Empower Your Employees with Employee Self-Service!

Understanding what an Employee Self-Service Portal Can Do

Before the Employee Self Service (ESS) or employee portal, Human Resource professionals were required to manage such tasks such as changes to employee contact information, withholding status, PTO requests and more. Although the individual time spent for each of these tasks is small, they can add up to significant time and distraction for the busy HR professional.

Since the ESS, all of these tasks and many more can be automated through a Human Resource Information System (HRIS), which saves HR employees thousands of hours in man-power each year.

This translates to massive savings for companies.

In addition, employees feel empowered and are able to have a higher level of confidentiality because they can update their contact information and other personal information without speaking with a person.

Employee Self-Service allows employees to manage not only their contact and emergency information, but to update their banking information and benefits.

Employees are able to request time off, apply for a leave, review their time sheet, pull up pay stubs, and even submit reimbursement receipts. Employers are able to report time off accrual and usage, provide legal notices, and to keep automated records that are often required for labor law compliance.

Further, employers can do these things without investing in the massive amount of time it would normally take human resources to personally respond to these requests. Employee self-service allows employees to communicate with the HR department outside of business hours, making communication more effective and saving time.

Benefits of Employee Self-Service for the Human Resource Professional

Many cities and states across the United States have employment laws around scheduling, time off, family leave and local minimum wage. Nearly all of these laws include notification requirements in which employers are required to notify new and existing employees of their rights under these laws.

In addition, the Affordable Care Act, federal Family Medical Leave Act, and other federal labor laws also require notification from employers to employees. Providing these notices through an ESS saves time and provides electronic proof that employees were notified according to the law.

Failure or oversight to provide notice and records to even one employee can cost the employer thousands of dollars in fines and penalties. This is compounded the the practice of most lawmakers to assume employer guilt when it comes to compliance and the employer has absent records or hasn’t kept adequate records. Only an HRIS can automate the distribution and record keeping of these notices.

For example, nearly all local sick leave laws require employers to provide a notification of sick leave rights, record of employee sick leave accrued, sick leave used, and payroll of paid sick leave time. ESS fulfills all of these compliance requirements automatically and saves HR time and effort.

ESS can also provide employees with their scheduled hours and provide a way for employees to access that information outside of business hours. Employees can check on their schedules the night before and when planning personal activities.

This empowers employees to make decisions about personal time without calling a manager or administrator outside of hours.

In addition, Human Resource personnel aren’t pulled away from other tasks and projects for these employee requests. This helps them to maintain focus and helps avoid the distractions that can be so frustrating for HR and payroll professionals. Employees are then empowered to get the answers to their questions and concerns.

• Compliance becomes easier
• Sick leave, min wage, anti-discriminatory law, medical leave laws, advanced scheduling, and other employment laws require notices to the employees. Paper can be hard to deliver, ensure complete delivery, and prove that it occurred.
• Saves time for HR professionals managing paper requests.
• Enable authorized employees to self-manage time cards online
• Limit self-service features by employee
• Share announcements to a specific or group of employees
• Automate employee time card approvals online
• Automate employee leave requests and approvals
• Many or all employment and payroll records become paperless

Employee Benefits of Employee Self-Service

For the employee, the Employee Self-Service can provide numerous benefits. First, employees can check on time off requests, access their information, reprint paystubs, and much more without having to ask managers or individuals in HR for assistance. This provides an added layer of privacy because the employee doesn’t feel like they have to explain why they are changing their emergency contact person from a spouse to another family member. They don’t have to explain why they are requesting the same information again or that something was lost due to personal situations.

Further, employees can quickly update tax withholding information, enroll in benefits, request time off and view all records related to their paystubs, vacation, and work history.

ESS provides employees a way to communicate with HR outside of business hours, which means that notification requests for time off, or sick leave can occur earlier. Too often employees remember the need for these requests in their personal time, but may get busy working and forget to notify their employer during working hours. Although many employers still work with employees who fail to provide adequate notice of leave taken, ESS provides a tool in which employees can notify employers earlier. Furthermore, it maintains a record of these requests which assists employers in decision making regarding leave.  

• Empowers the Employee
• Control over their own information
• Able to update withholding
• Request time off
• View time cards, pay stubs, Paid Time Off balance or protected leave taken
• Display paid time off accrual balances
• Able to manage, update, and send communications to manager or HR from their home
• Communicate total hours worked, missing punches, pending time-off requests, and time card notes

Why Choose SwipeClock’s ESS?

SwipeClock offers a user friendly employee portal HRIS that provides convenience to employees and accountability to employers. Employees have full access to their time cards, time off requests, and the ability to edit personal information 24 hours a day. Employees can also see missing time punches, un-managed time off requests, total hours and punch requests on their dashboard. SwipeClock’s dashboard also provides notices, announcements and other communications. Managers can customize access by employee or employee level or job function.

Our ESS integrates with other HR applications such as Bamboo HR, Adaptasoft, Evolution, ThinkWare, Shugo and many other payroll systems. This makes it seamless for managers and employers to manage time cards, PTO requests and schedules. The information rolls into your payroll software saving payroll employees substantial time each cycle.

Only SwipeClock’s HR Software has won the coveted Technology Excellence Award for the best advance in time and labor management and for bringing intelligence to time keeping and advanced scheduling. In addition, SwipeClock has won the Stevie Award for best new product of the year in Human Capital Management.

Find out what makes SwipeClock’s Employee Self-Service and other Human Resource technology unique and why thousands of payroll companies and human resource departments have chosen to partner with us!