While human resources have traditionally been face to face to discuss performance, learning, and communication issues. More businesses are turning to online platforms to offer the same service, reduce costs, and increase the time of available staff. There are some key benefits to this approach and some tips on investing in an online platform.
- Independent learning
An online platform provides an opportunity for employees to take responsibility for their own learning. They do not need to wait for courses to become available or for a human being to get back to them with information because a lot of the information is already available to view live and automatically updated. Often, an online platform can also provide an opportunity for an employee to explore other skills and subjects that may be slightly outside of their role without needing to justify themselves or ask for the opportunity to do this from a manager. This can build an employee’s confidence and give them much more job satisfaction, as they feel that they are getting more value from the company.
2. Customized experience
Many organizations opt for a custom-made HR platform instead of a standard ‘off the shelf’ version. This allows the employees to be provided with accurate and relevant information specifically related to their company. It offers the company an opportunity to use an online learning platform to regularly provide content that is specifically chosen or created by the company to suit their culture, ethos, and objectives. These platforms offer user-friendly spaces to upload different pieces of content from a variety of sources and publish it directly to the team.
3. False or actual anonymity
An online HR platform can be an effective way of being made aware of problems in the organization that a company may not have been made aware of otherwise. This is because the employee can feel that they are slightly more anonymous because they do not need to have a meeting to discuss the issue with a manager to highlight it, and they can go directly to the relevant part of HR to notify the business of the issue. Many platforms will also provide an anonymous survey or feedback offering, which will provide true anonymity. The quality and level of information provided by an employee when they feel they are anonymous is significant.
4. Efficient measures and rewards
With an automated platform, there is less room for error. While normally, a member of HR might forget to reward or congratulate employees for completing learning or another activity, an online platform will do this instantly. Many platforms will offer badges and rewards to incentivize online learning, and for an employee to be able to see their achievements and measure the level of their success in real-time, it will offer them more confidence and motivate them to continue to improve. Equally, this can also be used for measuring performance within the job role and creates an efficient and non-bias platform where employees can see where they need to improve.
Overall, online HR platforms are certainly worth further exploring. Depending on your company situation and number of employees, a custom platform with all the bells and whistles could be a huge asset to your business.