ESS portal. What is it and how can it assist to your organisation?

What are ESS and MSS?

Main characteristics of ESS

• Web based or cloud-based software as a service (SaaS) – available online
• Available 24/7
• Highly secure with username and password access (or, in some cases, biometric)
• Editable data on various access levels – based on access rights

ESS provides a centralized and efficient communication platform for all branches, no matter where they are geographically.

It’s usually web-based, cloud-supported software, which means it can immediately connect all hierarchy of an organization no matter how administratively or geographically separated they are. It’s a global cloud tool that removes inconvenience of time-zones, so every employee can log in and get the information they need, at any time from any location.

It must be user-friendly and highly secure, due to private data it contains. There’s no need to worry about data security. ESS systems are designed carefully with an attention to privacy and security. They focus on strict user rights, log-in policies and many can prove their safety with certificates and other documentation (e.g. ISO audits).

What does the majority of ESS portals offer?

Employee self-service allows employees to take care of many of their HR-related and work-related tasks that would otherwise need to be performed by HR manager, or superior.

The best ESS features allow to:

• change employees’ personal information such as an address, contact information, bank account
• view payroll information, even download pay slips
• access handbooks and company guideline/policy documents
• if the system provides T&A section, ESS allows to submit time-off requests, receive approvals and plan vacation
• store job position-related documentation (contract, addendums, assets list)
• ask questions in „hotline“ feature
• get an overview of company benefits and events, usually with enrolment function
• manage business travel

With ESS, employees have all this information altogether in one cloud system. It allows automation and streamlining of HR-related tasks.

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What are the benefits of ESS for company and its employees on all levels?

1. Benefits for employee:

Every organization member is capable of and will usually prefer doing tasks that ESS allow them to by themselves, which will eliminate down the communication with administration and IT staff.

Giving the employee user-friendly tool to communicate conveniently and quickly through the cloud, it puts every employee in charge of their own well-being. They will become more independent and unburden HR department, since all tasks can be comfortably performed from home 24/7.

Having important documents safe and secure in cloud gives the employee and the team power of sharing information, making a discussion on the worksheet, tracking changes on the document and many more great facilities to make faster and more accurate decisions.

2. Benefits for managers and HR department:

MSS is the kind of the same thing as ESS, but from manager/HR user account, it allows more features that ease up manager’s work life like approval flows and reporting.

If there are any tasks or issues that employees are not authorized to directly change in ESS, many systems allow employees to communicate electronically with the HR department. Employees may send messages outside of regular office hours, which saves time for both employees and human resources professionals. This “hotline” feature can be used for communication with other company parties like IT department, payroll, or finance department. By that, you will eliminate unnecessary emails and face to face contact which are (in email case) unsafe tools to communicate sensitive topics like payroll, or (in face to face case) can be a burden with inappropriate timing that may distract professionals from their work. By having requests in the cloud system, they can choose proper time to solve them.

If ESS tool provides feature of time and attendance management, employees and managers gain a solution to properly manage and supervise their attendance. HR department delegates responsibility of proper attendance administration to employees and receive accurate data for payroll calculation. That is valid if the system is in line with local legislation and provides automated checks and validations.

3. Benefits for the company itself:

In overall, company will save their admin staff countless time of counterproductive and dissatisfying work. The firm will decrease labor hours and increase efficiency and data accuracy. It will bring money saving, while reducing human error.

Reduced administrative costs, in turn, will make more attractive offer for additional employee benefit programs. Employee self-service is often a component of larger technology initiatives, since it is delivered via SaaS platforms by third-party vendors.

To summarize, the most valuable benefits of ESS and MSS systems are:

• time saved – decreased labor hours
• money saved
• increased data accuracy
• increased efficiency
• reduced human errors
• increased attractiveness of employer for employees and potential colleagues
• competition advantage
• more loyal employees due to higher engagement to company life
• keeping up with digital trends
• reduced paperwork

There’s no need for you to hesitate when deciding about implementation of ESS tool. Benefits hugely exceed costs and other assumed disadvantages like resistance of old employees for process changes.

If we can give you any advice in your vendor process, let us know.

Our own ESS portal TULIP provides all mentioned features and allows automised and digitised processes across the whole company no matter the location. If you want to know more about TULIP, we’re here for you to answer all questions.