From recruitment and onboarding to performance management and employee relations, modern HR teams have a lot to tackle — and they’re looking for ways to do more with less.
Enter help desk solutions. They can streamline internal processes, enhance efficiency within HR teams, and ultimately improve the work experience for employees by providing immediate solutions to their queries and concerns.
Understanding HR help desk software
Help desk software systems for HR teams are specialized tools designed to streamline and automate various HR-related processes, including employee inquiries, issue resolution, and sharing out key updates and information.
If you’re looking for a new HR help desk system, it’s worth knowing that traditional ticketing systems might not be the best fit for HR teams compared to more personalized, modern customer service platforms. HR teams are typically fielding questions from multiple sources (Slack, email, etc.), and collaborative solutions offer omnichannel inboxes to manage all of these requests in one place.
Why implement an HR help desk?
Customer satisfaction should always be a priority, especially in an age of sky-high expectations, but employee satisfaction and retention should also be at the top of a business’s priority list. HR help desk software can help you achieve it.
For example, a UK study found that focusing on employee happiness drives results: unhappy employees take nine more sick days a year, costing ~£11bn annually in lost productivity. Workers say work is only getting more intense, making this focus on happiness and preventing burnout even more important.
With these rising expectations, HR help desks are a key way for HR teams to operate efficiently and make their employees happier. They’re a key driver of overall business efficiency for a few reasons:
Streamlining of issue management
In a centralized platform, HR teams can efficiently track, categorize, and prioritize incoming inquiries. This streamlined approach minimizes the chances of questions slipping through the cracks and ensures that each issue is addressed promptly.
Automating routine HR tasks to increase productivity
Help desk systems with automation capabilities enable HR teams to streamline routine tasks like processing leave requests, updating employee records, and sharing out company policies. With this time savings, HR professionals can free up valuable time to focus on more strategic initiatives like talent development, workforce planning, and organizational culture enhancement.
Providing data-driven insights for continuous HR process improvement
Collaborative help desk systems have robust analytics and reporting capabilities, allowing HR teams to gather data on key metrics such as response times, resolution rates, and employee satisfaction scores. With these insights, HR professionals can identify trends, pinpoint areas for improvement, and implement data-driven strategies to continuously enhance HR processes and services.
In reality, HR help desks often have a lot of the same requirements as a customer service platform. Many modern platforms like Front serve both use cases, ensuring employee and customer satisfaction alike. The happier and more engaged your employees are, the better work they’ll produce and the more engaged they’ll be for your customer base.
Features to look out for in an HR help desk
Core features
Here are the four core features you should look for when selecting an HR help desk system:
Omnichannel shared inboxes: Look for a system that enables consolidation of messages from your communication channels — email, SMS, social media, live chat, WhatsApp, and more — all in one place. When employee communication is in one place, you can respond faster.
Workflow automation: Automating manual work saves teams time, ensuring processes are followed and helping teams focus on strategic work.
Reporting and analytics: An HR help desk should measure team performance to uplevel your employee experience while improving efficiency for your business. With reporting and analytics features, HR teams can gain visibility into response and resolution time, tracking which topics come up most often with tags.
Integrations: Many HR help desk solutions offer integrations and an open API to build custom workflows for your business. This helps bring in third party data and deliver cohesive experiences.
Features that go one step further
Front has a few features that go beyond those offered by traditional HR help desks. These include:
Robust collaboration capabilities: Front’s product offers the building blocks of next-level collaboration.
These include:
Shared inboxes: With everyone working in a shared space, there’s more clarity on the status of customer conversations.
Shared drafts: Shared drafts make collaborating on a response and getting manager sign off easy.
Internal discussions: Spin up internal discussions directly in Front to get aligned with the rest of your team.
AI capabilities: Front’s AI capabilities enable rapid resolution of employee inquiries, boosting team productivity. From summarizing email threads to providing quick drafting assistance, Front AI empowers your team to resolve employee issues faster.
A stellar support team: Front is known for its exceptional customer support team [they consistently achieve nearly 100% CSAT!] to help you get the most out of the platform. The Front platform also offers an extensive knowledge base, Front community, and Front academy, which provide users with diverse pathways to maximize the value of Front.
Front customer PuzzleHR, a premier provider of HR Solutions as a Service (HRaaS), has seen that Front significantly increases communication quality while reducing daily email burden on their team. “Less work, better output, and more consistency as we scale the business!”
Common use cases for HR help desks
Implementing an HR help desk within your organization can revolutionize aspects of HR management.
Let’s dive into some key applications of an HR help desk for those who may be uncertain about its potential:
Employee onboarding and offboarding: Streamlining the onboarding and offboarding process is crucial for a smooth transition for employees joining or leaving a company. An HR help desk can centralize all tasks involved in these processes, including paperwork, access to systems, equipment setup, and exit interviews. By providing a single point of contact for new hires and departing employees, HR teams can ensure consistency, efficiency, and compliance throughout the onboarding and offboarding journey.
Leave and benefits inquiries: Managing employee leave and benefits inquiries can be time-consuming and complex, especially in organizations with diverse benefits packages and leave policies. An HR help desk can simplify this process by providing employees with a centralized platform to submit inquiries and access information. HR professionals can efficiently handle these inquiries, provide timely responses, and track leave requests.
Payroll questions: Addressing payroll questions in a timely and accurate manner is essential for maintaining employee trust and satisfaction. An HR help desk can serve as a dedicated channel for employees to submit payroll-related inquiries, such as tax withholding changes or direct deposit setup.
Training and development requests: Supporting employee growth and development is key to fostering a skilled and engaged workforce. An HR help desk can streamline the process of managing training and development requests, including requests for workshops, seminars, certifications, or tuition reimbursement. Employees can submit their training requests through the help desk platform, specifying their learning objectives, preferred training providers, and anticipated benefits for their role and the organization.
Use Front to transform your HR experience
Implementing an HR help desk is a transformative step for organizations that want to modernize and optimize their human resources management processes. These platforms not only streamline internal operations but also empower HR teams to deliver better support and services to employees, enhancing the overall employee experience and driving organizational efficiency.
Front takes the HR help desk experience to the next level. By offering robust collaboration tools, AI-driven assistance, and seamless integration with communication channels, Front empowers HR teams to resolve inquiries swiftly, collaborate effectively, and provide superior support to employees.
Want to know more about how Front can power your HR team?
Written by Sara Shaughnessy
Originally Published: 6 February 2024