Administaff - E-Service 2.0: The Next Generation

PEO Insider - October 2000

E-Service 2.0: The Next Generation

By Paul J. Sarvadi

These days, the lines between our work lives and our personal lives are blurred like never before. What happens at the office can affect our home life, and what happens at our home can impact our work. To capitalize on this trend, PEOs can extend their e-service capabilities to help clients and worksite employees effectively integrate their work life with their home life.

Moving Beyond Basic HR Services
When our company launched its e-service initiative, its core function was simple: to make it easier and more convenient for our clients to conduct routine transactions with the company. The result was better service for our clients and an increase in our overall customer service capabilities.

However, providing an e-service platform simply for clients to transact human resources business isn’t enough anymore. As with everything else associated with the internet, e-service must evolve rapidly from basic services toward more value-added enhancements.

If PEOs are to continue thriving in this technology-driven era, we must broaden the focus and scope of our service perspective. While PEOs will continue serving as human resources departments for small and mid-sized businesses, we need to take the next logical step and also become true employee services organizations. E-service is the vehicle through which we can accomplish this enhancement.

Why is such a shift necessary? Companies historically take a systematic and strategic approach in most areas of their businesses, but have invested comparatively little time and resources in their people. In fact, a recent study by global consultant Watson Wyatt Worldwide showed only 14 percent of the companies it surveyed considered their "people strategy" a significant source of competitive advantage.

Benefiting From A People Strategy
We are beginning to see a clear distinction between companies that have invested in people – their "human capital" – and those that haven’t. The Watson Wyatt study, for example, confirmed this point when it revealed the 14 percent of the companies with a "people strategy" had twice the shareholder return of the other 86 percent.

Given today’s brisk economy and low unemployment rate, business owners must provide an environment that will help attract the best people and make them want to stay. PEOs can help their clients accomplish this by delivering comprehensive services that support employees in both their professional and personal lives.

Providing A Balance
Our company’s "high touch, high tech" approach to service delivery continues to evolve as we strengthen our services offering. Today, our core PEO services are complemented by a twofold e-business strategy that helps client owners and worksite employees in both their business and personal lives.

Administaff AssistantSM, our exclusive e-service delivery platform, provides information and resources to help maximize the benefit of our services. And bizzportSM, our e-commerce portal, features value-added products and services from best-of-class providers.

Focusing On The Customer
To be successful, e-service must go beyond simply moving transactions from paper to the internet; it must also help clients implement a competitive people strategy. A PEO’s offerings should be user-focused, relevant, convenient, and content-rich, and they should foster interaction. PEOs should also regard e-service as dynamic and ever-evolving based on customer needs and feedback.

Author and business philosopher Philip B. Crosby has said, "If anything is certain, it is that change is certain. The world we are planning for today will not exist in this form tomorrow." Nothing could be truer as e-service evolves and we seek better ways to help our clients and worksite employees manage their lives.

But, that’s Just My Opinion.

Paul J. Sarvadi is president and chief executive officer of Administaff, Inc., a Houston-based PEO.