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Employees are the building blocks of an organization. The success or failure of a company is directly related to the productivity and engagement of the employees. Right from recruiting suitable employees, the HR department of an organization shoulders the responsibility of catering to the well-being of every employee working in the company. HR professionals undertake several processes to ensure that the employees are provided with an ideal work environment and thoroughly engaged while working with the organization. 

However, the HR department needs to tackle multiple challenges daily. Employees' dynamic nature and needs often make it difficult for HR managers to look after every employee using traditional means. This makes it essential for an organization to implement an HR help desk to streamline the support provided to the employees. 

An HR help desk allows you to reach out to your employees and provide them with adequate support. It is often a single-point contact between an employee and their HR manager. The help desk allows your employees to get their issues resolved, complaints heard, and questions answered from the moment they are recruited.

Why Is An HR Help Desk Important?

• Retaining Valuable Talent
  
  Thanks to the ever-increasing competition in all major industries, employees often have multiple options for organizations they can work in. If an organization cannot cater to the needs of its employees, they are likely to switch to a different company that provides them with better support.
  
  An HR help desk allows you to address all the issues encountered by your employees and assist them every step of the way. This helps you retain the skilled and capable employees that aid organizational growth and prosperity.
  
  
• Ensuring High Engagement
  
  Even if the quality of your offerings is top-notch, your organization will never be able to function at its full potential if your employees are not engaged enough. It is always crucial for a company to keep its employees genuinely driven and motivated towards their work to attain all its objectives.
  
  An HR help desk allows you to understand the issues faced by your employees and resolve them in the best way possible. It also helps managers to encourage the employees to give their best and guide them whenever needed. This makes the employees feel valued by the company they work in, leading to high engagement.
  
  
• Building Healthy Customer Relations
  
  Healthy relations with employees often lead to healthy relations with customers. When your employees can get all their issues resolved and queries answered through the HR help desks, they can interact well with your customers, improving the quality of support. This leads to building healthy and lasting relations with your customers, helping you get the desired traction.
  
  
• Increasing Employee Productivity
  
  When your employees are thoroughly engaged and feel valued by their organization, they are motivated to give their 100% in their work. A reliable and efficient HR help desk does not let your employees falter while doing their jobs. In fact, they allow the employees to get their issues immediately and help them get back to work. Removing all roadblocks from their way, an HR help desk increases the overall productivity of your employees and your organization.
  
  
• Tackling Sensitive Issues
  
  Whenever employees go through sensitive issues and cannot be discussed out in the open, they often hesitate to share them directly with the HR executives. An HR help desk provides your employees with a platform to share workplace harassment, mental health issues, etc., and keep them confidential.
  
  This way, your HR managers can address the issues, look into the matter, and take necessary actions without discussing sensitive matters openly. Further, this makes your employees realize that they are an integral part of the organization.
  
  

Important Features And Functions Your HR Help Desk Must Have

Despite all the benefits, a modern HR help desk offers, implementing simply any platform is never advisable for an organization. You will find a plethora of alternatives to making a simple search on the internet. However, it is crucial to select a help desk that is in sync with your organizational needs and provides you with advanced tools and features. 

In 2021, the traditional HR help desks cannot be used to provide seamless support to your employees. It is necessary to upgrade the level of HR support provided to your employees and the tools used for the same. In the age of digitization, organizations in all major industries prefer automating their help desks to optimize their HR processes. 

Modern HR help desks are equipped with technologies like AI and allow users to automate a range of HR processes within a few seconds. These platforms help you overcome all the shortcomings of the traditional approach and provide holistic support to your employees. 

Here are some of the most essential features and functions an HR help desk must have in 2021: 

• Automated Employee Onboarding
  
  Getting your employees onboarded is one of the biggest challenges faced by HR managers. Especially when it comes to onboarding remote employees, it becomes crucial to make sure that they are provided with the right resources and can gel well with their new team members. When the employees are working remotely, HR professionals often struggle to make sure they are comfortable with the new work environment.
  
  It is advisable to implement an HR help desk that provides you with an automated approach to streamline your onboarding processes. Modern HR help desks can be used to onboard employees irrespective of the location they work from. The platform helps you send automated and personalized emails to every employee when they join your organization.
  
  HR managers can use these emails to send the login credentials and provide access to specific software tools. They can also provide the new employees with contact details of their peers, the company policies, orientation dates, their roles and responsibilities, and all other important details required by the employees on their first day at work.
  
  Read More: Tips and Tricks to onboard your remote employees in 2021 and beyond.
  
  
• Getting Primary Issues Resolved Without Agents
  
  In 2021, an HR help desk should use conversational AI to provide personalized solutions to the issues faced by employees. The traditional help desks were often too dependent on the agents to provide support to the employees. This led to unnecessary delays as the agents had to deal with several cases at the same time.
  
  The modern HR help desks allow your employees to obtain immediate support without involving the agents. The AI chatbots scan your enterprise knowledge base whenever an employee raises an issue and return with an answer explicitly suited for the concerned employee. When the chatbots answer all the basic questions, it relieves the agents from handling multiple cases at once and helps your employees obtain personalized help within seconds.
  
  AI chatbots can also be used for routing cases to the agents for further support. A simple chat helps your employees get agents involved to look into the matter and resolve their issues.
  
  
• Streamlined Ticketing System
  
  The ticketing system in 2021 can no longer be limited to a few employees who are well-versed with complicated ticketing platforms. Traditional help desks often confused employees with complicated ticketing platforms that are difficult to locate and operate.
  
  The modern HR help desks help your employees auto-resolve their issues by automating the ticketing process. These platforms allow you to create support tickets simply by chatting with the platform. Once a ticket is created, the help desk sends the case details and references to an agent to provide complete context about the issue at hand.
  
  Once the case is dealt with, and the concerned employee is satisfied, a modern HR help desk would automatically close the ticket, ensuring that the employee does not have to take any action. This simplifies the overall ticketing process, making it easier for all employees to create and track their support tickets.
  
  
• Training Your Employees Through Microlearning
  
  The modern HR help desks are often equipped with microlearning features. Microlearning helps you get your employees trained without hiring trainers and conducting on-premise workshops. It involves providing a limited amount of content to your employees to get them trained one day at a time.
  
  With microlearning, you can get your employees trained by taking 10 minutes of their time every day. All you need to do is add the training resources to your knowledge base and have your employees access them from their respective devices. This helps you cater to their limited attention span and ensure that they retain the information they consume every day.
  
  

The Final Word 

These are some of the advanced features and functions you should consider while implementing an HR help desk in 2021. Always make sure that your help desk is in sync with your requirements and helps you prioritize the needs of your employees.