Facilitating accessible HR services: Why it should be on your strategic roadmap

Nmbrs

4 min read

Recently, Nmbrs organized a knowledge session for accountants that was entirely dedicated to HR services, or rather, the facilitation of HR services. HR specialists find that the employee is increasingly asking for faster and, above all, more accessible HR services. Where does this demand come from? How can you contribute to better HR services as an accountant? And what do you get in return?

Investing in digitization; Why the salary specialist can no longer ignore it

The changing composition on the work floor not only has consequences for HR, but also for the salary specialist. In 2020 we will reach the tipping point that millennials, on average, are no longer in the minority. And so it is time that organizations adjusts processes to their needs, instead of the other way around. That is what Hans Mangelschots, HR consultant and owner of HRTOOLZ.online, says during the knowledge session at the Nmbrs office in Amsterdam.

Millennials look at technology very differently from baby boomers, says Mangelschots. Generation Y grew up in the digital age and according to him, this manifests itself in different ways. "For example, where baby boomers prefer the telephone as a means to communicate, generation Y is much more focused on online communication. Preferably on a mobile device. And that is just a simple example. "

Other services for payroll administrators

That this vision on technology has major consequences for employers, makes Nmbrs founder and CEO Michiel Chevalier clear in a contribution to Personeelsnet. In it, he states that employees are used to having access to online tools with which they can easily arrange their own business. And that especially millennials increasingly expect that they can use such tools at work.

Employees are used to having access to online tools with which they can easily arrange their own business.

Mangelschots: "In the past, you could still say that millennials had to adapt to the way of working in a company, but if you want to attract and retain employees, you can no longer get away with that." For payroll administrators, this means that they have to adjust the services they provide to their clients and employees - even if only by simply giving them digital access to their salary information, or by helping them with questions about their salary through various communication channels.

More time for substantive matters

But payroll administrators can also benefit from smarter use of technology, says Mangelschots. "In many companies, they spend a lot of time on administrative, routine processes." Consider, for example, entering personal data when an employee enters employment, removing an employee when he leaves and taking over salary information from an employment contract. "These administrative operations are of course necessary, but also easy to automate. Why would not you do that? This way you have a lot more time to focus on substantive matters. "

Ralph Wilbers is the founder of WePayroll, as well as the payroll provider, also an implementation partner of Nmbrs. During the knowledge session, he explains to the audience what they should pay attention to when implementing automation in payrolling. "First of all, it is important to realize that it requires a different way of thinking." In practice, he often sees that companies that make a digitization drive want to use new technology to implement their old process. "While the idea is correct that you change the process and tackle it more efficiently."

Improve processes together

Before implementing the Nmbrs software with customers, Wilbers always first identifies with them what they really want to achieve. "By discovering a client’s motivations, you can design a solution like Nmbrs much better. But also by finding out which parts of an old process may already work well and you want to keep it. That way we will be able to look for a new system with the ultimate goal of organizing processes as efficiently as possible."

By discovering a client's motivation, you can design a solution like Nmbrs much better.

Mangelschots adds that it is important to opt for a bottom-up approach when implementing new technology - both for the sake of the payroll administrator as for the client and employee. "Otherwise you will get resistance from employees, who wonder why change is needed now." He therefore advises companies to draw up employee experience in co-creation with employees. "Let them give feedback at an early stage, for example. Only make sure that it does not get lost in such things as 'should this button not be blue instead of red'? Focus rather on the experience: does this solution help employees to achieve their goals more efficiently? "