The concept of “employee self-service” originated nearly three decades ago with the advent of the corporate intranet. While rudimentary during those early years, the typical intranet evolved from a static repository for basic news and select documents to an online destination housing critical news/announcements, dynamic content, collaboration space, and access to a range of tools and resources.
Throughout the course of its evolution, however, the purpose behind the intranet has always been quite clear — to enable employees to proactively access information and tools that empower them to do their jobs more effectively. In other words, self-serve. And while intranets are still around today, they are now just one of many tools/channels employees currently utilize for information, education, and enhanced productivity.
Driven by advances in digital technology, software capabilities, and app functionality, an employee self-service revolution has taken place over the past decade. This revolution has had a major impact on the modern workforce, especially those “desk workers” with ready access to email, the Internet, and other digital/mobile solutions.
Employees now manage certain onboarding activities, make their own benefits elections, submit tickets for IT support, access archived data and forms, manage their work schedules, and submit PTO requests. Not only is self-service empowering employees, but the benefits are compelling. Managers and HR personnel are relieved of many transactional tasks, enabling them to focus on more strategic projects/issues while increasing the value they provide to the organization.
But what about self-service capabilities for frontline workers — those non-desk-based employees in the field or on the shop floor who don’t consistently have access to computers, enabling technologies, and traditional communication tools? For this group, the self-service revolution has lagged a bit.
As a result, simple everyday tasks that traditional office employees can complete in minutes during a quick break — managing time/attendance records, checking a pay stub, submitting a PTO request, or reviewing dental coverage — become much more challenging. It can leave non-desk employees feeling frustrated, excluded, and even unappreciated. But a paradigm shift is underway.
Forward-thinking employers are now actively implementing new solutions to effectively close the gap and equip frontline workers with the same self-service tools and capabilities as their desk-based colleagues.
In addition, the international health crisis has accelerated this movement over the past several months as employers are forced to address remote work requirements, new policy creation/adoption, internal communications strategy, corporate culture implications, and other critical needs for its entire workforce.
With that in mind, Beekeeper is proud to partner with Kronos to deliver the very best in time and attendance self-service capabilities. As one of the industry’s leading platforms for frontline workers, we value collaboration and truly believe that the Kronos/Beekeeper solution — enhanced through integration with PeopleDoc — delivers a best-in-class solution for the frontline worker.
Many employees have the benefit of sitting in front of a desktop or laptop computer during the day with the ability to access the internet and toggle through multiple productivity- and/or work-related applications.
Frontline workers, for the most part, are not part of that group. Companies — particularly ones with substantial non-desk employee populations — need to acknowledge this disparity and equip frontline workers with tools and functionality that optimize performance.
Beekeeper can help by connecting frontline workers to their organization, to their manager, to their team, to their coworkers, and to an ecosystem of integrated tools and technologies.
The employee self-service revolution continues, and the time is now. Make sure your frontline staff is included, informed, and empowered.
The content from this blog is courtesy of John Keating, Head of Partners and Alliances- Beekeeper. Digital Workplace for Frontline Employees. To learn more about Beekeeper and Kronos partnership, visit their marketplace page.
