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Time Is Money – Paperless HR Makes Money

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Once you find, interview, and hire that new employee, it is time to get started with training. But first, that new employee must complete the new-hire paperwork. Sign this release, pick your benefit package, here is a state form, a federal form, and few more things. That should be all you need until enrollment rolls around again. Then, in the middle of training, here comes that HR representative, bringing even more paperwork.

Now your perfect employee is wondering if this is the company they want to work for at all. The HR department has spent days getting things sorted out, and they still don’t know what is going on. Haven’t I filled out this form already?

Save Time with Paperless HR

Stop wasting your time! Stop wasting your new employee’s time! Improve your onboarding process and get new hires working faster. There is no need to shuffle papers, scan, copy, print things over and over again. With onboarding software, your new hires will breeze through the paperwork process and begin contributing faster. The HR department is going to start saving time too!

Onboarding software provides a platform where new hire paperwork is uploaded, completed, and saved in one area. Employees can be in control of their progress through updating paperwork, and they have a visual representation of their status. Time is no longer wasted on determining which form is the most current.

When the government makes regulation changes and your form is updated, simply upload the new form and have no fear. Employees do not need to look through paper files to see what is missing, they can tell with a simple glance at their digital dashboard–it’s paperless HR.

Time really is money–especially in a business environment. The quicker your company can get  mundane tasks completed with accuracy, the quicker employees can get on to new, high-leverage projects and responsibilities that increase profit.

To save time and increase profits for your organization, learn the benefits of ExactHire’s paperless HR solutions. Contact us today!

Image credit: The Man by Robert S. Donovan (contact)

How to Make Sure an Electronic Signature is Valid – Whiteboard [VIDEO]

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If you’re trying to determine how you can use technology to make the employee onboarding process paperless, then there are some things you should know about e-signatures. In today’s Whiteboard Chat, Jeff Hallam discusses the elements that are included in a legitimate electronic signature.

Video Transcript:

Hi! Today we’re going to talk about electronic signatures. And this is something that comes up a lot in today’s world as more and more organizations are looking for solutions that can help expedite collecting signatures, and really, the idea today is to make sure that we can help you better understand some of the essential items that have to be there in order for an electronic signature to be as valid as a regular physical signature.

And again as a quick precursor, none of this is meant to be legal advice. If you have more detailed questions, I would always recommend that you seek your attorney of choice. But hopefully this will at least give you a pretty good checklist of things to consider as you go down this path. So really everything starts with a piece of legislation passed back in 2000 called the E-Signature Act. More commonly know as the E-Sign Act. So as you go down this path you’ll probably hear that terminology used and really all that was designed to do was to lay out a common set of protocols that all providers and organizations could use to make sure that key elements of an electronic signature were consistent across the board.

So really, what we’re going to start with are kind of just these four common things that have to be present in order to make sure that you are in compliance from an e-Sign Act perspective.

So the first one is review. As you would expect with any kind of typical physical document, nobody’s going to sign that until they actually have a chance to see what it is that they are signing. The same thing applies with electronic signature. You have to give the person who’s being asked to sign the document access to that document so they can confirm what’s on it, and that they can indicate that they are in agreement with that. Pretty standard, but again, just to make sure that that would be part of what’s offered and to check on that.

Secondly, and this is really more at the core of the technology side of things, is the ability to prove that the signature is unique and verifiable. And, there are different ways to do this and I’m going to hit on more of the best practices approach. Really there are three elements involved in making sure that this signature becomes unique and verifiable. Number one, you have to be able to record something that constitutes a signature. And, that can be anything from checking a box, filling their name into a box of text on a screen, all the way down to an actual mouse pad signature where somebody would attempt to replicate their signature electronically. Whatever approach somebody uses doesn’t really matter at that point as long as that is recorded.

Secondly, you’re typically going to want to make sure that there’s a date and a time stamp to that signature so that it can be found and tied back to when this actually occurred. And then finally, in most instances you’re going to want to record the IP address of the computer or the device where someone was when they issued that signature. And now as you combine all three of those elements, it is very easy to go back and confirm that the person who appeared to sign the document actually did.

Thirdly, we get to consent. If there are documents that are longer, or a little more complicated, and/or those that have repercussions if certain conditions aren’t met or rules aren’t followed, its always a good idea, again best practices-wise, to have a way to make sure that the person is really clear on what that consent means. So, for instance on the I-9 form, which is something we run into very frequently, there are certain penalties that may be imposed if you’re found to have been untruthful in documenting somebody’s citizenship status. Well, as the person being asked to sign off on that, while it is in the document, the I-9 is several pages long. So, what you might do in those instances is look for an opportunity to either highlight those key areas so its very clear to the person and those are called out; or, perhaps even bring a copy of those key elements down into the signature area where they are being asked to sign so that its very clear again that they understand what it is exactly that they are consenting to at that point.

And then finally, access and change. This kind of works both sides of the street – access means the person that we have asked to sign the document has to have the ability after that transaction is complete, to download and access a copy of that for their records. Print, save, whatever it might be. Likewise, on the other side of the street, the group that originated the transaction, is prohibited from making any changes to that signed agreement unless its approved by the person that was asked to sign it in the first place.

