Web-based self-service helps virtually everyone.(Spotlight Report: Benefits Administration & Online Resources)

World Wide Web-based employee self-service applications are fast becoming the technology of choice for employee benefit and human resource departments.

By giving employees online access to personalized benefit information, analysis and modeling tools to make informed decisions about their benefits, and the ability to make benefit transactions on-line, employers can create a virtual HR department where employees service their own benefit needs.

This cyber environment not only frees from administrative burdens HR staffs that are under downsizing pressure, but also increases satisfaction among employees, improves employee communications and saves companies money, experts say.

Many employers today are moving in the direction of employee self-service and are evolving beyond simply offering static benefit plan information via a company intranet or Internet site. Many now are offering employees access to their personalized benefit information and to analysis tools that enable employees to model the impact of life event scenarios when making benefit decisions.

Permitting actual transactions, such as plan contributions or loans, via online systems remains limited among employers, though benefit experts expect 1998 to be the year that transactional capabilities gain in popularity.

Already, though, more and more HR and benefit departments are taking advantage of the easy-to-use and relatively inexpensive Web technology.

According to a recent Watson Wyatt Worldwide survey, the use of Web technology in HR departments …