How to serve employees in their business life cycle

Why a United Kingdom of Services is an excellent solution to serve employees in their business life cycle. What are the benefits of digitising HR services and what are the necessary steps to ensure the full adoption of the project?

Whatever the role and whatever the company, there are needs common to every employee that arise throughout their working life cycle.

We are talking about all the demands that fall under Human Resources, such as onboarding, payroll management, work leave, training, etc., that the employee expects to receive as a service from the company, in order to be able to better manage his or her working life.

But the organisation and delivery of these services is often  unstructured: the contact points may be multiple (e-mail, switchboard, HR office, etc.) and almost always tied to the availability of the staff in charge. The employee has to identify the contact channel, make his or her request explicit - sometimes to several company functions, if the service is transversal - and wait.

Wait for the office to be open, wait for the time required to produce the documents - especially if the data resides in more than one company software - wait for a response, without knowing whether the request has been taken care of and how long it will take to process it. If employees are the "building blocks" of the company, not meeting their requests in a timely manner generates long-term dissatisfaction and lack of involvement and also impacts on their productivity.

Remotely, it is even more complicated because of the distance between the employee and the company, which hinders communication.

The objective: serving employees

Let's take the example of a company that had this problem, which was then solved with the digitisation of HR services..

This company, a multinational in the field of integrated services, felt the need to maintain a constant relationship with each of its 28K employees in Italy and abroad, by providing them with a range of supportive HR services that they could use promptly and independently.

Delivery had to be continuous (24/7), immediate and usable from every device and region. With our support, the company revised and transposed the processes required for service delivery in a digital platform named Marco, as one of the service desk operators.

Marco is a self-service portal accessible at any time and any place, from which employees can stay up-to-date and informed about company policies, as well as manage their HR requests and their advancement without wasting paper or excessive bureaucratisation.

The United Kingdom of Services

Digitisation makes it possible to offer a better Employee Experience and serve employees better, because they can get the services they need from a single point of contact. A United Kingdom of Services, to be consulted quickly and from which they can expect a timely response to their requests.

But if the company wants to adopt software that all employees will access independently, it is essential to also take their needs into account.

A system with a myriad of functionalities that is, however, complicated, inconvenient, inaccessible, and insecure for employees will have a very low adoption rate. Many will prefer to continue using traditional methods for requesting a document, registering for a course, etc., with the result that the investment made will be wasted.

Conditions for success

For this reason, when we follow a HR digitisation project, we take certain elements into account for the design of the software:

· must be tailor-made

One cannot simply think of dematerialising processes on a digital platform: they have to be analysed on the basis of the objectives of the people involved - the employees and service personnel - and revised if necessary. The aim is to design flows in the simplest and most efficient way, both user-side and back-office side, with automation also included where possible.

You don't do work-arounds, you choose the direct route..

· it must be easy to use

 User behaviour and attitudes must be taken into account in the design, to simplify user navigation. The interface must be  simple and intuitive, usable by anyone, whatever their age or level of digital competence.

· must be safe

Within it are the sensitive data of employees, who will want them in good hands. It must be ensured that management flows comply with current data processing regulations and that security procedures - for example regarding passwords - are easily manageable.

· must be transparent

The software must be a nerve centre for the employee: he must find within it a dashboard that gives him visibility over all his requests and information.

Find in one place marked the amount of the last payroll, residual holiday and leave, scheduled training courses, etc. will make your day a lot easier.And, moreover, it must be aware of the status of each request made (taken care of, completed, etc.).

· must be integrated

The production of documents often requires different processes to be activated on different tools: for example, the production of a certificate of service involves both the management system and the HR database. We devise ways of automatically integrating information, so that the output is produced in an automated way, without having to involve HR.

In this way, request processing times can be cut down: the user chooses a service from a provided catalogue and automatically the software provides the answer, integrating the data.

. must optimise service provider processes

So far, we have always talked about end-users, but service providers also fall into the employee category. The automation of back-office activities, the configuration of dedicated dashboards, with only the activities for which one is responsible visible and in order of priority, all contribute to increase productivity.

Digitalisation is good, always

In conclusion, digitisation is always a good thing.

Having the processes on one platform allows them to be measured. To identify possible bottlenecks, to set SLAs, to verify that the services are living up to expectations.

All with a view to continuous improvement..