Using HR Helpdesk to Enhance Employee Productivity and Experiences HR managers can use modern helpdesks to monitor their employees' progress, hire new employees, and ensure they are satisfied with their workplace.
By Saurabh Kumar Edited by Ryan Droste
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
The need for personalization has increased across the board in business. Today, customers demand to be treated as if every product and service provided by an organization is tailored just for them. Right from marketing efforts to after-sale support, organizations need to personalize their processes to obtain the best results.
Similarly, employees working in an organization require personalized attention from the management to increase their engagement and productivity. In 2021, the motivation for an employee to work in an organization is not limited to high remuneration and promotions.
The basic needs of employees have changed significantly over time. An organization needs to fulfill these needs to improve the experience and productivity of its employees.
New employee needs that require your immediate attention
1. The need for a flexible work environment
Employees are no longer willing to work fixed hours, punching in and out every day at the same time. Provided the tasks are completed on time and their work is not affected, today's employees prefer working according to their convenience. This may involve doing more work in less time or working beyond their dedicated hours to obtain the desired results. When an organization provides its employees with flexible working hours, it increases their engagement and productivity.
2. Preference for working remotely
Today, employees working in several industries prefer working remotely. They no longer see the need of going to an office and sitting at their desks all day. Working remotely helps an employee work from the comfort of their home and get their work done in a convenient atmosphere. This is especially true in digital marketing, IT and eCommerce, where all tasks can be performed with the help of a laptop and an internet connection. Employees often feel more productive while working remotely.
3. The need for seamless collaboration while working remotely
Working remotely doesn't necessarily refer to complete isolation. Even when employees work from their homes, they need to collaborate and communicate with their peers and managers. No matter how comfortable remote work is, employees do crave the water cooler conversations and lunch hours. They need virtual platforms to interact with their peers and recreate an office-like atmosphere while working remotely.
4. The need for personalized support
Whether they are working remote or on-premise, employees in 2021 need seamless and personalized employee support. Organizations can no longer continue with the traditional approach of providing generic support to their employees. It is essential to provide them with digitized support that provides personalized solutions to their issues.
Related: 5 Reasons Why Entrepreneurs Should Use HR Management Software
The importance of an HR helpdesk in enhancing employee productivity and experience
If you are willing to enhance your employees' overall experience, engagement and productivity with the help of your HR helpdesk, it is always advisable to implement a modern AI-based helpdesk.
The traditional helpdesks are no longer relevant in providing streamlined support to your employees and taking care of their individual needs. The modern helpdesks allow your HR managers to keep track of your employees' progress, hire new employees, and ensure that they are happy with the workplace environment.
Here are some of the essential ways in which you can use your HR helpdesk in enhancing the productivity and overall experience of your employees:
1. Helping them auto-resolve their issues
As opposed to traditional helpdesks, modern HR helpdesks provide a range of automated services to your employees. They help your employees auto-resolve their issues by interacting with AI chatbots. The use of conversational AI allows your employees to have human-like interactions with virtual assistants instead of approaching support agents directly.
As your employees log into an AI-driven helpdesk, they will be assisted by AI chatbots that would accompany them until they get their issues resolved. They need to chat with the virtual assistants, and the bots would provide them with a personalized solution. When your employees ask a question or raise an issue with the chatbots, they scan your enterprise knowledge base, consider the context of the issue, and return with a unique solution within a few seconds.
If your employees need to obtain the help of a support agent to get their issues resolved, they can get their cases routed to dedicated agents by giving a simple command on chat. The chatbots provide all relevant information about the case to a support agent and link them to your employees. Upon resolving the issue, the support agent would communicate the solution with your employee through the helpdesk, thereby streamlining the entire support procedure.
2. Automated ticketing system for all employees
One of the most common challenges employees face using traditional helpdesks is handling the ticketing system. The traditional ticketing system was limited to assisting a handful of employees who were well-versed with the platform. This resulted in the other non-technical employees finding it difficult to obtain personalized solutions to their problems.
With a modern HR helpdesk, you can automate the entire ticketing system, allowing all of your employees to obtain personalized support from the agents. Here, an employee can raise a ticket simply by chatting with the AI chatbots. The helpdesk automatically raises the ticket and routes the case to an employee.
While the issue is being looked into, the helpdesk sends regular updates to the concerned employee regarding the status of their case. Once the issue is resolved, the helpdesk automatically closes the ticket without your employee having to do anything.
This way, irrespective of the department they belong to, all your employees can auto-resolve their issues through an automated ticketing system.
3. Automated onboarding of employees
HR managers often face difficulties in onboarding employees, especially if they are working remotely. It is always essential for a company to treat the first few weeks of an employee's time with them as the most important, making sure they are comfortable working in a new environment.
The modern service desk allows your HR managers to onboard your employees with ease and efficiency. When new employees join your organization, you can send personalized emails through a modern HR helpdesk. Along with a heartfelt welcome letter, you can provide important information such as login credentials for collaborative platforms, company policies, team members' contact details and other important items to your employees via personalized emails.
Moreover, a modern service desk would help the new employees get all of their doubts and queries resolved within seconds. Such seamless employee support will make your onboarding program a success.
4. Training your employees to increase productivity
When new technological advancements are made frequently, it is crucial to train your employees in the latest micro-skills to keep them in sync with the prevailing trends. A modern HR helpdesk helps you save the money spent on hiring trainers and conducting on-premise training sessions by letting your employees train themselves.
According to the skills that you want your employees to learn, you can feed your knowledge base with training resources that they can access according to their convenience. This empowers your employees to get increasingly self-reliant, leading to high productivity and engagement.
Moreover, you can make your training resources content more engaging by adding images, videos, animations and other content formats. This will help your employees retain information better and learn new skills faster.
5. Streamlining the recruitment processes
HR managers often have a tough time segregating job applications, assessing screening questions, and shortlisting the most suitable employees to pass on to subsequent rounds.
With a modern HR helpdesk, your HR managers can automate the screening of job applications depending on the role and qualifications of the candidates. It also allows the candidates to obtain answers to their recruitment and specific job opportunities provided by your organization.
6. Communicating HR policies
Instead of making your employees go through lengthy handbooks and manuals, you can communicate your HR policies via automated HR helpdesks. The helpdesk provides all relevant information about your HR and company policies to your employees when they need them. The helpdesk makes sure that your employees are notified whenever there is a change in the policies or when new policies are introduced.
Moreover, just like making the training content engaging, HR managers can communicate HR policies more engagingly by making use of interactive content formats.
7. Automating employee surveys
An organization needs to conduct surveys regularly to make necessary improvements in its processes and make the experience of its employees better. The modern HR helpdesk allows you to conduct personalized surveys with all of your employees and automate the assessment of responses to obtain valuable insights about your support services.
Related: How Technology is Turning Around the Fate of Human Resources
These are some of the important ways to utilize your HR helpdesk in increasing the productivity and experience of the employees working in your organization. A streamlined, automated and personalized employee support helps you retain more employees and increase the prosperity of your company.
