Given how extensively the Internet has crept into daily life during the past couple of decades, it is remarkable that employees at many companies cannot simply log into an online account and view tax slips, vacation allotments and pay stubs.
Things are changing fast, however, and there are many competitors seeking to help employers operate human resources more efficiently, through online portals for employers.
“The beauty of the portal is that it’s a one-stop shop,” said Matt Horwood, a human resources systems group manager at BC Hydro, which has had employee portals for about four years.
BC Hydro uses SAP (NYSE:SAP) software that enables employees who are logged into their work computers to view pay stubs and tax slips and to book vacations.
Some employees are given permission to log into the system from home if they use a virtual private network that mimics the local area network used at work.
The University of British Columbia (UBC) has a similar system, although it uses Oracle (Nasdaq:ORCL) software and does not yet allow employees to book vacations online.
“We plan in the next one to three years to create a centralized absence- and vacation-tracking system, which is also offered through the Oracle software products,” said Robert Boudreau, UBC’s director of human resources information systems.
Boudreau watched the university roll out its first employee portals in 2006 by buying add-on components to existing Oracle software.
Initially, the only things UBC employees could see on their portals were pay stubs and tax slips.
Through the years, extra components were added so employees could also view benefit entitlements and beneficiary information as well as enrol in professional development courses and apply for campus jobs.
“It’s really a win-win,” Boudreau said, adding that all employees are able to access their portal from home if they install Cisco software for a virtual private network on their home computers. “We’ve really reduced how much paper we use.”
Other large multinational companies that compete to help human resources professionals make the transition to employee portals include ADP LLC (Nasdaq:ADP) and Ceridian.
Calgary-based Avanti Software concentrates on the Canadian market.
“We chose to go with Avanti because they really focus on Canada,” said Sherri Kisser, manager of finance and accounting systems at Glacier Media, which owns Business in Vancouver.
“Companies outside of Canada will say, ‘Yes we do Canadian payroll.’ But we wanted one that has their business here in Canada and is focused on the Canadian product.
“That’s important because then you know that they’re enhancing it and that they are looking at the budgets that come out and they make sure that you get the right tax updates.”
Glacier is rolling out a system where employees can check tax slips as well as pay stubs. The Avanti system enables employees to track exactly how much vacation time they have accrued as well as book that time in their account.
Managers get alerts when vacation time is requested and with a single click can approve that time.
“There is an obvious efficiency with this for Glacier,” Kisser said. “There will not be the work of typing in data off paper time sheets, which could mean keying errors.
Avanti offers employers the choice of outsourcing all aspects of managing human resources work or of simply using the software in-house.
To keep more control over its payroll, Glacier is continuing to do work in-house, such as sending information to the bank to issue paycheques.
“We’re easily saving $500,000 per year compared with an outsourced solution,” Kisser said.•
