Posts

How to Automate Workflow Within Employee Onboarding Software [VIDEO]

While web-based solutions that can automate new hire employment forms and documents do exist, very few solutions also empower employers to customize their onboarding software platform to automate all the new hire and existing employee tasks associated with a robust employee onboarding process. The ability to automate workflow is one of the core strengths of the OnboardCentric employee onboarding solution. Two features that are key factors in the ability to accommodate unique client workflows are FlexFields and Roles.

OnboardCentric FlexFields Roles Video

FlexFields at work

FlexFields, as the name implies, are flexible, multiple-choice data fields that store unique information about each employee within an organization. These fields are customized on a per client basis. Examples of different FlexFields might include individual employee attributes such as

  • division,
  • department,
  • exemption status or pay type, and
  • employee level.

The values selected for FlexFields on an employee record drive two primary outcomes within OnboardCentric:

  1. tasks assigned to the new hire, and
  2. follow up tasks assigned to an internal staff member.

New hire tasks

Let’s talk about new hire tasks. We’ll group them into two categories:

  1. tasks assigned to every new hire, and
  2. tasks assigned only to certain new hires.

Tasks assigned to every new hire tend to include the completion of required federal forms such as the I-9 and W4, state tax forms, and policies and procedures specific to a given organization. Please note that FlexFields do not impact those forms or documents assigned to all employees.

However, FlexFields are involved for tasks related to forms and documents that only a subset of employees are required to complete. In fact, the criteria that define this subset of employees are determined by the values of one or more FlexFields.

For example, if new hires in the Compliance Division should be assigned items that other new hires outside the Compliance Division should not be assigned, then “Division” would be setup as a FlexField. Likewise, if new hires at the Executive Level are assigned items that hires at other levels aren’t assigned, then “Employee Level” would be setup as a FlexField. To determine the FlexFields necessary for your business, create a list of all the attributes that differentiate one group’s employee onboarding tasks from another group’s tasks.

Once your FlexFields are created, they’ll be visible as drop-down boxes for each new employee you add to OnboardCentric.

Using the previous examples, there would be a FlexField for “Division” that might have values of “Compliance”, “Information Technology”, “Manufacturing”, and “Marketing.” If “Compliance” is selected, that new hire will be assigned extra tasks that new hires in the other divisions will not. Similarly, there would be a FlexField entitled “Employee Level” that might have values of “Associate”, “Executive”, “Manager”, and “Staff.” If “Executive” is selected, that new hire will have additional tasks that new hires with other values for that field will not.

Roles for existing employees

Next, let’s talk about how Roles work within OnboardCentric.

Think of Roles as the acting parts your existing staff members play in the onboarding process. You may have as few or as many Roles as necessary to handle any follow up actions that must be completed by your staff. These follow ups will always be triggered by a task completed by a new hire.

For instance, once a new hire completes his portion of the I-9 form, that will trigger a follow up for someone within your organization to verify/approve that I-9 form on behalf of the organization. Typically this Role is referred to as an “I-9 Approver.”

Other common examples of Roles include “Countersigner”, “Equipment Provisioner”, or “License Certifier.” In each of these examples, the Role name used may be anything that makes sense within your organization. Instead of “Equipment Provisioner,” you may choose to call that Role “Supply Orderer.” The key point to understand is that the Role refers only to what type of follow up actions you’ll want that person to perform within the OnboardCentric platform.

Accommodating people with similar tasks

The intersection of FlexFields and Roles occurs in situations where you have more than one staff member performing a given type of Role. For example, let’s assume that you have four different staff members who each have the Role of I-9 Approver.

In this scenario, the FlexField values you assign to a given new hire will then be used to determine which of the four I-9 Approvers will be assigned that follow up task once the new hire completes his portion of the I-9.

FlexFields and Roles allow OnboardCentric to accommodate almost any type of workflow necessary for the unique needs of your organization’s onboarding process. We encourage you to take advantage of these capabilities so that you may maximize your onboarding efficiency.

 

Get started on the path to better onboarding.

Contact ExactHire to learn more about OnboardCentric employee onboarding software.

 

Indiana Basketball And Hiring – What Can We Learn?

I live in Indiana, where basketball is king. Whether you attended Indiana University or not (I did not–I’m a proud Butler University Bulldog), IU basketball is a mainstay of conversations throughout the state, especially this time of year.

This year, however, IU basketball is the topic of conversation for the wrong reasons.  Over the past few months, no fewer than 6 of the 13 scholarship players on the IU squad have been arrested or suspended for run-ins with the law…that’s almost 50% of the team!

