Employee Relations (ER) is a vital subset of ServiceNow HRSD (Human Relations Service Delivery) that strives to promote strong employee engagement while handling the most sensitive and complex of employee interactions. These types of interactions can include: reports of misconduct, requests for special accommodations, altercations between employees, and other similar situations. Failure to manage these scenarios effectively can be disastrous, and litigious for the organization resulting in loss of reputation and monetary values. The careful and strategic handling of these cases offers an incredible opportunity for an organization to build a culture of trust, transparency, accountability, and continuous improvement. Organizations that foster this type of environment provide their employees with the confidence, support, and freedom to do their best work.
Why is confidentiality and trust so important in Employee Relations?
It may be tempting to look at Employee Relations as just another area within HR as you would with Benefits, Payroll, or Talent Management. However, it’s important to recognize that ER is not simply a division of HR that handles a certain category of requests. It is a very specialized area within HR that requires a strategic approach with the appropriate security, guidance, and resolution structure.
Consider some of the sensitive scenarios that are handled within ER:
- Requests for special accommodations related to physical and mental needs
- Harassment complaints
- Employee altercations
- Confidential complaints concerning management
- Reports of fraud, theft, waste, etc.…
Imagine the implications of the below scenarios:
- Protected Health Information (PHI) is included in a request for special accommodations, and those details are made available to individuals who are not authorized to access that information.
- An employee with a disability submits a request that is mishandled, resulting in a potential violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
- A harassment report is submitted, but the appropriate people are never notified, and no action is taken.
- A report is submitted regarding an altercation between employees, but the situation is not properly investigated or documented.
- Employee misconduct is reported, but the legal implications are not identified nor acted upon.
- HR agents do not have the visibility to track status, manage response times, or identify patterns related to ER requests/reports.
The reality is that any mishandling of these types of interactions involves significant risk and could be detrimental to both the employee experience and the organization’s success. Risks to the organization include injury to reputation, lawsuits or government fines, diminished employee engagement, and lack of trust. Strategic and responsive handling, however, builds the foundation required for a trusted and productive work environment.
Many companies value employee engagement, and it’s important to recognize that meaningful and productive engagement can only exist where there is a strong level of trust. Like any relationship, trust is a fundamental building block to the employee relationship, and it takes effort and intentionality. An organization that values its employees should have processes in place to ensure that employee interactions – especially those that involve sensitive information – are handled thoroughly and with appropriate levels of confidentiality and security.
ServiceNow Case Management and Employee Relations
A key feature within ServiceNow Human Resources Service Delivery (HRSD) is Case Management. HRSD Case Management provides the flexibility for HR Requests to be configured based on HR business needs. Employees can submit an HR request via the Employee Center. Once the Request is submitted a corresponding HR case is created utilizing the appropriate case template. The case is then routed to the appropriate group or agent for resolution.
ER Case Management behaves similarly to standard case management but is specifically designed to handle the complexities and confidentiality required in ER scenarios.
Features of ER Case Management
There are a several features that set ER cases apart from standard HR cases. These features are all interconnected and help to ensure a seamless, secure, and effective process for responding to cases.
Security
HRSD Employee Relations appreciates the sensitive nature of ER cases and utilizes the below features to ensure that only the correct people have access to view and work the cases:
- Roles – ACL’s ensure that only agents with ER specific roles can view and/or update ER cases as needed
- Groups – ER groups are created with the appropriate roles to ensure that only the specified groups have access to cases on the ER case table
- ER Assignment Rules – ER cases can be auto-assigned to the appropriate group based on their category or type
Related Records
When an ER case is created, the HR agent assigned to the case can create a number of related records depending on the type of case created.
Related records can include Allegations, Involved Parties, Interviews, Evidence and Corrective Action.
These records help to document, and track vital details related to the case.
- Allegations: Used to provide additional details regarding the ER Case. Types of allegations can include Drugs and Alcohol, Harassment, Discrimination, etc… The associated Allegations record includes additional details such as a subtype and the individual who is the subject of the allegation.
- Involved Parties: Used to associate all individuals who are involved with the reported issue. The type of involved party can be categorized as the Complainant, Subject of Allegation, Witness, or Other. It’s important to note that the involved party does not have to be an internal user. If they are identified as “not in the system,” then it becomes mandatory to provide their name.
- Interviews: Interview records are associated with the ER case to record details related to any interview that took place during the investigation. Agents can use an Interview Template to easily capture consistent and accurate information related to a particular case type. Templates can be organized by categories with question tags to identify which questions should be asked of each involved party.
- Evidence: ServiceNow defines evidence as “any digital artifacts gathered as part of an investigation.” Evidence is categorized by its type and associated with the ER Case. The base system includes a number of evidence categories including Audio, Screenshots and Email, but additional categories can be created.
- Corrective Action: Identifies the type of Corrective Action required and the status of the action. The details also include the discussion date and all individuals present during the discussion. Types of Corrective Action may include Verbal Warning, Written Warning, Suspension, Termination.
Anonymous Report Center
As of ServiceNow’s San Diego release, the Anonymous Report Center (ARC) is available as a separate portal where employees can anonymously report concerns that deal with misconduct and sensitive information. The employee is logged out before submitting their request, so the resulting ER case is created with no reference to that user’s information. At the time of submission, employees receive identification numbers for their case, allowing them to check the status and communicate with investigators anonymously. This ServiceNow feature that works hand-in-hand with HRSD ER has the potential to drastically increase employee’s willingness to report concerns and situations that could be critical to the organization’s health and success.
Please view this diagram to see the full process for submitting a case through the ARC:
Dashboards
Out of box dashboards are available to report on ER cases to help provide status and identify trends. Only users with the correct access can view the dashboard and underlying data.
This dashboard can be shared with agents who have access to work ER cases. Out of box, it includes four reports that are designed to provide statistics to help manage the ER case load.
- Employee Relations Case Volume by Month
- Employee Relations Case Volume by Allegation Type
- Employee Relations Case Volume by Location
- Employee Relations Case Volume by Department.
This dashboard is intended for an audience at the executive level. Those responsible for developing proactive strategies for improving ER processes can reference this dashboard to analyze historical trends and data comparisons. The below elements are included out of box:
- Executive overview: data on emerging trends
- Case analysis: ER case and SLA metrics useful for workload planning
- Investigation analysis: data trends useful for evaluation quality of service in ER investigations
When considering the effectiveness of your organization’s ER and whether it’s important to implement new strategies, it can be helpful to address the below questions:
- Do I have a process in place to collect employee requests involving sensitive data?
- Do my employees know how to submit ER requests?
- Is there a culture of trust where my employees have the confidence to report ER requests without fear of retaliation?
- Are employees confident that sensitive data will be protected when they submit ER requests?
- Are ER cases routed to and only accessible by the appropriate teams?
- Do ER agents have access to ER case data to manage cases and plan workloads?
- Do executives have access to ER case trends that enable them to proactively improve strategies?
Organizations that continuously work to improve employee experience and increase productivity should be focused on having effective answers to these questions. ServiceNow has addressed these questions and provided the processes, strategies and security needed to facilitate a strong Employee Relations team. Consider how these ER features can benefit your team, help build a culture of accountability and trust, and enable your organization to thrive.