Is human resources self-service a help or a burden? Do managers use it or misuse it? As usual, it depends.
Companies are turning to the self-service model for providing HR assistance to employees and managers, just as banks have ubiquitously turned to ATM machines to provide assistance to customers. Self-service allows members of an organization to access selected HR information without having to engage one of the company’s HR specialists in the process of retrieving the information.
Self-service is touted for a number of reasons. It can reduce costs by reducing HR specialist time spent on low-level personnel information transactions. It can free HR staff to devote to higher-level activity — identifying and preventing potential problems, for instance. It can increase employees’ and managers’ use of HR information because they can retrieve information in the form they want, when they want it.
As a manager’s tool, self-service holds great promise. The paperwork (literally) involved in managing people is often a burden to managers, diverting them from time that could be spent in both strategic and tactical leadership and mentoring.
Sometimes the sheer paper burden discourages managers from following through on routine but nonetheless important personnel leadership activities.
Much of the hype about self-service has had to do with the technologies involved — the software applications that allow self-service to take place with a minimum of sweat for the users and in ways that allow answers to complex and personally crafted questions from employees and managers.
The highly linear kinds of self-service that once marked the technology — the FAQ lists (frequently asked questions) that ended up answering almost nobody’s actual questions, for instance — are giving way to software programs that can learn and improve themselves based on the real-world questions users ask.
But challenges remain, many of them at the low-tech end of the process. Not the least of them is the problem of “resisters” — people who oppose technological innovation, estimated to include between 30 and 40 per cent of the population. The term is deceptive, since it seems to blame the resister, when in fact many technologies have initially been so frustrating to users that resistance is a logical response.
It is sometimes assumed that people at the top of an organization’s apex — managers and their immediate support staff — are not part of the resisting cohort, but this is not always true. For one thing, in many companies managers are older employees who did not grow up with computers as their teething rings. For another, many of them have the power to insist on low-tech, high-resource ways of getting information. (Who after all disagrees with the CEO when she says she wants it in hard copy, even though she lost the copy the HR Department sent her last week?)
Even when managers are surrounded by technologically savvy support staff, in some instances these staff still need to dumb down the information to paper formats to translate it to their bosses. And ominously, a senior manager who is a resister can send the message to others in the organization that resistance should be the norm, not the exception.
The solution to this low-tech problem is in part a high-tech one: making self-service simple enough to make resistance unnecessary and counter-
productive.
Making sure the technology is user-responsive even at the pre-introduction stage is crucial: surveys and employee focus groups can be used to ensure that the system is driven by what users want, rather than by the gee-whiz high-tech capacities of the technology.
Another indispensable approach is in-service training and continued hand-holding support even after initial training. However, just as some managers resist the basic technology, some are also “training-resistant,” reluctant to admit that despite their high- or mid-level positions they are on the same level as junior clerical staff — or below that level — when it comes to learning a new technological application.
Managers, like all employees, fall somewhere in a triad when it comes to using technology: appropriate use, non-use and misuse.
Non-use is usually the front-end challenge, but misuse looms in the background.
The biggest potential misuse is breach of confidentiality — the retrieval of information a manager should not be allowed to retrieve. In most firms, for instance, it is inappropriate for a manager in one department to get personnel information on an employee in another department. Confidentiality and authorization technologies have become closer to failsafe in the last decade, and rarely do managers have the desire or capacity to snoop via computerized systems. The problem may not be actual breaches, but rather the perception among employees that a breach can occur. Hackerphobia is a real phenomenon, and a self-service system may need to over-design its protections, to ensure breaches are astronomically unlikely.
Another variant of misuse can take place ironically enough when a non-user becomes an enthusiastic and indiscriminate user. Common among new Internet users, this conversion can involve retrieval of vast amounts of information without the capacity to interpret it, particularly when the retrieval is de-linked from the advisory role of a trained HR specialist. For example, a manager may retrieve anonymized data on absentee rates over a six-month period in his department. He notices an increase in absenteeism that coincides with the start date of a new subordinate manager, and he assumes the presence of the new subordinate has led to the increase in absenteeism. However, an HR specialist may have been able to tell him that the rate jump comes from a predictable seasonal increase in absences for people with ragweed allergies!
