10 of the Biggest Issues Faced by Every HR Helpdesk Manager

If you are an HR helpdesk manager, you will definitely agree with me when I say HR Helpdesk professionals face a never-ending saga of challenges every day! As we all know, the job of helpdesk managers can be exciting, but most of the time, the difficulties they encounter can be endless too. I can assure you that every HR department, regardless of the industry, will experience ongoing battles, setbacks, and inevitable finger-pointing. If you are an HR professional, you are already aware of the most pressing issues confronting your employees, especially new hires.

As an HR helpdesk manager, I have witnessed the struggles of many HR professionals. Some had recently asked me, ‘What is the best way an HR service desk or a helpdesk manager should respond to a new hire who repeatedly asks the same question despite receiving the same answer? In this helpdesk manager's eyes, the challenge was how to deal with this employee carefully, restraining his/her frustration while also making sure the new employee remembered the support given, in case a similar circumstance arose again. It goes without saying that as an HR personnel, it must be your daily business to deal with employees’ queries, doubts, or grievances.

Undeniably, the past two years have been exceptionally turbulent, with unprecedented events impacting employee needs tremendously. Working methods changed, engagement methods changed, and even face-to-face meetings changed. Furthermore, the growing tendency to work remotely has increased the number of new employees that the HR department must manage.

This has necessitated the redesign of the HR helpdesk to provide efficient support to employees. Indeed, millennial employees expect personalized support and flexibility at work to feel more involved with their firm.

If you are a helpdesk agent who needs assistance to tackle these challenging tasks, you've come to the right place. In this article, I will take you through a list of challenges HR helpdesk managers face as we enter 2024 and some tips to overcome those. 

What are the Biggest Challenges Faced by HR Helpdesk?

Let’s check them one by one.  

1. Repetitive Bizarre Queries

Every organization's HR helpdesk is known to be its strongest pillar. And the HR department is where most employees turn to if there are any problems, whether they are technical or not. Sadly, no one can precisely foresee every question or concern an employee may raise. You will be confronted with a query for which you have no prior knowledge at some time. Most of the time, the HR helpdesk handles it with the utmost professionalism and sincerity to preserve a positive workplace culture. The salaries, bonuses, IT or HR problems, and other issues are among employees' top worries.

Here, I have listed out some of the bizarre issues faced by me:

If I die suddenly, will my life insurance claim be sent to my family?

If I quit the company, do I still get paid? Why not?

How do I reset my password? I forgot the one I created yesterday.

How can I access dress code policy? I am not able to find the revised policy you send!

Needless to say, all these repetitive queries hinder HR from focusing on priority issues.

2. Finding the Right-fit Employees
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Recruiting the right talent can be difficult for any business, but growing businesses require it more than others. The wrong hire could have a detrimental effect on the development of your company. Over these years, I've witnessed numerous poor hiring procedures, where HR professionals selected candidates because "She seemed like a decent person," "I feel like helping this guy," "He is my friend's brother' and "We are gym mates,". These factors led to the decision that the candidate was the best fit for the company or the role.
For a company to succeed, it is crucial to hire the right people. Strategic workforce planning is an option that the HR helpdesk can use to analyze, forecast, and establish talent management interventions and make sure you get the right candidates on board.

3. Onboarding Remote Employees

One of the biggest issues every HR service desk face is onboarding remote employees. There needs to be more face-to-face connection with the HR helpdesk team as more and more employees prefer to work from home. This makes it challenging for HR managers to guarantee that the new hires receive the necessary resources when they join the business.
Furthermore, remote working makes it challenging for HR helpdesk agents to determine the engagement level of the new hires. Undoubtedly, employee onboarding is crucial in 2024 for staff members to feel at ease working with their new teammates and achieve the highest level of comfort while performing their duties. The HR agents find it challenging to verify that new hires are fully engaged due to virtual contacts.

4. Problems With User Adoption

Most organizations usually experience trouble convincing their employees to use a helpdesk platform efficiently. As reported by PWC, eight of ten organizations have trouble getting users to adopt their HR helpdesks. If your employees are given a complex, not user-friendly, or traditional helpdesk, they would rather use the more conventional method of getting HR assistance, such as making calls and sending emails. As a result, the value of an HR helpdesk in streamlining support services for both employees and management is diminished.
The best thing you can do if your employees are having trouble adjusting to their HR helpdesk is to move to a simpler platform and implement a practical strategy.

