Organizations of all sizes and across all industries are facing an unexpected set of challenges as they race to keep up with the accelerated pace of change in the way we work. Supporting employees has become increasingly important and, at the same time, more complex than ever before. With new hybrid office setups and distributed teams, companies are suddenly faced with a substantial portion of their workforces working from home and an increase in demand for support.

Luckily, there are tools that can fill the support gap brought about by the ‘new normal’ and improve employee productivity and efficiency. Knowledge bases (FAQs), self-service portals, and chatbots empower employees to self-serve when and where they need support.

Employee self-help allows organizations to achieve a range of benefits, including:

• Enabling employees with 24/7 availability
• Smoother onboarding for remote employees
• Streamlining internal communications
• Standardizing procedures and minimizing the risk of error
• Reducing the load on the HR, IT, and Facility departments
• Lessening the burden on employers to staff human-assisted channels

The flexibility of employee self-service lends itself to nearly any department within an organization. Here are a few use cases that are especially relevant for companies who have transitioned to remote or hybrid work environments:

• IT Support – repetitive help desk requests, login information and password resets, device/machine support – Employees transitioning to working from home will inevitably have questions, especially if they are using new technology set-ups that they aren’t familiar with. It is critical that employees have access to the technical support they need to do their jobs. Using a chatbot that automatically responds to requests gives them 24/7 access to self-service. Regardless of when or where they run into problems, they can find information and access troubleshooting information to help resolve their issues without relying on face-to-face interaction.
• HR Support – company policies/procedures information, vacation requests, payroll and benefits questions, staff training, expense report help – As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, many companies have put established new policies and procedures for employees or made updates to existing ones. With so much new information – combined with new personal and working routines – employees require an easy way to find the answers they need quickly. Self-service tools remove the need for employees to search through an entire policy document for the answer to one specific question by instantly pulling out the piece of information that is relevant to them. Some technology can also be set up with an anonymity feature to give employees peace of mind when submitting HR-related requests that are more personal in nature.
• Facility Support - maintenance requests, building information, supplies/re-order assistance - Even if your company has made the shift to remote work, employees may still need to visit a physical location from time to time. However, due to capacity restrictions and reduced occupancy, keeping your office fully staffed doesn’t make sense and opens your building services team up to unnecessary risks. With the self-service portal, employees can easily find up-to-date information regarding new office procedures, place requests, and track the status of their open work orders.

Though implementing a self-service support system for employees will pay off in terms of unified communication and consistency across your organization, they must be carefully selected and managed to reach their full potential.

Common barriers to self-service adoption include:

1. Failure to design self-service capabilities suited for real-world use by not factoring in employees’ wants and needs.
2. Smoother onboarding for remote employees
3. Insufficient explanation of how and why everyone will benefit from using it.
4. Neglecting to update the system with new, up-to-date information

Companies are being faced with the challenge of supporting employees remotely – many for the very first time – and should explore how an internal self-service support system may be able to help them do that.

Everything from new hire onboarding to office climate controls lends itself well to intelligent automated support. With options to connect your existing tools, the experience can be made intuitive for employees and won’t take long to set up.

Software solutions, like Roby , will integrate with Slack, Microsoft Teams, and building automation systems to help manage the flow of internal support tickets and automatically resolve repetitive requests within your current conversation channels.