Canadian Medical Association raffles vacation days to encourage staff to sign up
When the Canadian Medical Association rolled out its employee self-service portal in January 70 per cent of employees signed up.
The key to having so many log on? A vacation day raffle.
“I didn’t realize it would have such a big draw,” said Gina Maddalena, human resources system specialist, Canadian Medical Association (CMA) located in Ottawa. “They were really excited.”
Prior to the roll-out in the new year, the association had decided that, in order to get employees engaged in the new portal, they needed to do something to get them logging on.
They offered three raffles for one vacation day and had 900 of the organization’s 1,300 employees sign up.
Employees were even emailing Maddalena excitedly, asking for the information they needed to complete their online logon so they could ensure they would be entered in the draw, she said.
The contest, along with good communications tools like Internet messages and emails, helped the CMA reach its goals of getting employees to check the self-service portal and look at their online pay stubs.
It’s initiatives like these that help ramp up the push to get employees online, said Lino Gentile, product manager, integration and reporting, ADP, based in Toronto.
Tell employees about importance of self-service portals
Self service functions reduce issues associated with error prone tasks for payroll practitioners and allow for a streamlining of the payroll process, said Gentile.
“I can’t tell you how many clients I speak to that say ‘I’ve got a million things on my plate, if I could just get to that list the organization wants me to get to it would be of great value’.”
Value to companies
A study done by Environics Research in 2008 suggests organizations save up to $798 per employee annually when they are using self-service portals, said Gentile.
“So you can see there’s a lot of reasons for organizations to really back self-service and really make it happen properly,” he said.
The value to the employee should also be communicated clearly such as added security improvements including decreasing the number of paper documents floating around the organization, said Gentile.
“At the end of the day, employees are going to use self-service because it’s quick access to information they need when they need it,” he said.
Adoption issues? Call in top executives to help
If adoption is slow, administrators should make sure they’ve iterated the value of self-service to employees.
Sometimes an endorsement from a CEO or other top level executive can help, said Gentile.
“It’s something that really says we’re serious about this and we really want to make sure we get your attention to get into this important initiative,” he said.
Make technology accessible
But getting employees to log on, even if the benefits of working with the self-service portal are fully elaborated, isn’t always easy.
In workplaces where computers are not easily accessible, there can be issues.
If the workplace is not an environment where every employee has her own computer provided by the employer, like a manufacturing environment, some companies are using kiosks to make sure employees have the chance to log on, said Gentile.
One ADP client had a few workers who did not have strong literacy skills, which was a challenge for self-service use, said Gentile.
The client had the employees work out an agreement so their supervisor could log on for them and print off a pay stub or T4.
The information accessed was information the supervisor would already be privy to, so privacy was not an issue, he said.
“It was a unique approach that we saw in a situation where not only computer literacy was a challenge, but literacy itself,” he said.
Use self-service for as many applications as possible
Another barrier to having employees use self- service regularly is that it is often implemented using a phased-in approach, said Gentile.
“So you are asking employees to go online sometimes but still complete paper forms in other times,” he said.
The more self-service is introduced, and made available for more tasks, the easier it will be for companies to encourage increased adoption among employees, he said.
Have fun with the rollout
Employers should not be afraid to make the process fun, by providing incentives to register and log on regularly, like the CMA did with vacation days.
Some of ADP’s clients have implemented initiatives similar to the CMA, only they made them department based, having a prize for the first department to have everyone registered.
To keep employees engaged after they have been enticed to log on for the first time, the key is making sure the self-service solution is the company’s unified portal, said Gentile.
“From a long-term perspective, organizations understand they need to get more and more self-service out there and actually work on some fundamentals like usability,” he said.
Tax time increases users
Another driver towards greater usage that companies see is T4 time.
At tax time everyone needs a T4 statement, so having the document available online means a huge take up in usage, he said.
User-friendly portals encourage usage
At Kwantlen Polytechnic University, with campuses in Langley, Surrey, Richmond and Cloverdale, B.C., the self service portal was launched in 2003, so the school has been working with it for quite a few years, said Nicole Lotz, a spokesperson for the university.
When they launched, there were employee incentives and a campaign to entice employees onto the portal.
Now there is information about the portal in orientation and signing up is simple, said Lotz, who is a fairly recent hire.
“It’s fairly intuitive and it’s very user friendly,” she said.
Many of the university’s financial services are available online, like biweekly pay stubs and T4s, so it’s an important service for employees.