‍5. A High-level of Agent Dependability

Many HR helpdesks cannot effectively serve employees without assistance from helpdesk agents. Employee support is delayed unnecessarily since traditional helpdesks still require agents to manually track, distribute, and assign tickets. HR helpdesks frequently place the support agents in the first level of support (L1), which results in all instances being forwarded to them for critical support. It is challenging to offer employees prompt and personalized support when the helpdesk agents are overloaded with cases. The total support procedure becomes laborious and slow as a result.
However, if the HR helpdesk is cumbersome and the helpdesk agents are not adequately trained to use it, it will impact the standard of support offered to the employees. Your employees' productivity, engagement, and retention are all negatively impacted when you are unable to give them the help they need.

6. Inability to Keep Employees Engaged

As you all know, employee engagement reflects the level of motivation and dedication of your employees. Everything from employee retention to your organization's ROI is impacted by the level of employee engagement. According to Achievers, 71% of HR agents agree that employee engagement is crucial to a firm's success. At the same time, persistent disengagement is a problem for many businesses, particularly as they struggle to adapt to remote work and the new normal.

7. Difficulties in Retaining Top-talents

HR helpdesk agents must keep your company's current employees in place rather than filling open positions or adding new team members. According to SHRM, replacing a manager earning $60,000 a year might cost between $30,000 and $45,000 in recruiting and training costs. Low retention rates could negatively affect your remaining staff's motivation and productivity. One of the most severe difficulties that HR professional faces are retaining their best-fit employees. Never let your efforts go in vain because losing a good employee cost you both time and money.

As an HR expert, you must involve your employees and make them feel valued to ensure their advancement within the company.

8. Providing Right Employee Training and Career Development

In the ever-changing economy, employee training and development are becoming the norm. But the workplace is changing faster than static learning management systems can keep up with. Today, employees do not prefer spending hour-long instructor-led training which is usually conducted in conference halls. Being an HR specialist, you will need to find fresh approaches to ongoing education and training programs.

9. Addressing Employee Health and Wellness Issues

In 2024, employee health and well-being will continue to be a top HR helpdesk's major concern. Following the significant disruptions of 2020, organizations started to understand the need for specialized benefit plans to address the most urgent concerns of specific employees. Companies are introducing better, more comprehensive benefits, such as those for child and elder care, and they are also increasing coverage for mental health services.
To promote employee health and well-being, however, perks alone are insufficient; you also need to support employees' health and wellness in their day-to-day activities. To avoid overburdening workers, this may entail providing more flexibility concerning working hours, providing more paid time off, or more effectively managing workloads and schedules.

10. Tackling the Toxic Work Culture

A recent research by American Psychological Association found that workplace toxicity is not only on the rise but also seriously harms workers' mental health. Another study conducted by the Lund University of Sweden found that over the past 20 years, toxic workplace conditions have increased rates of depression, substance addiction, and other health problems. These studies prove that working in toxic environments is unpleasant and harmful. A successful culture emphasizes qualities that lead to outstanding performance. This necessitates creating and implementing a strategy with clear goals that HR and the rest of the team can work toward and evaluate.
HR helpdesk may significantly influence culture by emphasizing the five qualities of solid corporate cultures: recognition, company values, employee voice, belonging, and successful leadership.

Overcome Your HR Challenges with Rezolve.ai: A GenAI-enabled HR Helpdesk Solution

The above-mentioned issues are relevant to many organizations in the current business environment and for many generations to come. As an HR manager, I would suggest that employers must invest in a robust helpdesk solution that streamlines all the challenges faced by the traditional HR helpdesk.
Your HR managers may automate their procedures and offer personalized services to your employees with the help of a modern HR service desk like Rezolve.ai that leverages advanced technologies like Generative AI and automation. Modern AI-powered helpdesks raise service quality and guarantee high employee engagement, productivity, and retention.
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Rezolve.ai is a modern GenAI-powered HR helpdesk built exclusively for Microsoft Teams  to provide useful functionalities like Knowledge management, Expert help, Repetitive Task Automation and Workflow Automation to power up your employee support capabilities and enablement. Unlike the traditional HR helpdesk platforms that were built to track or monitor an issue, Rezolve.ai's GenAI-enabled conversational chatbot to focus on auto-resolving the issues faced by employees within 10 -15 seconds.
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As an HR helpdesk, Rezolve.ai provides automated and personalized HR support to your employees in order to address their HR-related questions on work policies, employee benefit support, reporting harassment, etc. Our SaaS product deflects these issues to reduce the helpdesk burden on your HR support agents by providing instantaneous and personalized HR support to your employees.

Conclusion

With Rezolve.ai, your HR helpdesk agents can automate time-consuming HR tasks such as  employee onboarding and offboarding, employee engagement survey, and other crucial activities in addition to service demands. To give employees a "single window" solution, it integrates with all significant HRIS, payroll, and benefits systems. Being a centralized platform, Rezolve.ai makes it simpler for helpdesk managers to interact with each employee in your company.

Supercharge HR Efficiency with Rezolve.ai. Book a Demo Now