Employee self-service tools streamline your business processes, reduce HR work, and raise employee satisfaction. Keep reading to learn why else you need to adopt self-service technology today.

Designed to lessen your administrative load and empower employees at work, employee self-service (ESS) tools make everyone's jobs easier. True to its name, ESS technology gives employees the ability to serve themselves.

Self-service portals let people access important information about their workplace, benefits, and roles from one central platform. There, they can fill out forms, ask questions, submit requests, and complete tasks. Meanwhile, you and your managers can easily address questions and check off administrative to-dos.

If you haven't already introduced self-service technology, it's time to consider it. Here are six powerful advantages of ESS tools:

1. ESS tools reduce HR administrative work

By transferring common HR transactions to an easily accessible platform, ESS portals reduce tedious manual work, saving you time and headaches. Instead of having to wade through your inbox to review time-off requests or chase down new employee signatures, you can approve requests and complete forms in just a few clicks.

The result: increased efficiency with day-to-day tasks and more time to focus on other aspects of the job. That includes addressing employees' personal needs, hiring employees, and improving work culture.

2. ESS tools create consistency across your operation

ESS tools don't just streamline backend business tasks—they also standardize company processes. With an ESS platform, you can create clear, repeatable procedures for everything from onboarding and training new hires to enroll in health plans and scheduling leaves.

There are a few key benefits to standardizing your business processes:

1. Better reporting: Consistency across your business's systems makes it easier to catch errors, collect data, and make improvements.
2. Less confusion and stress: Employees know exactly which steps to take to request time off, for example, or change their health insurance plan. Plus, you and your team don't have to scramble to organize or update operational processes.
3. More stability: With standardized systems, you can trust that things will get taken care of, even if you experience occasional business disruptions or emergencies.

3. ESS tools support employees in their roles

ESS portals make it easy to offer your employees greater autonomy and support. How? By giving your employees consolidated information right at their fingertips, along with tools they can use to improve their day-to-day work lives and personal lives.

With a self-service platform, your employees won't have to hunt for benefits information or email you to find out how much PTO they have left. They can access everything on their own, crossing items off their to-do lists how and when it suits them best, not to mention conserving brainpower for their jobs. With the Roll by ADP app, your employees can manage their own profiles and find the info they need at their fingertips (so you don't have to).

Every ESS tool offers different options, but here are some of the things employees can do with certain gateways:

• Review their health insurance plans.
• Check their pay information.
• Complete online training.
• Look at their PTO structure and accumulated time.
• Submit requests for time off.
• Look at their work schedule and make changes.
• Swap shifts with co-workers.
• Complete open enrollment.
• Review their performance evaluations.
• Sign up for additional training or certifications.
• Update their 401K contributions.
• Notify their managers if they need a sick day or will be late.
• Clock in and clock out straight from their phones.
• Review employee handbooks and guidelines.
• View the latest company news or updates.
• Get access to co-worker contact information.

4. ESS tools improve company communications

ESS portals have the power to transform company-wide communications. Not only can you use self-service technology to streamline and organize internal communications, you can also use it to communicate more empathetically with employees.

Here are just some of the things you can do with self-service tools to enhance communications:

• Share business news and announcements on the platform.
• Educate employees about their roles and benefits options.
• Provide easy access to employee handbooks.
• Offer resources like wellness centers, internal blogs, and shared workspaces.

Transparent communications can help reduce employees' confusion and increase their confidence on the job. As a result, they may be happier at work, more productive, and more likely to stay engaged.

5. ESS tools make life easier for managers

ESS tools for managers (also called manager self-service tools) help improve your organization at every level. By giving managers more tools and technology, you can offload some of your administrative responsibilities. Plus, the employees your managers oversee get faster answers to their questions and more direct support.

Most importantly, though, managers can spend less time stressing and more time doing what they do best: helping people reach goals and hit company benchmarks. With a manager self-service platform, your managers can:

• Approve timesheets and time-off requests.
• Edit team schedules.
• View team calendars.
• Access employees' worker profiles.
• Update performance reviews.

6. ESS tools raise your business's bottom line

Self-service technology is an investment that has the potential to pay dividends. ESS portals cost money upfront, but they can also help you cut back on costs and generate more revenue. Here's how:

1. Automated workflow processes create less back and forth between employees, saving everyone time and mental bandwidth.
2. With less administrative HR work, you can focus on initiatives designed to bring more money to your company, like hiring a new salesperson or figuring out how to strengthen employee engagement.
3. Happier employees translate to better business. With more tools and support at their disposal, employee productivity and satisfaction can go up, in turn affecting everything from customer satisfaction scores to employee turnover rates.
4. A manager self-service tool can cut down on managers' to-do lists, giving them more energy and time to guide their teams to success. Providing one-on-one attention and encouragement can improve individual employee performances.

How to succeed with ESS tools

The most effective ESS platforms are intuitive and flexible, so you and your employees can access them easily—from anywhere. As with any technology, though, it's a good idea to adopt some helpful practices to ensure the implementation goes as smoothly as possible.

To set yourself up for success with ESS technology, aim to do the following:

• Train managers and employees on how to use the ESS tools. This helps reduce errors and minimize confusion, so you get the most out of your technology.
• Make sure you have a “human in the loop." Give employees an option to chat directly with you or their manager through the portal.
• Continue to have personal one-on-one conversations. ESS portals aren't a substitute for regular check-ins and human contact. If you submit performance reviews on ESS portals, for example, make sure you take the time to talk with your employees face to face, too.
• Send surveys asking employees for feedback with ESS. For ESS to work, it's crucial that your employees have a voice. After several months of using an ESS platform, consider sending a survey to employees to gauge how they feel about the tool, what it helps with, and where they could use improvements.
• Ensure it's easy to use and navigate. Include a search bar at the top that clearly lists the different categories and places where employees can find information.
• Being mobile-friendly is a must. Make sure employees can access their ESS portal through their phone or tablet, wherever they are.

Self-service tools are a simple and impactful way to streamline your business processes, reduce administrative work, and better support employees through all the different stages of their jobs. Roll's intuitive ESS feature will not only help you get new employees into your payroll system — but it will also take them through the onboarding process. This includes signing up for benefits, setting up direct deposit, and other onboarding tasks that can all be done from the app using its AI-driven chat functionality. Once workers are set up and in the system, they'll get payday alerts so they always know when their deposit is about to hit. They'll also get notifications if they need to update or check information in their profile. Check out Roll by ADP's employee self-service features or visit our resources page for tips on how to grow your business.