Too much knowledge can be a dangerous thing if the knowledge is divorced from expertise.
Misuse also occurs when a manager uses self-service technology as an excuse for not using a prudent supportive management style. An example: Stan drops by to see Jane, his supervisor. Stan is under stress and has recurrent nightmares that reduce his daytime capacity to concentrate. Stan wants to talk to Jane about the stress — some of which may be work-related. Jane responds, “We have a good employee assistance program. Just read about it on our HR Web page and sign up.”
That may not help solve Stan’s problem.
There can also be subtle system-level misuses, often on the part of managers high enough in the organization to decide if the self-serve system lives or dies. These are more akin to misunderstandings than to abuse. For instance, a CEO may pull the plug on a self-serve system during the crucial introductory phase, when the organization’s culture has not made the shift from non-use to appropriate use. During this phase it may well look like the system has failed, despite high initial costs. But like all initiatives, return on investment often takes place some time well after the innovation is introduced. Other managers expect instant returns from technologies, and even if they don’t have the power to kill the new system, they may have the power to criticize it enough to lend support to the non-user point of view.
There are several strategies an organization can adopt to prevent both non-use and misuse:
•ensure the system is user driven, not engineer-driven;
•ensure adequate training and ongoing support is provided;
•over-ensure that confidentiality is not violated;
•ensure that HR expertise remains in place and is readily available to help users interpret what they retrieve;
•ensure that managers understand that a self-service HR system is no replacement for sound employee management and support; and
•give the self-serve system the time and support it needs to succeed and to become a demonstrable return on investment.
John Butler is the president of the Agora Group, an HR and health-care management consulting firm, and a regular contributor to Canadian HR Reporter. He may be contacted at (905) 294-9762 or [email protected]
Companies are turning to the self-service model for providing HR assistance to employees and managers, just as banks have ubiquitously turned to ATM machines to provide assistance to customers. Self-service allows members of an organization to access selected HR information without having to engage one of the company’s HR specialists in the process of retrieving the information.
Self-service is touted for a number of reasons. It can reduce costs by reducing HR specialist time spent on low-level personnel information transactions. It can free HR staff to devote to higher-level activity — identifying and preventing potential problems, for instance. It can increase employees’ and managers’ use of HR information because they can retrieve information in the form they want, when they want it.
As a manager’s tool, self-service holds great promise. The paperwork (literally) involved in managing people is often a burden to managers, diverting them from time that could be spent in both strategic and tactical leadership and mentoring.
Sometimes the sheer paper burden discourages managers from following through on routine but nonetheless important personnel leadership activities.
Much of the hype about self-service has had to do with the technologies involved — the software applications that allow self-service to take place with a minimum of sweat for the users and in ways that allow answers to complex and personally crafted questions from employees and managers.
The highly linear kinds of self-service that once marked the technology — the FAQ lists (frequently asked questions) that ended up answering almost nobody’s actual questions, for instance — are giving way to software programs that can learn and improve themselves based on the real-world questions users ask.
But challenges remain, many of them at the low-tech end of the process. Not the least of them is the problem of “resisters” — people who oppose technological innovation, estimated to include between 30 and 40 per cent of the population. The term is deceptive, since it seems to blame the resister, when in fact many technologies have initially been so frustrating to users that resistance is a logical response.
It is sometimes assumed that people at the top of an organization’s apex — managers and their immediate support staff — are not part of the resisting cohort, but this is not always true. For one thing, in many companies managers are older employees who did not grow up with computers as their teething rings. For another, many of them have the power to insist on low-tech, high-resource ways of getting information. (Who after all disagrees with the CEO when she says she wants it in hard copy, even though she lost the copy the HR Department sent her last week?)
