3 HR Application Strategies To Reduce Training and Support Costs

By: Karl Wierzbicki, Director of Marketing, InFlight

If your organization is providing employees with complicated and frustrating digital tools, training and support are essential. But, you don’t need training and support for the apps you download on your smartphone, right? So, why does this need to be the case for your HR applications?

You can save your organization a lot of money by making the systems used by your employees more intuitive so that they require less training and support. For instance, did you know that the average cost of training a single employee on a new digital tool is $1,252 per hire? And there can be dozens of digital systems that employees need to be trained to use.

On top of that, organizations are spending a significant amount of money on L&D team members who need to develop training and reference materials for these digital applications. Plus, companies are paying help desk teams so employees can reach out when they’re having an issue. As a result, training for complicated apps is not a “one and done” cost for your organization.

So, what can you do to reduce these high costs and improve the employee experience? 

1. Assess and audit your current HR applications

To improve your HR systems experience, have members of your HR team conduct an audit to assess the current state.

The audit should assess the type of experience your organization is delivering during critical moments in the employee life cycle, like during onboarding, benefits enrollment, and qualifying life events. In addition, it should also cover more everyday employee systems experiences, like viewing paychecks, submitting a PTO request, or logging expenses. The audit should also assess the mobile experience, since many employees will want to complete these self-service tasks on the go.

If the experience is frustrating and difficult to navigate, it might be time to put some effort into addressing your digital approach. Employees are looking for a self-service experience that is streamlined and easy to navigate across all devices. You should look to provide a user experience that respects employees’ time, feels modern, and engages the user from start to finish. 

2. Implement an employee feedback survey to find out what elements can be improved or removed altogether

You can improve the overall user experience of your digital HR applications by implementing employee surveys to gain visibility into the user journey. A feedback survey should reveal:

• The points where users are struggling to navigate your app
• The inefficiencies in your processes and digital workflows 
• The digital features that can be improved (or removed) to enhance the user experience
• The overall perception of your employee experience provided by the digital workplace

In short, employee surveys can help you understand user behaviour and perceptions so you can design a more intuitive experience that requires less training and support.

3. Consider a solution that can upgrade your employee experience to make it as intuitive as the best smartphone apps

The InFlight Employee Experience Platform (EXP) enhances your digital applications so they feel and work more like the consumer smartphone apps that employees are accustomed to using (that don’t require training or support!), without replacing your underlying Human Capital Management (HCM) system. 

Our solution allows you to redesign your HR application’s user experience, making the employee experience more modern and streamlined. We also declutter and simplify your digital tools to help employees perform tasks more efficiently and with less frustration.

Want to find out how your organization can reduce costs by eliminating the need for training and support? Get in touch and we’ll show you how to make your existing HR applications as easy-to-use and streamlined as the best apps on your smartphone.