October 2, 2000

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Human Resources Goes Self-Service

Authoria update lets employees make natural-language queries from their desktops

By Diane Rezendes Khirallah

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uman-resources manager Carol Johnson says her call-center teams at Wells Fargo & Co. do a good job of responding to inquiries about benefits that come from some 120,000 employees. Still, a new software release from Authoria Inc. should ease the load on the San Francisco bank's call centers, while offering a more direct service to employees, Johnson says.

Since February 1999, Wells Fargo has made Authoria's HR applications available for use by its call-center employees. But the upgrade, Authoria HR 3.0, will let all of the bank's employees make human-resources inquiries from their desktops. The rollout should be complete by early next year, Johnson says.

Authoria HR 3.0 uses natural-language search technologies; for example, if an employee requests information about a "doctor," the search engine will also search the term "physician." The software also lets employees create spreadsheets that compare information about options for individual health concerns.

Self-service employee intranets are increasingly popular at U.S. companies. Benefits information is a common feature within such portals, as are concierge services and online learning.

For some HR departments, online self-service is becoming a necessity. As health plans grow more complex with each enrollment period, it's difficult for companies to keep HR personnel updated on all the changes that they need to communicate to employees.

Authoria HR 3.0 is available via purchase of software licenses or on a subscription basis, and can be accessed via the Internet or company intranets. Most companies that use Authoria applications purchase licenses and install and host the software internally behind their firewalls, says Tod Loofbourrow, the company's president and CEO.

Loofbourrow says that if companies manage online HR services correctly, employees shouldn't be concerned about privacy issues related to health problems and other personal information. "We're dealing with profound issues in people's lives," says Loofbourrow. "It comes down to the trust the employer builds with its employees."

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