And again, nothing different than what you would see in a regular contract or signing arrangement physically, but again, making sure that these four elements are all there, and that those criteria exist, and that whatever vendor or developer you’re working with can prove those items will make sure that you can stay in compliance and that your electronic signatures are every bit as valid as a physical signature. Thanks!

For more information about how ExactHire’s employee onboarding software utilizes e-signatures, please visit our resources section or contact us today.

How to Automate the New Hire Process

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Time is the hottest commodity on the market. There are many more things to be done today, but the hours in a day have stayed the same. Because of this, we begin looking for ways to automate various tasks in our day. If you’re in Human Resources, you might be asking how we can automate the new hire process.

The Employment Application

The best place to begin automating your hiring process is with the application. An online application that can help standardize your job description postings, add additional job specific questions to the application process, and automatically place applicants into an electronic database is a great place to start! You could decide to make a simple online form for the application process (which would not likely include the cool features mentioned above) or you could use an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) to create an online application (which would include the cool features mentioned above).

Scoring Applicants

By using an ATS, you could also include scoring filters on questions that you ask applicants. This would allow you to sort your applicant pool quickly, giving you those who most accurately fit the profile that you’re seeking at the top of your “stack.” For example, if you need a mid-level person with 2 – 4 years of experience you could include the following question with score levels that you customize:

How many years of customer service experience do you have?

  • Option 1: Zero – one year of experience (score = 0)
  • Option 2: > 1 year, but < 2 years of experience (score = 5)
  • Option 3: > 2 years, but < 4 years of experience (score = 10)
  • Option 4: > 4 years, but < 6 years of experience (score = 2)
  • Option 5: > 6 years of experience (score = 0)

From this question, along with a few others, you could sort your applicants based on the score attained and begin reviewing applicants that most closely fit your preferred candidate skill/experience profile.

Routing Application(s) for Review

With the HireCentric ATS, you can route applications to various people within your organization and the system will keep track of to whom you routed the application, as well as, when the other person reviewed that application. No more stapling a routing slip to a resume or a teammate saying they spilled coffee on the only copy. It can all be automated through applicant tracking software! A few simple clicks and away it goes.

Completing New Hire Paperwork

Already have the application, scoring, and routing process all set? Really looking for a way to automate the “hundreds” of forms a newly hired employee fills out? The new hire paperwork process can be automated by using employee onboarding software. We build your paperwork forms into an online database. The new hire fills out the questions – all electronically. That information populates the forms and the employee may electronically sign them. You or anyone else on your team with access can approve the forms and then print, forward, archive, etc. the forms. Our onboarding software can be connected to our HireCentric ATS which means as soon as you decide to hire an applicant, directly from their HireCentric file, you can invite the new teammate to begin completing paperwork.

 

Making the new hire process paperless does not have to be a complicated nor difficult process. Let us help you find more time in your day! Visit our resources section for more information or contact us to schedule a live demo.

Image credit: Zahnrad. / Gear. by Stefan W (contact)

Are Electronic Signatures Valid?

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Because our employee onboarding software utilizes electronic signatures, we are quite frequently asked “are electronic signatures valid?” The short answer is…yes.

Requirements for Valid Electronic Signatures

However, for this to hold true, there are conditions that have to be met. These were established with the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (ESIGN) of 2000. While you may wish to consult your Labor & Employment attorney for more details, I’ve listed below the core requirements that must be met for an electronic signature to be valid:

  • The person signing the document must be allowed to view the completed document before being asked to provide his/her signature — this is to prevent any potential fraud in these types of transactions.
  • The signature must be unique and verifiable — whatever device or software tool is being used to capture this must be able to record how the signature was entered, when (time & date), and how it is tied to that individual (password, IP address, etc.).
  • The document may not be altered after the signature is affixed — as with the first point above, this is designed to make sure agreements can’t be changed after a person has signed them.
  • The signature must capture the consent and understanding of the person providing it — this may be accomplished a number of ways, but is designed to make sure any “fine print” is made clear and obvious to any parties involved in the electronic signature process.

These guidelines are based on the federal ESIGN Act (referenced above), and apply to interstate commerce. However, there are states that will occasionally designate certain documents as not eligible for electronic signature recognition. While this doesn’t happen frequently, you should certainly check with your organization’s attorney before moving ahead with any service/solution that utilizes this process.

That exception notwithstanding, most any new hire documents are certainly eligible for e-signature. This includes files like I-9’s, W4’s, direct deposit forms, company policies and procedures, employee handbook acknowledgments, etc.

Selecting an Onboarding Software Vendor

Because this is a newer type of offering for most HR software providers, when going through the process of selecting a partner, please be sure to confirm that the vendor’s electronic signature process will pass muster, if challenged. The benefits of onboarding software are compelling, but you want to be sure you partner with a provider who understands and can explain how their tool complies with these protocols.

If you’d like to learn more about ExactHire and how our paperless onboarding software can benefit your organization, please visit our resources section or contact us today.