If your company uses NetSuite accounting software, you could be making use of their employee self-service portal to boost employee engagement. After all, the NetSuite Employee Center can help your finance and HR teams save time and money, and empower your workers to take a more active role in their own admin.
In this blog, we’ll walk you through how to make the best use of this service – from the many benefits, to how to set it up.
The Role of Self-Service Portals in Employee Engagement
The employee self-service portal allows your staff to manage various HR-related tasks independently. It’s a tool for them to view and update their personal information, see payroll and benefit details, request time off, and even access their tax documents.
The portal can help you streamline your business’ internal HR processes, improving efficiency and accuracy in record-keeping. At the same time, because it allows your workers to access critical tasks and information without relying on direct HR intervention, it can boost employee satisfaction and empowerment.
By allowing your workers greater control of their work-life balance and personal information, you have the potential for an engaged workforce, with better job satisfaction.
NetSuite’s employee self-service portal can take this a step further. It also features performance management tools and access to learning and development resources, so your staff can set personal goals, make more informed decisions, track their growth, and engage in continuous development.
Overview of NetSuite’s Self-Service Portals
Your employee self-service portal integrates directly with your NetSuite software, making it easy to use and access. But before we get into the details of how to do just that, let’s examine the variety of features and benefits it offers.
Compatibility with HR processes
The portal allows your staff to handle certain HR features independently, streamlining HR processes and saving you money.
Armed with their NetSuite employee login, your workers have increased control of their administrative information. They can update their contact details, manage banking information, as well as access and submit their tax forms. In addition, it lets you upload onboarding documents, to help new hires settle in quickly.
This ultimately lightens the load of your HR department, without compromising compliance with labor laws and regulations.
Your company’s HR team can also take this a step further, and implement automation of certain processes to further reduce how much time and effort is spent on common or repetitive tasks. Finally, the portal comes with dashboards that allow you or your HR team to monitor key KPIs for more strategic hires and decision-making.
Benefits and compensation management
Like with human resources management, an employee self-service portal also lets your workers view and manage their benefits from a centralized platform. At the same time, it simplifies the process of selecting and changing benefits options.
So what types of benefits can be accessed? Your staff can view their health insurance and retirement plans, as well as any other benefits you may have provided to them.
This goes hand in hand with payroll management. NetSuite’s employee self-service portal makes it easy for your HR team to process payroll accurately and on time. The portal can also handle tax-related calculations seamlessly.
Leave and time-off requests
It’s also possible to streamline leave and time-off requests with an employee self-service portal. In fact, this tool provides your workers access to time and attendance tracking capabilities to easily log their hours, for accurate payroll. This means you have access to real-time updates for leave management, to continue to manage and plan workloads, even when staff are away from the office.
Your team can also automate certain processes around leave – like requesting time off, and having these requests approved. Moreover, staff time-off balances are updated automatically as requests are approved, to further ease the administrative burden.
Training and development opportunities
For many employers, one of the most useful (and appealing) features of NetSuite’s employee self-service portal is its ability to provide staff with access to company-specific training materials, like personalized e-learning modules, to ensure workers are always up to date on processes, can guarantee compliance, and can further their careers.
This comes with built-in performance metrics to help you measure and track development progress, and even highlight areas that require improvement. Of course, this makes it easier than ever to track and manage worker performance. This includes setting employee- or team-specific goals, and handling reviews.
And since your staff will have access to these metrics, they can take greater accountability for their performance and ultimately be the drivers of their own success.
Enhanced communication and feedback
If you’ve ever experienced issues around communication and feedback, you’ll know all too well how easily poor communication translates to missed opportunities, mistakes, and even conflict.
The employee self-service portal is a great way to improve intra-company communication. It features real-time chat capabilities, and lets staff share and collaborate on information with ease.
This makes project management that much simpler, no matter the department. As a bonus, the portal also features a help desk for raising issues in NetSuite, and tracking their resolution in real-time.
With all these features, it’s no surprise that the portal empowers your employees to be more active and engaged in their roles. So if you haven’t already, what’s stopping you from setting this up?
Implementing Self-Service Portals in Your Organization
NetSuite has made it so easy for your staff to access the self-service portal. Here’s how:
- Staff must access the Employee Login Page via your company’s NetSuite login URL.
- Once they enter their login details, they can set a username and password, to ensure their information is private and secure. You also have the option to implement multi-factor authentication (MFA) for added security.
- Next, they need to navigate to the Employee Center for access to their details. Note that this requires the employee to have the correct role in the system. If you haven’t already set permissions to allow this role, you can do so as follows:
- Go to Lists > Employees > Employees.
- Find the employee you want to grant access to, and click ‘Edit’ next to their name.
- Navigate to the ‘Access’ subtab.
- Fill in all the necessary access details.
- In the ‘Role’ dropdown, choose ‘Employee Center’.
- Click ‘Add’ and save your changes.
In just a few easy steps, your employees will be ready to start proactively managing their information.
Get professional help!
To enrich the experience even further, you should consider joining up with a NetSuite partner. That way, you have access to support, while someone does the software’s heavy lifting for you!
For help managing your NetSuite software, from implementing features to outsourcing your day-to-day accounting tasks, feel free to schedule a free Discovery Call with one of our CPAs.
The information presented in this blog article is provided for informational purposes only. The information does not constitute legal, accounting, tax advice, or other professional services. We make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability, or availability of the information contained herein. Use the information at your own risk. We disclaim all liability for any actions taken or not taken based on the contents of this blog. The use or interpretation of this information is solely at your discretion. For full guidance, consult with qualified professionals in the relevant fields.
