Focus on usage now needed
As companies become more comfortable with technology and online security, the adoption rates for employee self-service (ESS) have grown exponentially in the last few years, according to Sandra Sutton, director of product management at ADP in Toronto, a provider of business administrative solutions.
Using ESS, employees are able to bypass HR to access things like online company information, pay statements, benefits enrolment and personal data.
But the University of Toronto discovered the journey to a successful ESS is not always smooth. The school introduced ESS to 7,000 of its 12,000 employees in 2004 to provide convenient access to HR information and transactions online, anytime, from home or work. It also hoped for savings in time and money by reducing processing tasks and errors, says Christina Sass-Kortsak, assistant vice-president of HR at the university. More recently, the online approach made sense as a way to diminish the environmental footprint.
The original service, which uses an SAP system, includes access to and maintenance of information for home addresses, banking, emergency contacts, personal data, current and historical earning statements and benefit enrolment. In 2005, links were added to vendors, benefits forms, staff tuition waivers, scholarship applications and a pension plan brochure. The university also added tax slips.
More recently, two pilot projects were rolled out — one for 300 employees for performance assessments and another providing 800 employees with online-only pay statements.
Despite these efforts, utilization is only about 10 per cent, says Sass-Kortsak.
“This is not huge, not nearly as much as we’d like it to be,” she says. “When we launched there was not really a strong enough carrot of something people really wanted that they could get this way.”
When the school made T4s available, it saw a spike to 16 per cent, which was a very good lesson, she says.
“If they like it, they’re more likely to use it.”
Usage should definitely be higher, says David Ludlow, vice-president of product strategy at SAP in Palo Alto, Calif., a global provider of business software solutions. For targeted users, there should be 80- to 90-per-cent adherence, though the type of industry can make a difference (such as manufacturing, with few desk-based jobs), as can a company’s decision to continue offering old methods such as paper pay stubs. Typically companies don’t give employees access to the old way of doing things to get as many people automated as possible, he says.
But one of the biggest challenges has been the institution’s culture, says Sass-Kortsak.
“People are used to receiving something in a certain way, so it’s changing their behaviour. You really need to know the culture you’re operating in and the tolerance for change and for the new system you put out there,” she says. “Encouraging people to use it has been more work than expected.”
Awareness of the new system is not as high as it should be and more communication is needed on the benefits of ESS. The school has used e-mail to spread the word but information overload is always a challenge, she says.
“What we’re conscious of and being careful of is there not be a perception we’re downloading work onto people.”
Any organization rolling out self-service has to go through a change-management process, says Sutton at ADP.
“They really do have to do an internal campaign to make sure employees understand it and are comfortable accessing it.”
The most successful ESS launches take a very deliberate marketing view and really position the value, says SAP’s Ludlow. Employers should show the “cool” side, emphasizing how employees can control their data and not have to rely on others. It’s also important to give a similar user experience to the previous one so employees can get through the transaction as quickly as possible, he says, although the new processes should also reflect what the company is hoping to accomplish.
“Don’t simply replicate what you have but take a good look at what you’re doing and how you can improve that,” says Ludlow.
Another problem area is the intranet, used by most companies as the access point for ESS. Ideally navigating the intranet shouldn’t require much training if presented intuitively, says Toby Ward, president of Prescient Digital Media, a Toronto-based Internet and intranet consulting firm.
“If you do the proper planning and strategy, which would include developing smart information architecture, meaning how the content is organized and related to each other, then you’ll do far less work in the end because there’s less re-engineering, redesigning, fielding of complaints and less time educating the employee population,” says Ward.
As for the University of Toronto’s hoped-for reduction in costs, Sass-Kortsak says it’s too early to say, but once pay slips go fully online, there will be obvious savings in paper and mailing. The school is also working on providing attendance management that will display vacation used and earned. But for now, the university is largely focused on enhancing and increasing usage among current users.
