In my last post I have clearly voted pro SaaS solutions, also because they have self-services and customer friendliness built-in from the beginning. This, however, should not be synonymous with implementing all of what SaaS offers. And this is true especially for (manager) self-services. Not everything that is possible, does always makes sense to be implemented.
Let’s have a look at what is possible for example in Workday (SuccessFactors does not look very different), managers can for example:
- view various reports about their team and specific employees
- request various adjustments to their team and specific employees such as promotions, terminations, requisitions, title changes, job changes, create, freeze or delete positions, initiate transfers, adjust their organizational structure and assignments, adjust pay, start disciplinary actions, change work locations, etc.
Basically, there is almost nothing a manager can’t do by her- or himself anymore. Wow, this is fantastic, isn’t it? This really enables HR to focus on the true strategic, value-adding activities – and, it enables a lean HR organization as many activities are now self-serviced by employees and managers. And of course, once you implement Workday or SuccessFactors, you pay for the whole package, so utilize the whole package, right?
Well, let’s step back for a minute and think through what we just did…the basic idea of self-services is to enable and empower employees and managers to do what they are anyway responsible for. And yes, when it comes to employee self-services, this is almost 100% right (changing addresses, bank account details, family status, etc.). But when you look at manager self-services, this needs a closer look and discussion. I actually recommend strongly to NOT enable all manager self-services, but to be very selective around these.
(1) Yes, manager self-services enable the HR organization to be more lean as activities are taken out and into self-services. But does that really serve the organization as a whole? – No, as the activities need to be done anyway – now the manager has to do it and I believe that in most companies, manager time is more valuable and expensive than HR admin time. So basically, self-services make HR activities more expensive.
(2) HR is performing HR activities every day, they are trained to do so and know how it works – both, from a process/ system perspective but also from a policy and legal perspective. The likelihood of mistakes is relatively low. Managers though do many HR self-service activities only a few times a year, so are not really familiar with the process/ system and most important, they are not trained in HR policy or labor law, so don’t know what they can/ should do and what not. The likelihood of mistakes is much higher – and therefore, the potential savings are mostly eaten up by wrong decisions or actions taken by managers.
(3) For some of the possible manager self-service activities, HR wants to have a strategic discussion first, like recruiting new employees or change organizational set-ups. These discussion are important and I believe that HR is adding value here, but does it really make sense that managers can execute these activities in self-service then? – either they are not talking to HR and just executing them via self-services (which is not in HR’s interest) or they first talk to HR and then have to do everything on their own? – where is the logic and customer orientation?
(4) What about company culture? – does your company culture actually empower managers to be responsible for these “HR” activities? If not, don’t go down that route as it is contradictive and will fail. Of course, I am a big supporter of empowering line managers and bringing responsibility (especially people responsibility) where it belongs, but not in all cases, the line manager should be the responsible person. It sometimes still should be HR.
Basically, it all comes down to being very selective about manager self-services. Yes, enable self-services where the line managers have or should have the responsibility like performance evaluations, managing their teams, etc. – but only if managers are ready to do so, which means trained in both the technical part to do so (which is really easy nowadays with the customer friendly interfaces of Workday or SuccessFactors) as well as the actual management part. Only when managers understand what they are doing, what it means and how it integrates into the bigger picture, only when managers are enabled to talk to their employees and have real people manager capability, only when your company culture enable and promotes this – only then, enable these self-services.
And of course, there are self-services that I believe should not be enabled in any case. These are self-services where HR has a vital role to play (like deciding about how a capacity gap is filled – recruiting a new employee is not always the right choice) and self-services where HR needs to ensure that transaction does not mess up the organisational structure of the company in the system (actually a lot is depending on this structure and once it is messed up, it usually brings hick-ups to all sorts of non-HR processes, too) like transferring employees from one department to another (yes, the decision of this is between line managers).
Intelligent, company culture and manager readiness based selection is the key to self-service success.
Chief HR Officer 