1 Simple Way to Organize the Chaos of Employee Questions

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.”