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As adoption of Internet-based self-service continues to grow, organisations are beginning to experiment with a broader range of capabilities . Once seen primarily as a way of automating basic HR administration – by allowing employees to directly input address changes or bank account details, rather than sending a form for an HR administrator to fill in – it now influences a range of HR disciplines from recruitment and training to performance management.

Webster Buchanan Research divides self-service into two types: informational/ promotional and transactional. Informational self-service is about giving employees, managers, and in some cases job candidates, access to information that would previously have required them to call or email the HR department – including, for example, details of training courses, job vacancies or employment policy. Transactional self-service enables managers, employees and job candidates to interact online with HR and payroll – for example, by submitting individual employee performance reviews, applying for training courses or submitting a job application and tracking its progress. Informational self-service is often a good place to start a self-service project because it’s usually an easier technical project, focused primarily on information broadcast rather than the management of workflows and processes.

Historically, most self-service activity has been carried out in the HR field, but the survey demonstrated that interest is growing in payroll, perhaps because its transactional nature lends itself to cost reduction initiatives. Some 17% of respondents already provide online pay advice (an ‘electronic payslip’) today and 42% plan to do so within twelve months, while almost a third of respondents (32%) plan to do so long-term. Similarly, 11% of respondents already enable employees to view their pay history online, 38% plan to within twelve months, and another third (34%) are looking to do so long-term.

In another payroll-related field, 14% of respondents enable employees and managers to input time and expense data online, with 47% planning to do so over 12 months and 23% looking at it long-term.

Among more traditional HR self-service capabilities, current and planned adoption levels of most capabilities vary, but with a clear long-term trend towards adoption:

• Recruitment Slightly more than one in ten (13%) of organisations currently enable internal and external candidates to submit job applications online, while 38% plan to do so within 12 months and 29% over the long-term. While the forecasted adoption level is encouraging, actual take-up today is similar to the findings of Webster Buchanan Research’s survey in early 2008 , suggesting that adoption may have slowed during the economic turmoil of the last year. A smaller number of companies (8%) currently enable internal and external candidates to track the progress of their application online – again, similar to last year’s survey – while 20% plan to within 12 months, 37% long-term, and 35% have no plans.
• HR administration Within 12 months, approximately four out of ten respondents will have enabled employees or managers to change their personal records (e.g. home address or bank account details), with 16% already doing so today and another quarter (25%) planning to do so over the year. In addition, slightly more than one third of respondents (36%) plan to enable this kind of interaction long-term. Given that this is one of the most basic components of self-service, it’s perhaps surprising that almost a quarter of respondents (23%) have no plans to embark on this kind of project, although many of them are in the smallest companies where the lower volume of changes required would result in less significant time and cost savings
• Absence Just over one in ten (12%) of respondents already enable employees or managers to request holiday time or leave, with another 23% planning to do so over the year and 39% looking to long-term. The same proportion (12%) already allow managers to approve holiday or other leave online, with 29% planning to do so over the coming 12 months and 40% long-term
• Training A third of respondents will enable employees or managers to request training/education programmes within the year (7% today, 26% within 12 months), with a further 40% expecting to do so long-term. Today, just five per cent of organisations allow managers to approve training or education programmes online, but 29% plan to within 12 months and 45% long-term
• Benefits Over a third (35%) of respondents will allow employees to view benefits information within a year, with 8% offering that capability today, 27% planning to within 12 months, and exactly half expecting to long-term. The slightly higher projected adoption rate for viewing benefits compared to more basic HR administration/employee data entry (85% over the long-term versus 77%) may reflect the fact that this kind of service is often outsourced rather than built in-house. In terms of the transactional component of benefits, no respondents enable employees to change their benefits online today, but almost a quarter (23%) plan to do so within 12 months and 48% long-term
• Performance management Just five per cent of respondents currently enable employees to view personal performance data (e.g. results of performance appraisals), but 20% plan to within 12 months, and 42% will do so long-term. Interestingly, that leaves a third of respondents seeing no benefit in doing so, with a significant proportion of the largest companies opting out
• Sharing documents No respondents currently enable employees or managers to upload and share electronic documents (e.g. copies of driving licence, employee performance reviews), but 16% plan to within 12 months, and 49% long-term

The extent of planned self-service adoption is reflected in respondents’ dismissive attitude towards classic adoption barriers. The vast majority of respondents (82%) dismissed concerns that not all of their employees have internet access at work or home, suggesting either that they believe home usage is prevalent or they’re confident that workplace self-service kiosks can cater for any employees with limited internet access. Similarly, 70% of respondents said resistance from employees was not a barrier, dispelling objections during early waves of self-service adoption that the technology shifts the burden of HR administrative work onto employees. In fact, with home banking and other online commerce now widespread, the likelihood is that the majority of employees may well expect to manage their own information over the internet.

Finally, the majority of HR managers (59%) said resistance to self-service adoption within the HR department was not a barrier. However, four out of ten respondents ranked it 3 out of 5, on a scale where 1 reflects a significant barrier and 5 no barrier at all. This suggests that while many HR managers do not expect internal resistance to thwart a self-service implementation, they’re aware that they will need to sell the concept to team members who may be wary about its impact on their jobs.

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