Rogue Services and Solutions » Blog Archive » Transformational HR: The Intranet Portal Full of Win

I have a confession: I’m old. The oldest at Rogue, at least. Thus, I’ve had a few jobs in my day. Not as many as my millennial brother (burrrrrn), but still enough to know plenty about how different companies function. Some HR departments are passive service organizations–which is cool if you’re there. And then some HR departments OWN IT.

These are the transformational HR departments that bring in efficiency, reinforce culture, provide leadership and strategic direction, recruit top talent, and aren’t there to spend their days responding to everyone’s questions like… just off the top of my head:

How much PTO do I have left? How much do I earn? Is that by pay period or month? Do we pay out PTO when someone leaves?
How do I request time off?
Who is our 401K plan through, again? Can I change how much I put in there per month?
Hey can you tell me how to change my name/address/whatever in the system?
Where do I sign up for electronic pay stubs? Ummm and how do I see my pay stubs?
When do we do performance reviews? What do I need to fill out? Where is that?
When is the next lunch-and-learn? What time? What’s it about?
How can I find out my pay grade for my title?
Can you help me make a time sheet correction?
When is open enrollment?
What counts as a life-changing event for benefits?
Where’s the org chart for this place?
Can I get a referral bonus if I refer someone who is hired?

These questions come so readily to me because I’ve bothered many HR professionals in my tenure in the job force. Imagine me times one hundred employees, four hundred employees, and more. Those HR professionals are reading this right now, and they know. Heeeeey, love you guys. I swear, they are the most patient people on earth. Then they go home and punch walls because of people like me.

Transformational HR departments aren’t going to tell you to leave them alone, but they really don’t have time to answer these same questions ad nauseam. They have real stuff to do! Just like you and me!

In our opinion, a powerful HR Portal is a kick-azz HR department’s best asset. It can give employees access to almost everything they need to serve themselves. Come, walk with me through your future intranet’s HR Portal full of win…

Company handbook, policies, procedures
Training documents or links to a training portal/knowledge base–with assignments
Time sheets, expense reports/submissions/responses, PTO balances, PTO requests
Access to pay stubs
Performance review forms, historical performance reviews
A calendar of important HR-related dates/deadlines and corporate holidays
Links to third-party benefits plans/administrators
Change forms (name, address, bank account, tax elections); for that matter, ALL the forms–W2, W9, I9, 1099, abc, xyz
Organizational chart and staff directory, titles and pay grades, career paths
List of open positions
Important announcements (Got a new CEO? Shout it out.)

Gosh. Those features and content would wipe out that entire list of annoying questions above and make life a lot easier for a team who is busy with the monumental task of moving an organization forward.

An HR Portal can go even further. It can give managers access for approvals, reviews, etc. And it should always look good. Brand it to represent the totems of corporate culture. Of the people, for the people and all that good stuff.

Does your enterprise have an HR Portal that (1) alleviates the time-sink of answering the same questions all day and (2) works well for your organization’s employees as a self-service tool that they see as a real value in their lives because they have access to everything they need? If not, I know a guy!

Thanks for reading!