Monmouthshire County Council
MyView self-service - HR and payroll self-service delivers savings in time and money for Monmouthshire County Council
Organisation description:
Monmouthshire County Council serves some 80,000 residents, with 4,500 employees working in sections as diverse as planning, recycling and education.
Challenge:
Eager to find ways to save time on administrative functions both centrally and across the organisation, the Council wanted a self-service solution that could reduce the time and cost of HR and payroll administration.
Solution:
• The MyView self-service module as an integral part of NorthgateArinso’s ResourceLink HR and payroll solution.
Benefits:
• Self-service has saved time when carrying out a range of HR and payroll processes.
• Instant access to information for managers, including detailing their team’s absence through training, holidays and sickness.
• A reduction in paper to support e-Government objectives.
Cutting time spent on routine record keeping
The use of self-service in Monmouthshire County Council began with the payroll office’s desire to remove data re-entry from manual record keeping processes. Although its use was originally a payroll-driven initiative, many aspects of HR administration and record keeping are also included.
“Updating records about an employee’s address, bank details, next of kin and so on used to involve the individual completing a form and sending it to us,” explains David Binning, Acting Payroll Manager. “We would then carry out the data entry, which was clearly a wasteful duplication of effort. Where staff in area offices were updating records we had the additional time delay and extra cost of posting forms to us.
“Staff now make the updates online, which means they reach us much quicker than paper form filling and of course removes the need for data entry by the payroll office. For any changes that require the manager’s authorisation, such as the submission of expenses claims or holiday requests, the process is also much simpler than before.
“The move to self-service has also reduced the amount of paper being used, which of course delivers an additional cost saving and makes a contribution to our efficiency programme.”
Enabling service improvements
The time saved through self-service has been put to good use. In the payroll office for example, they are now able to spend more time ensuring accuracy ahead of the BACS deadline. They are even able to issue payslips a week before the BACS run, enabling staff to check them and highlight any problems which can be addressed before the BACS run to ensure correct payment. The HR team is also finding that reducing the amount of time spent on centrally updating records is freeing up time for work on supporting their strategic activities.
Empowering staff through information
Monmouthshire have used MyView to give staff access to their own payslips, P11Ds and P60s. There is also a link to the websites of organisations with whom the Council have negotiated discounts on services as part of the employee benefits programme.
Staff can also see their attendance record and therefore have the opportunity to query anything with their manager or the payroll office if any information is incorrect. This is just one of the ways that self-service is enhancing accuracy.
David Binning believes that this function also acts as a motivational tool: “Staff can see the number of sick days they have taken, which could give them food for thought if their absenteeism is higher than average.”
Additional functions for managers
The core self-service functionality is proving a useful asset for managers as they seek information about their teams. Managers in schools for example often have the challenge of keeping track of staff on temporary contracts. Now they can get an instant, up-to-date view of information such as key contract dates for each temporary staff member.
To further enhance the information available to managers, the MyTeam module has been added to deliver extra tools. It enables managers to generate reports on a range of issues, such as individual team members’ sickness records for any given period. An online training and holiday planner also makes it easier to ensure departments have adequate coverage at all times. Managers can also use MyTeam to set up delegation of self-service approval authorities in their absence.
Managing the change process
Gaining buy-in to the new system from managers and staff was a key element of the introduction of MyView. Monmouthshire took a phased approach to ensure this happened, starting with a rolling programme of one-to-one meetings with managers. This then enabled a cascade of information backed up by workshop sessions for staff.
David Binning adds: “The ability to issue payslips a week early has also helped to gain buy-in to self-service from staff. People could see a direct benefit to using the system, followed by the realisation that it saves them time once they gave it a go.
“It also helped that the implementation from a systems point of view was simple, as was the ability to add additional modules as we extended functionality.”