Naturally, many of the discussions about this among Hoosier fans (don’t ask what a Hoosier is, as even those of us from Indiana aren’t 100% sure!) revolve around how much coach Tom Crean should be held accountable for these incidents.  Regardless of any personal bias one might have for/against Coach Crean, I find myself thinking about the following:

  • He recruited and signed each of these players.
  • They each interact with him on a regular (almost daily) basis.
  • How they perform on the basketball court ultimately determines his success as a coach. 

Sound familiar?  If you’re a business owner or hiring manager, it should.  After all, what do we do in those roles?

  • Recruit talent (i.e., employees).
  • Interact with employees regularly.
  • “Coach” employees to perform at a level that ensures success for the organization.

Given that, let’s look at the IU situation by placing things into a business situation.  Assume that you hire 13 people over the course of a year or so.  Then, assume that those 13 people perform at a fairly average level (if you’ve seen IU basketball over the past year, you know this is a generous statement).  Finally, let’s assume 6 of those 13 people end up arrested or suspended over a period of a few months for various alcohol or drug-related offenses.  As the manager of those people, how likely is that you’d still have your job?

My point here isn’t to pile on as it relates to Tom Crean.  It’s fun to draw these comparisons, as there are some parallels between the roles of a coach and a manager/boss.  But, my overarching point here is how important it is to recruit/hire the right people. 

I know that’s a very simplistic and obvious statement.  “Right” means different things to different organizations.  Talent is clearly important, but it isn’t the only thing.  How well will the person “fit” the organization, the role, the team, etc.?  Will they be a good teammate?  It’s true in sports, but it’s also true in business.

Let me finish my basketball-to-business comparison with two examples relative to IU: the Duke and Kansas basketball programs.  Both programs are run by coaches who  know how to recruit those who “fit” their programs. They also have the respect of their players.  As you get ready to hire for your next opening, be sure to think about what you can learn from Duke or Kansas to more consistently recruit the right people for your team.


ExactHire provides hiring solutions that help organizations find and hire the best talent and the right fit for their company culture. To learn more about how ExactHire can improve your hiring process, contact us today!

Image Credit: Basketball Goal by prettybea (Own work) [GFDL or CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Umm…I Can’t Come to the Office Because of the #Polarvortex

A snow day! The best words of winter to anyone under the age of 18… and often 21. Here in Indiana we’ve been impacted by the “polar vortex.” The winter witch dropped over 14 inches of snow within 24 hours. While it created incredible sights and terrific workouts (shoveling snow), we were all stuck in our homes for days.

Think of all the great things you could do! Wash all of the bed sheets, mop the floors, reorganize the home office, get a headstart on that New Year’s resolution of exercise. Sounds lovely, huh? Based off of my Facebook news feed, however, I believe most of my friends actually have messier houses, have eaten everything in sight, and several can’t stand to be trapped with their loved ones in a house for a few days.

Similar to my friends, I did not have an opportunity to tackle all of those great things (aka household chores) I mentioned earlier because I was busy having one of the most productive work weeks I’ve had in a very long time. That’s right, no snow day here; it was business as usual.

The Wonders of SaaS During Snow

Just because it’s snowy where I am, doesn’t mean it’s snowy where my clients are located. As long as we have electricity and internet, we can keep the doors open for business. We often talk about how our ExactHire technology solutions are SaaS products. Software as a Service, or SaaS, applications can be accessed anywhere you have an internet connection. Forgot your laptop at work before the snowstorm? No worries…grab your personal laptop or tablet and access the software via the internet.

Because many people are confined to their home during these snowy days, I noticed an uptick in the amount of jobs being posted. Way to go administrative applicant tracking system users! Good job on working through the “distraction” of snow, and children, and anything else staring you down during your time at home. I also noticed an increase in the number of people applying for jobs.

Clearly we cannot tell, too far in advance, when the weather will give us such a large amount of snow, but we can file this bit of information away for later this winter or next winter. If people are snowed in, it’s worth your time to share your posted jobs to social networks – LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

If you’re not currently using a SaaS product for your hiring process, I would recommend checking out our selection of applicant tracking and employee onboarding software options by visiting our resources section or contacting us for further information. If you are already on board, I hope your snow day was productive.

Keep warm everyone!

How to Automate the New Hire Process

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)

Employee Referrals – Use Technology to Help Track and Reward

There’s a lot of talk in our market these days about where recruiting is headed. Many experts feel that we are on the cusp of some significant changes in the next few years. Less reliance on traditional job boards, heavier use of social media and allowing applicants to leverage mobile technology are some of the more consistent topics of change that I see on a regular basis.

Whether you see these trends affecting your organization or not, there is a recruiting strategy that is worth considering — employee referrals. This is nothing new. In fact, employers and their staff members responsible for hiring have been trying to find ways to consistently tap this market for years.

