But why should HR teams look to introduce another system into their departments – isn’t it just another system to use and manage? Well, yes that is true. However if you are already handling queries you will already be doing this to some degree – just not reaping the benefits of managing those queries in one place and in a system designed for the purpose.
So we have complied a list of the reasons why a service desk approach should be considered….
HR Service Desks for your Organisation & the Planet
Remove the need for hard copies of documents to be passed from desk to desk by scanning them into the software. This not only reduces the amount of paper floating around the department but also allows easy tracking of where that document is at any given moment – no more searching the office for that missing document and no more over paying staff on overdue suspensions. This also means all documents are attached to the employee query record so if they are needed for when a case reaches trial they are all easily accessible in one place.
Comply with Legal Obligations and FOI Requests
Often organisations are asked to provide information either for legal purposes or under the Freedom of Information act, this can be difficult to locate if you are working with multiple spreadsheets, across different HR teams. When using a service desk approach information can be easily found and accessed ensuring that you fulfil these requests with ease, and on time.
Visibility of HR data Across the Whole Department
Often, HR departments can consist of multiple teams all working independently and with little sharing of information. A service desk approach means that all the information on queries is centralised in one system – saving time, increasing visibility and helping your HR team to become more productive – especially when team members are on holiday.
Improve Relations with Employees
HR departments are offering a vital service to the employees of your organisation, and therefore it is important to keep this relationship happy. Employees do not want to be repeating their requests, in great detail, every time they call up to chase but this can often happen when dealing with manual processes and searches. A service desk approach allows HR staff to run quick searches and see the whole history of a query enabling them to provide updates on progress without the need for the employee to explain all over again. Utilising inbuilt knowledge, HR teams can also provide added value on the calls to employees. Result – happy employees, happy HR team and lower employee turnover.
Using your HR Service Desk to Increase Responsiveness by Tracking Trends
A service desk approach also enables HR teams to gather intelligence to understand danger points, trends and patterns to drive HR and milestones to work towards achieving. For example if the HR team are receiving lots of calls about issues with recruitment they need to understand what the issue is and where is it coming from – are there any bottlenecks that need to be addressed? Finally how can they improve this?
If the department is receiving a lot of queries on a subject, such as misuse of social media, the HR team can create an internal campaign to communicate more information on this topic thereby reducing the number of queries coming into the department on the subject.
Upskill Staff Quickly
Utilising knowledge articles and dynamic searching enables new team members to quickly get up to speed with common queries and even the most experienced team members can benefit from being alerted to any legislation changes. Tools, like Sunrise HR Case Management, will allow you to upload up-to-date documentation or create articles that will be automatically found when typing in the name of that subject e.g. maternity leave. Giving a prompt service to those making the query and giving your HR team the confidence to know that they are giving the most up to date advice and guidance.
Offer a Consistent Service to the Organisation
Knowledge articles and dynamic searching capabilities also offer another great benefit – a consistent service. The ability to search for the information you are looking for, means that HR teams are no longer recalling everything from memory. Each member of the HR team will have access to the same articles, so whether they have been with the department 1 month or 10 years the advice they are handing out will be accurate and consistent.
HR Self-Service Desk
Introducing a self-service approach to query handling will reduce the number of calls into the HR department freeing up your team to focus on the more sensitive queries or cases that come in. Enabling employees to log in and check useful knowledge articles on things such as paternity leave, or check how much holiday they have remaining or just check on the progress of their queries will reduce queries and save time for the HR team.
Keep Control using a HR Service Desk Approach
All of the features (plus many more) mentioned above ultimately mean one thing, a HR department is in complete control of the queries coming into the department. They will know the progress of every query and case, plus have the ability to show the value of them as a team by reporting on trends and Key Performance Indicators – stepping in and taking action if the team is not responding in the way they should.
This approach may not work for everyone, but contact us to see how your HR department could benefit from introducing a service desk approach to managing your queries.