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When I ask you what department handles the most paperwork, what department do you think of? It could be up for debate, but there is no question that the Human Resource (HR) department handles a lot, if not the most, paperwork in any business. From employee records to private information, the documents needed for HR can stack up very quickly. Especially if you are still using paper-based document management processes.
If your HR department still relies on paper-based processes, their day-to-day functions are time-consuming and labor intensive. We understand that veering away from established processes within your business can seem daunting. However, with the amount of ways you can organize, search, and automate these processes with digital document management, you won’t look back to paper-based processes again.
Throughout this blog we will talk about the top 5 ways document management can benefit and transform your HR department and make it more efficient, effective, and secure. Not to mention the time your HR team will save and can use for recruiting, employee engagement, training, and more!
1. Employee Records Management
As we have talked about in previous blogs, paper documents are extremely unreliable and can be easily lost or damaged. Certain HR documents are confidential, like employee records that hold their social security number. Those are documents that you don’t want to risk losing for the safety of your employees. You also need to take into consideration the amount of employee reviews you will have to keep. Many HR departments are legally obliged to keep records of formal employee reviews to have a written record of all feedback given to each employee. This is especially important for wrongful termination lawsuits or documentation to support giving someone a promotion — either way, you’ll want to find those records quickly and easily.
Another big pain point is the volume of paper documents being used in HR daily, causing employees to spend a good chunk of time just looking for a document. Once your documents are digitized, a document management solution will be able to store your documents all in one place so that you can keep them secure and easily accessible.
Another benefit of using document management software is being able to stay proactive with HR audits. For example, say your company has to go through an I-9 audit, you would have to get all I-9 forms from every employee relatively quickly. The proper digital solution makes it manageable to find these documents in a timely manner which will help your company in the long run.
2. Recruiting
This past year, many businesses have had to recruit and interview online. Although the world is starting to open back up again, the increase of online recruiting does not seem to be declining. It is now more valuable than ever to take advantage of this and use it in favor of your business with a document management solution.
Say you get a resume via email, with a document management solution you would be able to process that resume quickly, putting it through an automated workflow, moving the document from department to department with ease. This makes a recurring process more efficient while also storing any employee document for future reference for auditing purposes.
3. Remote Workers
As mentioned earlier, many things have changed over the last year due to the pandemic and many businesses are switching to working remotely. With more people working from home, some businesses found that employees can work remotely full-time even when offices start opening up again. For those employees, you want to make sure they are able to access any files, records, etc. easily from their computer. A document management system makes it easy to have certain permissions on documents, that way remote employees are able to access only the documents that they have been granted permission to without having access to other secure documents, all from their own computer at home.
4. Health Screening Requirements
Now that we have talked about how a document management solution can help remote workers, what about workers coming back into the office? How will they know it is safe? As an HR department it is your responsibility to make sure that all employees feel comfortable and safe within their work environment.
Even though many businesses are opening back up, there are still regulations to follow. In order to stay on top of these requirements, a document management solution can track the results of any screening needed to show that employees are healthy and can come into the office. All the results can be stored and accessed if needed for proof that all state and/or federal guidelines are being followed.
5. Training and Development
According to a case study by the Society for Human Resource Management, on average a company spends about $4,000 per new hire. If you are still using paper based processes for training and onboarding new employees, you are just adding to that cost due to the price of paper, printers, storage, etc. By digitizing your documents and using a document management solution you will be able to automate your training and onboarding processes so that the user experience is streamlined and efficient. Even if your HR department has a unique workflow in place, document management software can easily adapt to your department’s policies, workflows, and can integrate with other systems you may use. Since training is one of the first tasks a new hire will be given, if it is easy to use and user friendly it will give them a good first impression of how your business flows.
How To Get Started
You understand why a document management solution will benefit your HR department, but how do you start implementing one? Start looking for document management systems that align with your business process needs. Finding the right document management system is key, many different systems have different features and options you will have to consider. If you need any help figuring out how to pick the best solution for your company, contact us today and we’d be happy to discuss the right option for you and your HR department.
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