Providing employees with the documents they need to understand their roles and responsibilities is part of an HR professional’s job. However, if you’re part of the HR team for a large company, answering all the employees’ inquiries can take a lot of time.
Do employees often ask you for handbooks, salary scales, and other information? Creating an HR portal is the best solution to ensure that all employees can easily find the news and documents they need. It allows you to centralize and streamline information employees regularly look for or need.
The good news is that Microsoft 365 has SharePoint, which you can use to create websites. Over 250,000 organizations and companies use SharePoint for their website creation. If you don’t know the first thing about SharePoint, don’t panic! We’ll walk you through creating an HR SharePoint site from start to finish.
Before we learn how to use SharePoint, let’s discuss HR portals. What is an employee HR portal, and why is it important?
An employee HR portal is a hub for employees who want to access essential resources. Some examples of the core resources that you’ll typically find on an HR portal include:
Employee HR portals provide a way for employees to find the documents they’ll typically request from HR. It also keeps them updated on the latest news in the organization.
Scattered updates and resources create conflict and confusion. Launching an employee HR site with SharePoint will centralize the core information and documents. This way, you and the employees won’t need to switch between different networks or messaging platforms for updates.
Only a few people can modify the data on the employee portal, making it easier to govern. Suppose one of the HR site moderators makes a mistake with the data or updates posted. In that case, you can track that person down easily.
Plus, having an employee HR portal is a legal necessity for all organizations. You can’t withhold essential information, updates, and documents from your employees.
Wouldn’t it be a waste to create a website if it will only feature the core documents? You might think that it’s wiser to create a document on Google Drive where you can upload these documents instead. If the employees need to refer to those documents, they could get the link from the HR office.
Nothing is wrong with creating and sharing a Google Drive folder that contains the essential documents. However, if you’re already using Workspace 365, why not use the resources you already have?
Think of the portal as an interactive and educational virtual space for employees. It doesn’t just function as a source of workplace information - it also contains other valuable data that employees may want to know.
What kind of other valuable data do employees want to see in an HR portal? Continue below to find out.
The first things you should put on your portal should be the essential documents and data. These include:
But it doesn’t have to stop here! After you’ve uploaded the essentials to the portal, consider adding these features:
Include work shifts in the HR portal. Uploading them is vital if employee shifts tend to change often - and it also acts as a way to alert employees about schedule changes.
You can also create private folders for every employee. These are secure folders accessible only by the HR staff and the manager. Here, you can provide overtime tracking and check the clocking in and out of each employee. You can also place performance reviews in these folders for employees to see in private.
Consider adding calendars featuring upcoming events, like company holidays. You can also post project deadlines on the employee HR portal. Include the employee of the month, employee birthdays, and anniversaries.
The company’s employees may ask to view or leave requests for benefits. Here you can post forms for benefits requests.
Some employees will ask you about retirement, insurance, and other similar concerns. Post the links to external websites that lead to those topics. It’ll save you time instead of addressing their problems one by one and discussing them in-depth.
Others will ask about their payroll breakdown or wage scaling. Upload the necessary documents that will deliver information about these on the SharePoint site. You can also do the same for employee rewards.
Include your HR team’s employee onboarding process. Posting it can inform employees of your plans and get them excited for future events. Examples include the company’s future seminars and training programs for employees.
You can also include here an employee’s performance tracking and multimedia learning materials.
If you like putting up a Wiki-style knowledge foundation, this is the best place for it. Your HR knowledge base can consist of pages of information about various HR processes. For example, you create a page on employee referral hiring.
These are only a few ideas you can use to fill up your employee HR portal. Don’t hesitate to add your ideas to your portal, as well. Make sure you run it by the rest of the team and your HR manager first, however.
Are you ready to create an employee HR portal with SharePoint? Just work through this guide, and you’ll be up and running in no time!
Don’t worry about downloading any software or new programs. You can access SharePoint through browsers like Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, or Mozilla Firefox.
Start by logging into Workspace 365. Open SharePoint and select the “Create site” option. You can find this button on the SharePoint start page.
A wizard will pop up and ask if you want to create a Team Site or Communication Site. Pick the Communication Site for your employee HR portal. A Communication Site is ready for customizing and content sharing from the get-go.
For comparison, a Team Site is a more collaborative platform for your team and is backed by Office 365 Groups. If you want to create an HR-only site, this is the choice for you. However, since we’re focusing on making an employee HR portal, choose Communication Site.
Earlier, we gave you some ideas of the content that you can include in your HR portal. Now, it’s time for you to pick what content you’ll place in your portal. As we said, every HR portal is as unique as its company and employees are.
Decide based on what your employees need to see and learn. Here are the essential elements to include on your HR site:
You can add more HR content for employees as you see fit.
You’re ready with your content list. Your concern now lies in translating this information into web parts that evoke attention, interest, and engagement. Below are a couple of examples you can take inspiration from:
Take everything that has a date or a deadline and integrate them into a SharePoint calendar. It has everything from company holidays to deadlines. Don’t forget to add employee birthdays and anniversaries to the calendar, too.
Here is something most people deem boring: reading company policies. Even if it is, it’s a vital part of being in the organization. Make sure everybody at least has an easy time finding the documents they need on your website.
Create a SharePoint document library for each category. If the document volume is larger, consider splitting the documents into various libraries instead.
You can also make the search easier by adding metadata to organize the documents. Create metadata for each category, department, expiration date, creation date, related policies, and more.
The next step is to bring the site to reality. After you pick the template, customize the page.
Add web pages or more parts as needed. You don’t want to dump every bit of information onto the landing page. Don’t forget these essential parts:
Finally, set up your website security. Keep all employees in the Visitors group. Only HR staff and moderators should be in the Members’ group.
Setting up an employee HR portal is easy, thanks to SharePoint. The challenge is to keep it active, reliable, and successful. Here are a few essential tips to remember when maintaining your HR portal.
Keep the HR portal alive by creating social content on it. For example, you can convince new employees to introduce themselves by creating a “10 fun facts/questions about yourself” quiz. You can even get older or more senior employees to take the quiz to learn something new about them.
Do you want to offer mentorship opportunities to employees willing to take them? Put up a post on your portal.
You can also ask people to share their ideas on a Virtual Idea Board. It’s also a way of seeing what your employees want to do, even if it’s only virtually.
Other social engagement content ideas include:
Remember that the goal of encouraging social engagement is to guarantee user adoption.
Don’t forget to integrate your HR content into your intranet. This way, the HR portal doesn’t become an isolated platform. It keeps everyone in the loop.
Plus, being on the intranet opens your HR team to various tools that’ll help you monitor company and personal objectives annually. You’ll have a better view of the assignments and employee goals.
The intranet will provide performance management. Meanwhile, the HR portal will give you a platform to report about improvements.
Never leave the HR portal without a moderator. Always keep it updated by picking content or tools that have an owner or a place. In short, don’t dump anything and everything onto your HR portal.
Keep it organized by creating a place for everything. The best structures contain content and tools by function. For example, you make separate places for the following topics or subjects:
Avoid creating a structure that organizes its content and tools by their department. Most departments in your company have similar functions (projects, tools, and updates). You’ll only create a confusing, unintuitive, and unorganized website.
SharePoint offers more than a convenient way to create an HR portal. Here are the benefits you can expect when you use SharePoint:
And we have good news for you! Lanteria’s all-in-one HR management system is based on SharePoint and Microsoft 365, meaning you can use our software to create an incredible, full-featured HR SharePoint site. Employees can access timesheets, performance, career path goals, learning and development materials, absence management, and much more! Reach out today to learn more about our powerful HR solution Book a demo.