Employee Referral Program Benefits

There are several benefits to using employee referrals for sourcing applicants:

  • Better applicants — good people tend to know and refer other good people
  • Passive applicants — this approach reaches people who may not yet be actively looking for work and would never see your opening on your career site or a job board
  • Lower cost — even if you pay employees for referrals, it is widely acknowledged that this cost is far lower than the typical costs born through standard recruiting techniques
  • Better potential for cultural fit — your current employees understand your organization’s culture and are in the best position to help answer questions about the organization from those applicants they refer

Here’s more good news…technological advances are continuing to help make this employee referral process better for both employers and their employees. Social media on its own allows employees to make others in their networks aware of job openings in their organization. However, some of the more progressive applicant tracking software (ATS) tools in the market make this even easier for employees. Employees may click and share openings through their social channels without any copying/pasting. This makes the overall program more sustainable and successful.

To learn more about social referral tools available within HireCentric ATS, please schedule a live demo with ExactHire.

Hiring Solutions and Technology for Auto Dealers

With the automotive industry rebound in recent years, we’ve had the opportunity to customize our applicant tracking system technology for auto dealers around the country. In doing so, it dawned on me that there are some common reasons many of these automotive groups are looking for help with their hiring process:

  1. Turnover — With the improved economy, turnover figures are trending back to pre-recession levels. Salespeople, automotive techs and customer service representatives are the main positions where dealers experience turnover.
  2. Demographics — A high percentage of the applicant pool for auto dealers are job seekers who are very tech savvy. These applicants are used to doing things online and expect potential employers to follow suit.
  3. Limited resources — Managers in most dealerships are busier than ever with their day-to-day jobs. This means they don’t have a lot of excess time to review resumes and try to decide which applicants are qualified for their openings. These managers are looking for ways to automate as much as possible.
  4. Cost — Dealers are seeing margins squeezed like everyone else. This means they want technology solutions with low upfront costs, low ongoing costs, and no long-term contracts.

While not unique to auto dealers, these core reasons certainly seem to resonate in this industry. In particular, these issues are magnified for those dealers who happen to have multiple locations — a more common occurrence than years ago.

Popular Applicant Tracking Features for Car Dealers

Below are some of the features to which our clients have gravitated when using our HireCentric applicant tracking software (ATS):

  • Branded career portal to match the rest of your corporate web presence
  • Flexible employment application setup to gather what’s important to a particular dealer’s needs — this includes the ability to break the application into more than one step, if desired
  • See multiple applications for an individual tied to a central applicant profile — especially helpful for “serial” applicants
  • Track all notes, email correspondence and internal feedback for each applicant in a single database
  • Reach out to previous good applicants when positions open up unexpectedly
  • Communicate with groups of applicants simultaneously to keep them informed of progress in filling a position — this protects your brand for applicants who may also be existing or potential customers
  • Easily see what the “pipeline” looks like for any given position or group of positions

Using applicant tracking software isn’t right for every automotive dealer. However, if any of the features mentioned above resonate as potential options for your organization (automotive industry or not), please contact ExactHire to discuss whether this type of solution is functionally and economically viable for your group.

Use our pricing calculator for HireCentric ATS.

Image credit: Honest John’s Used Car Lot, Los Angeles CA, 1947 by Alden Jewell (contact)

Is Paperless Hiring More Efficient?

Would paperless human resource processes be more efficient for my small- to medium-sized organization? My cut and dry answer is yes. Since we are all grown-ups, however, we know that there are rarely instances when answers are cut and dry. So, let’s explore, briefly, why my answer is yes.

What do I do with all of these paper resumes?

Do you remember that seminar where the instructor says, “Try to make all of your paper ‘one-touch!’” Could you imagine a world where employment applications were one-touch? That’s a mind-boggling concept.

What do you do with hard copy applications these days? Let’s say you currently accept them electronically (perhaps via email) and/or in printed form (perhaps via mail/fax or at a job fair in person) and put them into a collection pile/email folder (touch #1). Then, you sort through the pile (touch #2) to see which ones you like the best. Oh darn! You’ve just knocked over your coffee; let’s hope this was an electronically submitted version. Then you walk the application stack over to the hiring manager for review if you are lucky enough to be in the same building (touch #3). I’m sure you can sense that this process is getting lengthy.

With an electronic application, there is no need for you to “do” anything with the applications until you’re ready to sort through the proverbial pile. If you want to forward an application to the hiring manager for review, then its three clicks of a button and the hiring manager can check out the application. I don’t know about you, but I can’t even make it to some of my co-workers offices that quickly. Plus, the process of sorting is a whole lot easier when using a web-based hiring software application that allows you to use automatic scoring and disqualification filters on application screening questions.

