Employee portal

What is an employee portal?

An employee portal – also known as an employee self-service portal – describes the access of employees to an online platform on which they can complete many administrative tasks from personnel administration independently. This can include work planning, absence management, working time recording, communication, knowledge, document and task management. An employee portal is often also referred to as Employee Self Service (ESS).

An online employee portal allows employees to access their information independently and around the clock without having to rely on support from the HR department. This gives employees greater flexibility in managing their own data and information. In addition, the burden on HR departments is greatly reduced, as unnecessary requests such as the provision of salary statements or the submission of absence requests are automated and digitized.

What is employee self-service?

Employee self-service refers to the digital self-service of employees with regard to administrative HR management tasks, regardless of the opening hours and availability of the HR department. Employees can access their data around the clock, request absences, apply for jobs, request preferred working hours, download documents or pass on important information to the company.

What are the advantages of an employee portal?

Reduced costs

As employees can take on administrative tasks independently as part of self-service, the workload for HR departments is noticeably reduced. Recurring tasks in particular, such as providing payslips or organizing absences, are often time-consuming and require a lot of coordination. Digital and automated processes noticeably simplify and shorten these procedures.

More flexibility

As many employees have their own cell phone with internet access, it is also possible to access the self-service services from anywhere and at any time. This also makes it possible for employees to access their data whenever and wherever they want. This increases the satisfaction and flexibility of everyone involved. It also allows personnel planners to work from anywhere and complete their administrative tasks in a decentralized manner.

More participation and personal responsibility

The moment employees have the opportunity to access and, if necessary, change data and information, the company hands back more self-determination. As a result, employees feel freer and have more control over their plans and data. This strengthens employee participation, but also requires each individual to take personal responsibility.

Improved data protection and data security

When data is stored centrally and in a protected location, security increases. The reason for this is that individual pieces of information do not have to be shared unnecessarily across different media. This is because all information is stored digitally, in real time and in one central location. This reduces potential security gaps, such as e-mails that are sent to the wrong recipients, files on drives that are shared with the wrong people or paper files that may not be adequately protected. The level of protection of a data center often far exceeds the security requirements compared to personal files in a filing cabinet that is open in the office. An employee portal can therefore strengthen data protection and data security.

Higher speed

Mobile use enables asynchronous communication and reaction at any time. Automatic communication processes, e.g. emails or notifications, can be used to quickly exchange necessary information between employer and employee. This increases the speed at which administrative HR processes are handled. The challenges of “running after data” can be drastically reduced and are no longer tied to a specific location.