Over the last number of years, human resource (HR) system vendors have provided a product called employee self-service. In essence, this is a tool that allows employees to obtain HR and related information, do their own HR transactions such as leave requests, pay queries, etc, through a computer system, as well as providing line managers and supervisors a sophisticated method of online authorisation and the ability to proactively manage their employees.
Although SA might be classified as a Third World country, there is no reason to believe that our general working population does not have the ability to use computers.
Rob Scott, guest columnist, ITWeb
All of this allows HR professionals and managers to focus on value-adding activities, rather than spending hours handling mundane paper-based issues.
Until recently, very few organisations took notice of this tool, as it proved to be an absolute nightmare to set up and configure. However, in the last year or two, the self-service tool sets offered by the bigger enterprise resource planning (ERP) vendors are a lot more flexible and easier to implement.
European and American organisations have seen the advantage of implementing these tools to the extent that it is unusual to not see them in operation. However, South African organisations that are running ERP systems have shown little desire to set up these value-adding tools.
Excuses
It is a strange situation: we sit here at the end of the African continent wondering why our HR capabilities are rated so poorly by the rest of the world, yet we are intent to use excuses such as "this is a Third World country", "the union will never accept it", "not all staff have access to a computer", and so on to justify why we cannot implement these tools.
I found that in most organisations that are in the process of implementing ERP systems, the last thing on their agenda is the implementation of an HR self-service system. In fact, most of the organisations are in such disarray with their HR functions, that the focus is on getting a basic HR system up and running as quickly as possible to ensure legislative conformity. Once this basic HR system is up and running, HR executives are shocked as to why the system is not adding any real value besides having an expensive system to provide a list of names, addresses and jobs of all the employees in the organisation.
The HR system vendors do, however, need to accept some of the blame for the lack of acceptance and use of these tools. During the selling phase of the HR system, the vendors are inclined to show bits and pieces of the employee self-service system, which look very nice and sophisticated, but fail to show the degree to which the self-service tool needs to be localised to suit the South African environment, and in fact most of the functionality provided in the "vanilla" self-service system is suitable mainly to the American and European markets. It is a bit of a chicken and egg situation; where the South African operations have not seen the demand for the self-service tool from their clients, and have thus not built up the expertise in these particular tools.
In those organisations that have ventured to turn on the self-service tool, it usually entails giving access to those employees who have a computer and often provide the basic of self-service components, such as name and address details. The problem with this approach is that most employees will access their information once, to see what the system looks like, and soon realise that the information is a "nice-to-have" and really doesn`t add any value to them as an employee.
Organisations in the South African manufacturing industry have found it particularly difficult to implement self-service to all employees, predominantly because most of the labour force does not have access to computers. This shouldn`t be a primary driver for not putting the self-service system in place, nor should reasons such as low levels of literacy be tabled as a reason. Although SA might be classified as a Third World country, there is no reason to believe that our general working population does not have the ability to use computers.
In fact, our sophisticated financial services and cellular telecommunication industries would provide sufficient proof that indicates the general working population is in fact able to use technologies such as ATMs and cellphones with a high degree of efficiency.
Perhaps if HR executives thought beyond their paternalistic views of the workforce, and understood that employee self-service systems that have been implemented correctly could save the organisation up to 20% in HR full-time equivalents, and up to 30% savings in HR transactional costs, they would think differently about the value that this tool can offer.
Getting it right
So what should an employee self-service system consist of in order to add value? South African organisations would be wise to look at organisations, such as MCI in the US, to see the tremendous job they have done with their self-service system.
MCI`s system contains over 1 600 pages of interactive information. Is this going overboard? I don`t think so. What it says is that this organisation understands that people require different levels of information, but it is up to the empowered employee to determine the depth they require.
A good self-service system should cater for the differences in people, which would include language, mode of navigation, relevance of information and ease of use. It should also not assume anything. The system should do what it promises. It is no use that an employee applies for leave online, but his line manager never logs into the system to approve the transaction. A strong change management initiative is required for the system to work.
The system should continually be up to date, be exciting to visit, interactive and entice employees to return. If the self-service system is all of this, it becomes a fantastic communication tool, both to and from employees, it also prevents employees from having to move around with pieces of paper, and standing in queues waiting to be helped by paper controlled administrators. Self-service can become very sophisticated to include telephony and cellular interaction, smart card, Wireless Application Protocol and other newer technology interactions.
Our so-called Third World country is capable of a lot more and we should not be bound by our outdated perceptions of people. Technology is an enabler that is fast becoming a necessity rather than a "nice-to-have". HR executives should take the bold step out of their mystifying psychological comfort zones and drive the use of technological tools that add some real value to their organisations.
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