Driving strategic HR decisions using employee queries

HR decisions require much more than a gut feeling; they should involve data and evidence-based approaches that minimize bias. With this in mind, employee queries become a valuable source of information, offering key insights into the needs, concerns, challenges, and expectations of your workforce. These insights can play a significant role in helping your HR team create strategies that resonate. In this blog post, we're looking at how an HR help desk can support better decision-making.

When repeated queries signal deeper issues

Employees usually have a range of HR-related questions. While some concerns can be resolved quickly, others can highlight deeper issues in your processes. For instance, if employees keep asking about their leave balance, it could indicate that your HR system isn't very intuitive, or your leave policy is causing confusion. Similarly, if your employees frequently seek clarification about your medical insurance policy or the reimbursement process, it might indicate that the information is unclear or lacks transparency. That's why it's important to identify why a particular question or concern is coming up and analyze the underlying patterns, rather than simply responding to individual queries.

Four areas where HR help desks shape strategy

Policy effectiveness

Employee queries provide vital insights—not just into what's not clear but also into what's working and well-received by your employees. For instance, if you receive fewer questions after introducing a parental leave policy at your organization, it could mean that the policy is truly straightforward and addressing employee pain points. On the other hand, if you're getting multiple questions about your work-from-home policy, it could mean that the policy is not very comprehensive or lacks flexibility.

Culture enhancement

Employee queries can reveal underlying sentiments and help you identify areas where cultural changes may be required. For instance, questions about conflict resolution, anti-harassment policies, and even how to report microagression, as well as those around career advancement, especially from women employees, can indicate areas that need improvement in your culture.

Process optimization

Repeated questions about travel expense reimbursement, onboarding, and performance reviews could reveal gaps in these essential HR processes. Analyzing these queries can help you bridge these gaps.

Employee experience

Beyond the different policies and processes that you have in place, experience-related queries can help you understand what employees truly expect from their workplace and how to bring about changes that improve their overall journey. For instance, repeated questions about hybrid working options, wellness perks, workplace ergonomics, mental health support, or training programs are all a reflection of the evolving expectations of your workforce.

Four best practices for strategic HR help desk use

Identify the patterns

Look for patterns in repetitive queries, as these could point to bigger issues in your organizational culture, policies, or processes. HR help desk software comes with built-in reports that consolidate key information, including query category, feedback, and more.

Create relevant categories

It’s always good to categorize employee queries into meaningful categories—like inclusion, performance, growth opportunities, and workplace safety—to identify different issues at your organization.

Start to prioritize

It’s essential to prioritize your queries based on the severity of the issue. For instance, queries about gender pay gaps, harassment, or workplace conflicts should be given priority above routine requests like password resets or payslip downloads. A single harassment inquiry can cause more damage to your culture and trust than other issues.

Communicate

Keep your C-level leaders updated about any patterns so that they can support you in policy updates, process improvements, and other culture-building activities. Whenever you make a change based on insights from your HR help desk, keep employees in the loop so that they know their feedback is valued and makes a difference.

Wrapping up

At a time when organizations are trying to establish employee-first strategies, employee queries hold undeniable value. Using them as a tool to understand your policies, processes, and culture will help you make smarter, more inclusive decisions without breaking a sweat.