Paperless hiring helps you to be more productive with your time and de-clutters your office & email inbox.

I can’t read this application; do you know what it says?

I hear school systems are doing away with cursive writing. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but it is all of the buzz with this new school year starting. But if focus is diverting from penmanship, then I have a feeling concerns with chicken scratch writing (per my question above) are only going to increase. If everyone completed his/her application or new hire paperwork online electronically, then you would not have to worry about the difference between an applicant’s handwritten number one or seven.

Paperless hiring software makes documents more legible.

We have compliance reporting deadlines coming up. Have you been keeping track of that spreadsheet?

No more need for manually documenting applicant information in spreadsheets! Because all of the information is captured automatically in a database, there is no need for anyone to manually enter information into an applicant flow log spreadsheet for affirmative action reporting, for example; nor, would there be a need for anyone to “catch up” the spreadsheet if it was not kept current.

Human resources software takes the tedious manual tasks out of the reporting process.

The two big efficiency questions are: will paperless hiring save me time and will paperless hiring move the process along more quickly. Yes, paperless hiring will make a compelling impact on both fronts.

To learn more about efficient software solutions for the hiring process, please contact ExactHire today.

Image credit: file cabinets by Jared and Corin (contact)

How Do I Calculate ROI For Applicant Tracking System?

There are several ways to calculate the return on investment (ROI) for an applicant tracking system (ATS). But to start, you need to first determine the cost of your hiring activities without an ATS.

Equation #1: Time Cost

Let’s say we have an HR Employee who handles hiring (I’ll call her Joy). Consider the number of hours that Joy works on hiring activities in a week (H) and multiply that number by her amount of pay per hour (P).

If H = 40 hrs.

and P = $20 per hour

Then, H x P =  $800 per week focused on hiring activities without an ATS

An applicant tracking system could easily reduce that employee’s work by 25% and cost as low as $30 per week (C). So let’s look at the ROI in that scenario:

If H = 30 hrs.

and P = $20 per hour

and C =  $30

Then, (H x P) + C =  $630 per week focused on hiring activities with an ATS..a savings of $170 per week or a 560% ROI.

Equation #2: Labor Needs

But what if Joy can only review 40 applications per day and your organization really needs to review 60 applications per day? If you want to get through 60 applications in a day without a backlog–and without investing in applicant tracking software, you’ll need to hire another person.

So if one employee (E) can review 40 applications per day (A) and you need 60 applications reviewed per day (N), let’s determine how many additional employees you’ll need.

If N = 60

and A = 40

Then, N ÷ A = 1.5 employees to review 60 applications per day.

Equations #3: Labor Cost

Now, let’s combine the results of both equations to find the time cost for this scenario where hiring is the solution to meeting capacity requirements.

(H x E) x P = $1200 per week focused on hiring.

Now we have a ball-park figure we can use to see if the cost of the ATS is equal to or less than the additional labor cost.

Reducing Labor Cost With Applicant Tracking Software

An ATS can review applications more quickly than a human through the use of automatic scoring and/or disqualification filters associated with answers given for application screening questions. With the aid of these filters, the applications can be sorted and the reviewing process can begin with those applicants that most closely align with what you are seeking for that given position.

This means that Joy in our example above should have no problem reviewing 60+ applications per day, saving the organization from hiring a part-time employee and saving $400 per week in labor costs…or $1600 per month. When you consider that the price of HireCentric ATS starts at $120 per month, that’s a big return on your investment!

ROI for Applicant Tracking System Analysis Factors

Beyond the time cost savings, let’s consider some of the other items to factor into your ROI analysis:

  • Focusing on just the more-qualified applicants (as determined by the screening questions mentioned above) usually leads to better hires, because recruiters and hiring managers are no longer buried by resumes. Better hires tend to ramp up faster, perform better and stay longer. This means a better bottom line for your organization.
  • Candidates no longer “slip through the cracks” — the better ones are more quickly identified and may be contacted quickly to avoid them going elsewhere.
  • You’re now building an actual candidate pool from which to draw later. This means fewer postings to paid job boards and dollars saved because of it.
  • Jobs may be shared through social media by both your applicants and your existing employees. Again, this means more quality applicants without over-relying on paid job boards.

My experience is that focusing ROI efforts on time savings alone tends to fall on deaf ears when approaching a CEO or CFO for approval. Using some of these alternative ideas, along with the time savings and low cost nature of an applicant tracking software tool, should improve your odds of making a business case to executive management and getting the solution your organization needs.

If you would like to discuss pricing and/or ROI for ExactHire’s applicant tracking software further, please contact us today.

Are Electronic Signatures Valid?

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.

Portfolio Items