“It’s sort of in the employee’s best interest to familiarize themselves and use it.”
The key to having so many log on? A vacation day raffle.
“I didn’t realize it would have such a big draw,” said Gina Maddalena, human resources system specialist, Canadian Medical Association (CMA) located in Ottawa. “They were really excited.”
Prior to the roll-out in the new year, the association had decided that, in order to get employees engaged in the new portal, they needed to do something to get them logging on.
They offered three raffles for one vacation day and had 900 of the organization’s 1,300 employees sign up.
Employees were even emailing Maddalena excitedly, asking for the information they needed to complete their online logon so they could ensure they would be entered in the draw, she said.
The contest, along with good communications tools like Internet messages and emails, helped the CMA reach its goals of getting employees to check the self-service portal and look at their online pay stubs.
It’s initiatives like these that help ramp up the push to get employees online, said Lino Gentile, product manager, integration and reporting, ADP, based in Toronto.
Tell employees about importance of self-service portals
Self service functions reduce issues associated with error prone tasks for payroll practitioners and allow for a streamlining of the payroll process, said Gentile.
“I can’t tell you how many clients I speak to that say ‘I’ve got a million things on my plate, if I could just get to that list the organization wants me to get to it would be of great value’.”
Value to companies
A study done by Environics Research in 2008 suggests organizations save up to $798 per employee annually when they are using self-service portals, said Gentile.
“So you can see there’s a lot of reasons for organizations to really back self-service and really make it happen properly,” he said.
The value to the employee should also be communicated clearly such as added security improvements including decreasing the number of paper documents floating around the organization, said Gentile.
“At the end of the day, employees are going to use self-service because it’s quick access to information they need when they need it,” he said.
Adoption issues? Call in top executives to help
If adoption is slow, administrators should make sure they’ve iterated the value of self-service to employees.
Sometimes an endorsement from a CEO or other top level executive can help, said Gentile.
“It’s something that really says we’re serious about this and we really want to make sure we get your attention to get into this important initiative,” he said.
Make technology accessible
But getting employees to log on, even if the benefits of working with the self-service portal are fully elaborated, isn’t always easy.
In workplaces where computers are not easily accessible, there can be issues.
If the workplace is not an environment where every employee has her own computer provided by the employer, like a manufacturing environment, some companies are using kiosks to make sure employees have the chance to log on, said Gentile.
One ADP client had a few workers who did not have strong literacy skills, which was a challenge for self-service use, said Gentile.
The client had the employees work out an agreement so their supervisor could log on for them and print off a pay stub or T4.
The information accessed was information the supervisor would already be privy to, so privacy was not an issue, he said.
“It was a unique approach that we saw in a situation where not only computer literacy was a challenge, but literacy itself,” he said.
Use self-service for as many applications as possible
Another barrier to having employees use self- service regularly is that it is often implemented using a phased-in approach, said Gentile.
“So you are asking employees to go online sometimes but still complete paper forms in other times,” he said.
The more self-service is introduced, and made available for more tasks, the easier it will be for companies to encourage increased adoption among employees, he said.
Have fun with the rollout
Employers should not be afraid to make the process fun, by providing incentives to register and log on regularly, like the CMA did with vacation days.
Some of ADP’s clients have implemented initiatives similar to the CMA, only they made them department based, having a prize for the first department to have everyone registered.
To keep employees engaged after they have been enticed to log on for the first time, the key is making sure the self-service solution is the company’s unified portal, said Gentile.
“From a long-term perspective, organizations understand they need to get more and more self-service out there and actually work on some fundamentals like usability,” he said.
Tax time increases users
Another driver towards greater usage that companies see is T4 time.
At tax time everyone needs a T4 statement, so having the document available online means a huge take up in usage, he said.
User-friendly portals encourage usage
At Kwantlen Polytechnic University, with campuses in Langley, Surrey, Richmond and Cloverdale, B.C., the self service portal was launched in 2003, so the school has been working with it for quite a few years, said Nicole Lotz, a spokesperson for the university.
When they launched, there were employee incentives and a campaign to entice employees onto the portal.
Now there is information about the portal in orientation and signing up is simple, said Lotz, who is a fairly recent hire.
“It’s fairly intuitive and it’s very user friendly,” she said.
Many of the university’s financial services are available online, like biweekly pay stubs and T4s, so it’s an important service for employees.
“It’s sort of in the employee’s best interest to familiarize themselves and use it.”