Even when managers are surrounded by technologically savvy support staff, in some instances these staff still need to dumb down the information to paper formats to translate it to their bosses. And ominously, a senior manager who is a resister can send the message to others in the organization that resistance should be the norm, not the exception.
The solution to this low-tech problem is in part a high-tech one: making self-service simple enough to make resistance unnecessary and counter-
productive.
Making sure the technology is user-responsive even at the pre-introduction stage is crucial: surveys and employee focus groups can be used to ensure that the system is driven by what users want, rather than by the gee-whiz high-tech capacities of the technology.
Another indispensable approach is in-service training and continued hand-holding support even after initial training. However, just as some managers resist the basic technology, some are also “training-resistant,” reluctant to admit that despite their high- or mid-level positions they are on the same level as junior clerical staff — or below that level — when it comes to learning a new technological application.
Managers, like all employees, fall somewhere in a triad when it comes to using technology: appropriate use, non-use and misuse.
Non-use is usually the front-end challenge, but misuse looms in the background.
The biggest potential misuse is breach of confidentiality — the retrieval of information a manager should not be allowed to retrieve. In most firms, for instance, it is inappropriate for a manager in one department to get personnel information on an employee in another department. Confidentiality and authorization technologies have become closer to failsafe in the last decade, and rarely do managers have the desire or capacity to snoop via computerized systems. The problem may not be actual breaches, but rather the perception among employees that a breach can occur. Hackerphobia is a real phenomenon, and a self-service system may need to over-design its protections, to ensure breaches are astronomically unlikely.
Another variant of misuse can take place ironically enough when a non-user becomes an enthusiastic and indiscriminate user. Common among new Internet users, this conversion can involve retrieval of vast amounts of information without the capacity to interpret it, particularly when the retrieval is de-linked from the advisory role of a trained HR specialist. For example, a manager may retrieve anonymized data on absentee rates over a six-month period in his department. He notices an increase in absenteeism that coincides with the start date of a new subordinate manager, and he assumes the presence of the new subordinate has led to the increase in absenteeism. However, an HR specialist may have been able to tell him that the rate jump comes from a predictable seasonal increase in absences for people with ragweed allergies!
Too much knowledge can be a dangerous thing if the knowledge is divorced from expertise.
Misuse also occurs when a manager uses self-service technology as an excuse for not using a prudent supportive management style. An example: Stan drops by to see Jane, his supervisor. Stan is under stress and has recurrent nightmares that reduce his daytime capacity to concentrate. Stan wants to talk to Jane about the stress — some of which may be work-related. Jane responds, “We have a good employee assistance program. Just read about it on our HR Web page and sign up.”
That may not help solve Stan’s problem.
There can also be subtle system-level misuses, often on the part of managers high enough in the organization to decide if the self-serve system lives or dies. These are more akin to misunderstandings than to abuse. For instance, a CEO may pull the plug on a self-serve system during the crucial introductory phase, when the organization’s culture has not made the shift from non-use to appropriate use. During this phase it may well look like the system has failed, despite high initial costs. But like all initiatives, return on investment often takes place some time well after the innovation is introduced. Other managers expect instant returns from technologies, and even if they don’t have the power to kill the new system, they may have the power to criticize it enough to lend support to the non-user point of view.
There are several strategies an organization can adopt to prevent both non-use and misuse:
•ensure the system is user driven, not engineer-driven;
•ensure adequate training and ongoing support is provided;
•over-ensure that confidentiality is not violated;
•ensure that HR expertise remains in place and is readily available to help users interpret what they retrieve;
•ensure that managers understand that a self-service HR system is no replacement for sound employee management and support; and
•give the self-serve system the time and support it needs to succeed and to become a demonstrable return on investment.
John Butler is the president of the Agora Group, an HR and health-care management consulting firm, and a regular contributor to Canadian HR Reporter. He may be contacted at (905) 294-9762 or [email protected]
