Every time your employees change their personal information, it can cripple a small HR or payroll team. And, when employees get married, their spouse loses benefits coverage or have children, you guessed it, more paperwork, data entry, communication with third parties and disjointed point solutions. While change is great for employees (new homes, partners, children, etc.), it can be a headache for employers with small HR teams dealing with disjointed people processes.
The Symptom: Difficulty Tracking Employee Data Changes
Your employees’ many changes need to be documented and kept in sync with third-party systems, which can end up being tons of extra work for small HR teams with large employee populations. Not only is data management time-consuming, but it can also create a lot of paper waste and risk.
The Many, Many Types of Employee Data to Track
Benefits. Marriages, births and retirement can all affect the benefits your employees value most. As they add family members, send kids to college or get ready to retire, employees want benefits that meet their needs, be it a lower healthcare deductible or better retirement savings plans.
Payroll. Changes in benefit elections, fringes, amounts, withholdings and wage need to be updated for payroll processing, as well as position and compensation tracking.
Personal Data. Phone numbers, emails, addresses and bank accounts are all types of personal data that HR needs to keep updated for all its employees.
Tax Documents. Along with additional benefits, when an employee adds or subtracts a family member, their tax status changes. Employees may wish to change their exemptions as well.
The Solution: Add an Employee Self-Service Portal for Personal Data Management
An Employee Self-Service (ESS) portal is a web-based tool that allows employees to access their information online. Paystubs, benefits, personal data and tax documents can all be made accessible to employees through a self-service portal. Employees can use an ESS portal to request time off, change their payroll withholding tax amount, update their personal information or even change their benefits elections if they have a qualified life event.
Benefits of a Self-Service Portal
Making HR services available online isn’t a new idea, it’s been around for a decade. But an ESS portal offers much more than just a reduction in paper handouts.
Boosts overall efficiency.
The options for increased efficiency multiply when your ESS portal is integrated with other systems, like enterprise resource planning (ERPs), project management, payroll, benefits carriers and more. ESS portals save HR departments tons of time by empowering employees to access and update their own information. Here are just a few examples of things employees can do through an ESS portal:
- update personal data
- access pay stubs
- access state and federal withholding forms
- update direct deposit information
- make benefit selections or request adjustments
- submit PTO requests
- submit expense reports.
Costs are reduced.
The cost, both in time and money, of handing out paper information to employees—think benefits packets, updated policy manuals, pay stubs and more—can quickly add up. These unnecessary costs are reduced or eliminated with an ESS portal. And information stored in an ESS can be revised and uploaded in seconds, giving employees immediate access.
Personal data errors are minimized.
ESS portals give employees control over their data. Your employees input their personal information, their bank routing numbers or withholding amounts, eliminating any input errors by HR.
This minimizes compliance risk by helping ensure you provide the IRS with correct, up-to-date information. Plus, when your systems are integrated through a single ESS, information loaded once can flow to multiple forms and files as needed. This is another way the risk of error is minimized.
Employee Benefits.
Employees are familiar with using portals in other areas of their lives, whether it is through a doctor’s office, bank or online marketplaces. The fact that their employer offers the same, if not more, access gives the impression they work for a forward-thinking company.
Quick access to essential information.
Employees who need to see how much their health insurance deductible is or if their PTO was approved can find the information in one place, saving time. No longer will employees have to hunt through stacks of paperwork or multiple intranet pages. Instead, with a couple of clicks they can find the information they need and quickly get back to work.
The power to manage personal data.
Being able to take control of their personal data empowers employees. An ESS eliminates the need to wait for HR to adjust personal information or take the time to walk paperwork down to the HR office.
ESS portals provide company transparency.
Employees don’t want to be left in the dark when it comes to company communication. Having access to company information increases employee confidence in their employer. And companies reap the benefits of improved communication because employee satisfaction levels rise.
Arcoro’s CoreHR module offers an ESS portal that empowers employees to take control of their data, notifying HR when changes are made and seamlessly connecting to third-party solutions like Sage, Procore, Benefits Carriers and more.
This is the third in a series of blogs from Bryan May, Vice-President of Business Development. In the series, Bryan outlines challenges that can hamper HR efficiency in the construction industry and offers powerful solutions.
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