Welcome to the ESS Overview training. ESS or Employee Self Service offers you the opportunity to have immediate access to important HR and job-related information while on the job or after hours at home. The purpose of this course is to introduce the services offered through ESS. At the end of the course you should have a basic understanding of how ESS is structured, what transactions employees can perform, and what HR related information is available. ESS can be found at www.myworkplace.state.pa.us.  If prompted to login, enter your CWOPA credentials and password. CWOPA\ should always precede your username when logging into ESS. Let’s begin by reviewing the structure of ESS, the landing page is known as the home page. There is detailed navigation where you will find several links to process personal transactions.  Time Management provides many options related to leave including: displaying your time statement, creating time sheets if applicable, creating or modifying leave requests, displaying leave quotas, and displaying your work schedule. My Pay Statement and Payroll Information both provide information about your pay.  You can access your most recent and previous pay statements under either option.  Changes to your pay can be made under the Payroll Information link. This includes updates to your payroll direct deposit (under the Paycheck Options) or your tax withholding allowances (under Federal/State Withholding Tax). Other options include the ability to view or print your W-2, apply for union membership, and the option to select how you would like to receive your annual W-2, either online or thru the mail. Voluntary Deductions allows you to get an overview of your voluntary payroll deductions. This is most commonly used for SECA contributions. During the SECA Campaign each year, the SECA Enrollment link is enabled, allowing you to make SECA donations as a one-time or bi-weekly deduction from your pay.  The Benefits menu provides you with an overview of your benefit elections. If needed, the participation overview link includes an option to access and print a confirmation form outlining what benefits you have as well as who in your family is enrolled.  During Open Enrollment each fall, the benefits enrollment link allows you to make changes to your benefits for the following calendar year.  The Personal Information menu allows you to make changes to your home or mailing address, emergency contacts and other personal data. If you need to travel for commonwealth business, Travel Management gives you easy access to the resources you need. Use the My Training link to access LSO, the commonwealth’s learning management system. Here you can review and book into classroom, web-based, or virtual courses offered by the commonwealth as well as access your training transcript. To return to the Home page click the ESS Home link at the top of the detailed navigation. The home page itself provides a wealth of HR related information. The area under the search provides answers to many questions employees have about benefits, commonwealth policies, and their job as well as gives links to important information. The home page is ever changing to keep information current and to meet the needs of 5 employees. It is also customized based on your location, bargaining unit or employee type, such as part-time or full-time. As a result, when you log into ESS, you may have screens that are slightly different than shown in this training. At the top of the home page, under the search bar, you will often see a banner.  This changes periodically to bring a new service or an important event to your attention, such as employee recognition month.  Information on the home page is categorized by topic into widgets, which appear like boxes.  Each widget has a series of links. The links could be to a form, document, more information on the topic, or another website. The first widget on the left is Trending Now.  This widget is updated frequently and includes the most commonly used links or important seasonal information. Under that is the Highlights widget. This gives you quick links to the Employee and Organization Directory, the Employee Bulletin Board, SEAP information, as well as Travel help. The Pay widget takes you to the pay home page which we will review in greater detail later in this course, the widget also gives you a link to the current year holiday and pay calendar. In the center you will find items related to your benefits. This will provide links to the most recent benefits newsletter, forms you may need to enroll or change your benefits, the PEBTF Health Advocate program, and finally a chart which will help you determine who you should contact for your benefits related questions if you cannot find the answers in ESS. We will dive a bit more into benefits information shortly. The Job and Training widget allows you to explore the job and training home page, search internal job postings, or review commonwealth training opportunities.  Specific learning opportunities can be found in the My Training link on the detailed navigation. The Time widget includes a link to the detailed time information page and the Family and Medical Leave Act or FMLA page. The Employment Policies and Procedures widget in the lower right of the screen links to the detailed Employment Policies and Procedures page, management directives and political activity guidelines. If you cannot find your answer or have additional questions, there are several ways you may contact the HR Service Center. The telephone number, fax number, and hours of operation are provided under the Contact the HR Service Center widget. The Ask HR widget is an online, confidential, means of communication between an employee and the HR Service Center. Employees can submit questions, supporting documentation, or paperwork to the HR Service Center, via a case, 24 hours a day. A representative will review the case and respond back to the employee during business hours. In addition to the widgets, more detailed information can be accessed by using the drop-down menu. You can find this on the left-hand side of the screen, above the widgets, next to the Home button. The menu will appear when you hover your mouse over the lines. If there is an arrow, this indicates that the section has a submenu. For example, the first item listed is Benefits. There is an arrow on the right, so that means there are additional pages of information. When we hover over Benefits, a second list appears. Clicking Enroll & Change Forms, you can find a page linking to forms you may need to enroll or make changes to your benefits plans. Continuing under benefits, the Health & Wellness link will provide you with a page full of content and links about your benefit plans.  The information on this screen is filtered, and only lists the plans that you are eligible for. A checkmark indicates the plan or plans for which you are the policy holder.  There is quite a bit of very useful information on this page.  You’ll notice that common links and forms related to this topic are found on the left for easy access.  Other Benefits provides information on items such as Life Insurance, Disability and various savings options, such as the Family Care Account Program, also known as FCAP.  Retirement and Separation shows information related to separating or retiring from commonwealth service. Returning to the menu, you can see that multiple pages are available under Pay and Time Off.  This provides information on FMLA, Pay, including pay schedules, and Time, including absence provisions documents and military leave information.  Job and Training’s initial page provides links to information about commonwealth employment.  Details about Training can be found under the Highlights. Links to career opportunities in the commonwealth can also be found under Related links. The next item we will explore on the menu is Employment Policies and Procedures – This page provides you with valuable information on various commonwealth policies.   You can also find HR contact information in the Introduction area in the top left of the page. On many of the pages you will also find detailed instructions, including tutorials, on how to complete certain transactions in ESS.  Continuing down the menu, we will review at the Forms page next.  This is a one stop shop for most forms you may need, ranging from forms for pay, military leave, medical and other benefits related forms. If you are not able to locate what you need, you may also use the Search bar at the top of the home page.  Simply type in a word related to what you are looking for, then review the listed results. In summary, you can access a wide variety of HR related data and perform a lot of basic HR transactions for yourself in ESS. This includes accessing current leave quotas, entering or changing a leave request, accessing and printing pay statements, changing direct deposit information, updating your federal and state withholding amounts, changing your address or emergency contacts and more. In addition, many HR and job-related policies, information, and forms can be found under the blue search bar on the ESS home page. The best way to learn what is available in ESS and where it is located is by using ESS. Once you have completed this course, please take a few minutes and review ESS on your own. You will find even more valuable information than what was reviewed here. Remember, there are always updates with new and important information being added to ESS.

Many of your HR and job-related questions can be answered on ESS. Of course, if you are still uncertain about the answer to your question, the HR Service Center is here to help.  Send a message using the Ask HR widget or call us at 866.377.2672.  Representatives are available Monday through Friday from 7am until 5pm.  Thank you for taking this training. This version of the course is intended for individuals who require an accommodation for a disability. Once you have fully reviewed the information in this training, contact your Human Resources Office to request credit for completing this course. You will not receive credit for completing this course until you do so.