“That kind of resistance is going to disappear as more people enter the workforce so they’re Internet-savvy and used to being online,” says Ludlow. “(ESS) is going to become expected, really.”
Using ESS, employees are able to bypass HR to access things like online company information, pay statements, benefits enrolment and personal data.
But the University of Toronto discovered the journey to a successful ESS is not always smooth. The school introduced ESS to 7,000 of its 12,000 employees in 2004 to provide convenient access to HR information and transactions online, anytime, from home or work. It also hoped for savings in time and money by reducing processing tasks and errors, says Christina Sass-Kortsak, assistant vice-president of HR at the university. More recently, the online approach made sense as a way to diminish the environmental footprint.
The original service, which uses an SAP system, includes access to and maintenance of information for home addresses, banking, emergency contacts, personal data, current and historical earning statements and benefit enrolment. In 2005, links were added to vendors, benefits forms, staff tuition waivers, scholarship applications and a pension plan brochure. The university also added tax slips.
More recently, two pilot projects were rolled out — one for 300 employees for performance assessments and another providing 800 employees with online-only pay statements.
Despite these efforts, utilization is only about 10 per cent, says Sass-Kortsak.
“This is not huge, not nearly as much as we’d like it to be,” she says. “When we launched there was not really a strong enough carrot of something people really wanted that they could get this way.”
When the school made T4s available, it saw a spike to 16 per cent, which was a very good lesson, she says.
“If they like it, they’re more likely to use it.”
Usage should definitely be higher, says David Ludlow, vice-president of product strategy at SAP in Palo Alto, Calif., a global provider of business software solutions. For targeted users, there should be 80- to 90-per-cent adherence, though the type of industry can make a difference (such as manufacturing, with few desk-based jobs), as can a company’s decision to continue offering old methods such as paper pay stubs. Typically companies don’t give employees access to the old way of doing things to get as many people automated as possible, he says.
But one of the biggest challenges has been the institution’s culture, says Sass-Kortsak.
“People are used to receiving something in a certain way, so it’s changing their behaviour. You really need to know the culture you’re operating in and the tolerance for change and for the new system you put out there,” she says. “Encouraging people to use it has been more work than expected.”
Awareness of the new system is not as high as it should be and more communication is needed on the benefits of ESS. The school has used e-mail to spread the word but information overload is always a challenge, she says.
“What we’re conscious of and being careful of is there not be a perception we’re downloading work onto people.”
Any organization rolling out self-service has to go through a change-management process, says Sutton at ADP.
“They really do have to do an internal campaign to make sure employees understand it and are comfortable accessing it.”
The most successful ESS launches take a very deliberate marketing view and really position the value, says SAP’s Ludlow. Employers should show the “cool” side, emphasizing how employees can control their data and not have to rely on others. It’s also important to give a similar user experience to the previous one so employees can get through the transaction as quickly as possible, he says, although the new processes should also reflect what the company is hoping to accomplish.
“Don’t simply replicate what you have but take a good look at what you’re doing and how you can improve that,” says Ludlow.
Another problem area is the intranet, used by most companies as the access point for ESS. Ideally navigating the intranet shouldn’t require much training if presented intuitively, says Toby Ward, president of Prescient Digital Media, a Toronto-based Internet and intranet consulting firm.
“If you do the proper planning and strategy, which would include developing smart information architecture, meaning how the content is organized and related to each other, then you’ll do far less work in the end because there’s less re-engineering, redesigning, fielding of complaints and less time educating the employee population,” says Ward.
As for the University of Toronto’s hoped-for reduction in costs, Sass-Kortsak says it’s too early to say, but once pay slips go fully online, there will be obvious savings in paper and mailing. The school is also working on providing attendance management that will display vacation used and earned. But for now, the university is largely focused on enhancing and increasing usage among current users.
“That kind of resistance is going to disappear as more people enter the workforce so they’re Internet-savvy and used to being online,” says Ludlow. “(ESS) is going to become expected, really.”
