How to Leverage on Employee Portals as a Tool to Facilitate Remote Collaboration

With the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak accelerated all over the world, many countries have been forced to impose travel bans, close down establishments, and stop large gatherings. To prevent the virus from spreading in the workplace, many companies adopted a remote work policy in order to continue their daily operations.

While work-from-home arrangements have already been in place pre-pandemic for some modern-tech companies, the world didn’t fully embrace remote work until this year. In a flash survey done in March 2020 by the international law firm Seyfarth to measure employer response to the COVID-19 crisis, results showed that nearly 85% of employers were encouraging their employees to work; and 65% were taking steps to allow their employees to have the ability to work from home who do not normally do so.

For organizations and managers who are used to having their people on site, this new normal is an uncharted territory that presents a number of concerns, such as monitoring employee performance and streamlining company communications. Our answer to this dilemma? Incorporating effective employee management solutions through the use of employee portal.

What is an employee portal?

An employee portal is a secure website or platform that you can use to share files and information to keep everyone in your organization or company on the same page. An employee portal is a great employee management solutions tool that can be used for easier collaboration and improve the way your employees interact with each other. Regardless of the time, user, or location, an employee portal can be easily accessed on a desktop or a mobile device.

Benefits of using an employee portal

Creating an employee portal for your organization will affect your employees and your online workspace for the years to come. Take a look at this rundown we created to find out how you can benefit from this platform.

Streamline your company communications

Simple announcements like calendar updates, discussion boards, FAQs, employee benefits can easily be accessed by your employees. You can have organized team conversations without having to rely on emails or third-party messaging platforms all the time.

Gain employee control and engagement

Giving your employees access to their own data will not only save you time and money, but this will also help you earn their trust and their confidence by providing them transparent and accurate information. For example, a corporate handbook that is available online can be easily accessed to answer any question that your employee might have. Empowering your employees with control over their own information will help you grow your business in the long-run.

Expense management

Cut down on manual and costly paper processes by moving into digital pay records with this platform. An employee portal can also help give you the benefit of better record-keeping and streamline the approval and reimbursement process by allowing your employees to file expense reports and receipts.

Time-off management

Save your HR department and managers time and money by moving away from manually administering vacation and paid leaves one by one. By switching to a self-service employee portal, your organization can easily track absences and attendance. A good employee management solutions tool such as this one will also give your employees the ability to submit time-off requests in advance while tracking their leaves.

File storage

Benefit from having a centralized online repository of files and documents that you regularly share in your organization.

Facilitate better collaboration within departments

Collaboration in every organization and company is essential for efficiency. This can be challenging in remote working conditions but this can be solved through an effective employee management solutions tool like an employee portal. Streamline the way your marketing department connects with your HR team and your IT team (and vice-versa) by using an employee portal that lets you create virtual team pages and branches. These team pages can document information and encourage active employee participation in discussion boards, which is important for any organization.

Conclusion

There are many available options in the market for employee portals but for best results, It’s still highly recommended that companies turn to custom web portal applications as you can always save more time and money by using a platform that especially fits your organization’s core goals and needs.