Dive Brief:

• The majority of full-time employees (73%) want and expect self-service access to information, such as payroll, insurance coverage and retirement, but more than half of employers (53%) with 500 or fewer employees don't offer such services, a new Paychex study found. Results from "At Your Convenience: Employee Self-Service Streamlines HR, Saves Money, Engages Staff" also indicate a correlation between company size and do-it-yourself (DIY) access to HR-related services.
• The DIY actions employees want to do most are update personal information, manage paid time off (PTO), view or download payroll data, clock into and out of work and review work schedules. Also, 80% of survey respondents, on average, prefer doing these tasks online with desktop or mobile devices, rather than on paper.
• Tom Hammond, Paychex vice president of corporate strategy and product management, said that giving employees the tools to be self-reliant frees up HR managers to address more critical matters, such as employment law compliance and winning the talent war.

Dive Insight:

Employees expect the same independence and empowerment in their work lives that technology affords them in their personal lives. Workers are increasingly expecting their work technology to be as accessible as their consumer tech, and employers that don't figure this out may fall behind their peers. Outdated payroll systems, for example, can drain employer resources and hamper engagement.

DIY services are a win-win proposition for both HR managers, who need to focus more on the strategic aspects of human capital management (HCM), and employees, who want to feel empowered and in control of functions affecting their employment. Digital transformation, generally, is a real focus of CEOs at the moment due in part to these issues.

As an example, Paychex recently partnered with Facebook's Workplace platform to give its HCM suite users a social media experience. By using Flex through Workplace, users will have access to Paychex Flex Assistant, a virtual tool that provides answers to employees' commonly asked questions. Such tools are catching on in the market as both an engagement tool and a way to take some day-to-day pressure off HR managers.