent Management Systems for Businesses

The benefits of employee self-service (ESS)

The right ESS platform offers a whole range of benefits for employees, managers and HR teams. Here are some of the most important:

Employee autonomy

Employees can view and update their personal data through a centralised people management system, including leave requests and pay slips. This offers greater autonomy over their data and means they don’t have to rely on other employees to give them access to it.

Less HR admin

An ESS can also help employees complete HR-related tasks with greater speed and efficiency. By allowing employees to handle HR tasks themselves, you can reduce admin for HR and managers.

Remote first

Cloud-based technology is by far the best way to manage distributed teams. Relying on informal processes is difficult in an office, but next to impossible when remote. Instead, HR, managers and employees should all be able to easily and securely access sensitive information from anywhere.

No more silos

Having different platforms for payroll, holiday management, learning and performance management makes it more difficult to ensure consistency between them. It also increases the risk that there will be errors and makes it more difficult for individual employees to find the information they need. Instead, employees should be able to access everything in one platform, wherever they are.

Reduces paper waste

Going paperless is good for the environment and saves space and money. Naturally, turning to a completely digital model can reduce unnecessary and inefficient paper processes to an absolute minimum.

Fewer errors

A key benefit of self service is improved accuracy. Manual paper processes can lead to mistakes, while automation eliminates errors in data transfer. Employees entering their own information also tend to be more accurate, since they’re more likely to spot mistakes with their own details.

Better insights

Self service technology provides managers with a complete view of their team and lets you make informed business decisions. This improves productivity and leads to a better employee experience for those involved.

Upgrade your employee experience with ELMO HR Core

ELMO HR Core helps you achieve all the benefits we’ve listed above. The goal is to provide a base of operations for your employees’ information and services, so you can offer an effective and consistent experience for everybody. This includes a range of self service features, including:

• Accessing and updating personal leave information.
• Requesting leave and checking approval status.
• Viewing remaining leave allowance.
• Checking payslips and pay summaries.
• Accessing team analytics and dashboards.
• Creating organisational charts to improve communication and collaboration.

A solution like ELMO HR is by far the best way to create the consistently high employee experience that workers expect, while reducing the admin burden on the HR teams and managers who need to deliver it.

Want to find out more? Check out the ELMO HR Core product page.