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At your level, you likely receive more than your fair share of employee questions. Lots and lots of questions, like …
- “When does my dental insurance kick in?”
- “I can’t find my keys. Where’s lost and found?”
- “Who can I ask about my stock options?”
- “I think a sink on the third floor may be broken. How can I contact maintenance?”
- “Where do I report a workplace accident? Or is there a form?”
- “Is the dress code posted anywhere?”
A valid reason exists for that: Whom to ask or where to start are often unclear, so employees send their questions with a guess … and perhaps with fingers crossed.
But the person receiving the question may not know the answer; he or she may not even be there to receive it, off on vacation or (heaven forbid) jury duty. Tracking an answer down – not to mention an alternate person to provide that answer – can entail a chain of forwarded emails, rounds of phone tag and/or inefficient drop-by visits.
With workers growing frustrated at the delay – and even unproductive and disengaged – that adds up to a big problem.
Additionally, research by the Center for Effective Organizations shows that responding to those individual questions helps gobble up more than 50% of an HR department’s time, which is time better spent on matters that affect everyone, from employee engagement to retention.
What’s an organization to do? Ask Here.
Streamlined communication
No, really: Ask Here™, a new technology tool. Standard with Paycom and easily accessible via each worker’s Employee Self-Service®, it funnels their questions to the best person equipped to answer them, allowing everyone across departments – especially HR – to focus on strategic initiatives.
Here’s how it works:
- Employees can open a conversation anytime, anywhere – at work, off work, in the field, over weekends or on holidays, at their convenience.
- Their questions automatically route to the appropriate personnel, whether in HR or elsewhere across your organization.
- Employees are immediately notified when a response is received.
- All conversations take place in a familiar chat-window experience and are stored in one secure dashboard.
- Customizable templates and saved answers to FAQs further streamline your process.
As a result, the following things can happen:
- Employees’ trust and engagement in your company and its culture increase, knowing they are listened to.
- Foot traffic, phone calls and emails decrease across the organization.
- Response times decrease because of the accountability created by a question being fielded directly to the person qualified to address it.
- It is easier for you to identify where gaps in policies and procedures create confusion among the workforce.
- Similarly, frequent questions help you discover training opportunities.
Ask Here is yet another effective tool that works seamlessly in Paycom’s single-application, single-database HR and payroll software.
Oh, we have a question of our own: How many emails, phone calls and in-person visits should it take for an employee to get an answer?
We believe “zero.”