HR Service Desk: How to Organize Employee Request Management in Your Company

An HR Service Desk is a system where employee requests are recorded, assigned to responsible team members, and efficiently processed through to completion. For example, this may include issuing employment certificates, approving vacation requests, or providing equipment.

In companies with dozens or hundreds of employees, requests arise every day. Some tools only help collect these requests, while others allow you to track and manage their execution. If a request needs to be resolved quickly, it is important that it moves through the entire process in one place — from submission to final result.

This is why more companies are gradually adopting the Service Desk approach. Let’s explore how it works and what solutions are available to improve HR operations.

Why HR Struggles to Handle Employee Requests

In most companies, employee requests come through multiple channels: messengers, email, direct messages, or even verbal communication. In practice, it often looks like this:

• one employee sends a request for a certificate in a chat;
• another emails about vacation leave;
• someone approaches in person with a question about equipment;
• someone else asks about reimbursement, training compensation, or access to a work system.

The challenge is that these requests vary in content and require different executors. A certificate is handled by HR, equipment is managed by IT, payroll questions go to accounting, and some requests require manager approval.

As a result, the HR specialist often becomes the main entry point for all internal requests. They manually forward tasks, clarify details, follow up with responsible teams, and track completion — which consumes a significant portion of their working time.

Because of this, core HR responsibilities can be pushed aside, while time is spent on coordination and control.

The Most Common Types of Employee Requests

In most companies, employee requests are repetitive and follow typical patterns. The most common include:

• issuing certificates (income, employment, work experience);
• approving vacations or business trips;
• requests for issuing or returning equipment;
• access to internal systems or services;
• clarifying payments or reimbursements;
• processing HR-related changes.

Each of these requests requires involvement from a responsible specialist and often passes through multiple stages — from submission to document creation or approval.

Because these requests occur daily, even standard tasks can take a significant amount of time.

Why It’s Important to Manage Requests in a Single System

When requests are not centralized, HR does not have a full view of the workload. This makes it difficult to control processes, generate reports, and plan resources.

Over time, this leads not only to delays but also to errors, such as duplicate requests or missed tasks.

Typical issues include:

• no single list of active requests;
• unclear ownership of tasks;
• duplicate submissions;
• documents taking longer than expected to process.

When all requests are submitted through one tool, each request immediately has a responsible owner and a clear status. Companies usually use Google Forms, a classic Service Desk, or an HR system with Service Desk logic for this purpose.

Let’s look at how these approaches differ.

Google Forms and Spreadsheets

Google Forms is a basic option for collecting requests. It is often used when the volume of requests is still low or when there is no dedicated internal request management solution.

How it works:

• an employee submits a request via a form;
• responses are stored in a spreadsheet;
• HR reviews entries and forwards requests to the responsible person.

The cost is minimal: a corporate Google account and time spent processing requests.

After collecting data, all further work is done manually. For example, an employee submits a request for a certificate, HR forwards it to the HR admin, and later returns to check the result.

As a result, HR must constantly revisit the spreadsheet, check statuses, and remind executors. As request volume grows, tracking begins to take more time than processing itself.

Jira Service Management (Atlassian)

Jira Service Management is a Service Desk system where you can configure request types, responsible teams, and statuses.

In this system:

• a request is immediately assigned to an executor;
• status and deadlines are visible;
• request history is stored.

This works well for technical requests. For example, access requests are automatically routed to IT.

However, HR-related requests often do not fully resolve within the system. For instance, an employee submits a vacation request. In Jira, it becomes a task, but the actual document is created elsewhere, approved separately, and signed using an electronic signature service.

As a result, HR ends up working across multiple tools: receiving requests in the Service Desk, creating documents separately, and tracking completion outside the system.

Vchasno.Kadry

Vchasno.Kadry is an HR system with Service Desk logic, where a request immediately turns into action.

An employee submits a request through a mobile app: for a certificate, vacation, equipment issuance, or any other request.

The request appears in the admin panel and is assigned to a responsible person — HR, recruiter, IT specialist, or another team member. If needed, it can be reassigned.

For example, an employee requests an income certificate. It is immediately routed to HR, who creates the document in the system, sends it for approval, and signs it online — without switching to other tools.

This means the request does not stop at the submission stage but is completed within a single system.

What Should You Choose for Employee Requests: Google Forms, Jira, or Vchasno.Kadry?

The choice depends on how employee requests are completed and how many steps they involve.

• If you only need to collect requests, Google Forms is enough.
• If most requests are technical and you need clear status tracking, Jira Service Management is a good fit.
• If requests often involve document creation, approvals, signing, or HR processes — such as vacations, business trips, or certificates — it’s better to use an HR system where all steps are handled in one place.

How to Check in One Minute If You Need an HR System

Try to walk through one real scenario from request to result. For example, how a certificate is currently processed in your company.

If this requires opening multiple tools, transferring the request between people, and manually tracking completion, your process is fragmented and takes more time than necessary.

If everything happens in one place and does not require manual control, the process is efficient. If you need to return to the same request multiple times, it’s a clear sign that the workflow needs improvement.

Conclusion

The main challenge for HR is not the number of requests, but how they are handled. When requests pass through multiple people and tools, time is spent on coordination instead of execution.

When all requests are managed within a single process and immediately assigned to responsible team members, they are easier to track and faster to complete. This is exactly what an HR Service Desk is designed to achieve.