ADVANCES IN DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT TECHNOLOGY FOR HUMAN RESOURCES
For Human Resources Executives and their teams, choosing the right document management software solution is a daunting task. Finding the right technology, the right company to work with, coordinating support from IT, and getting a software project budget approved can become such a challenge it almost seems just sticking with the old paper and file cabinets would be simpler. Luckily, with the right information and support, human resources (HR) teams can easily navigate the process and transition to automated, electronic document processes to improve the overall efficiency of the team and ultimately add additional value to the HR mission. In the pages that follow, we ll share the top four considerations teams face in selecting a content management system based on what we have learned from our HR customers. Cabinet Document Management Solutions has worked with thousands of businesses over the past 15-plus years to streamline and automate customer, vendor and employee files and processes. Our mission and our passion is to help our customers leverage technology to improve personal and company performance. Working with HR teams who share this mission has provided us with numerous insights we hope you will find helpful. Jon Clark Jon Clark, Vice President Cabinet Document Management Solutions
Leadership Starts in HR The mission of every human resources team is to acquire, develop and retain the best people to accomplish the organization s mission. The burdens and bottlenecks created by paper documents as well as manual workflows and approval processes distract everyone in HR from the primary mission at hand. By reducing time spent managing paperwork and approvals, the HR team dramatically improves their ability to cultivate leading talent. 4 Keys to Moving Toward Paperless HR PICK A PLATFORM FOR YOUR PROCESSES HR leaders are typically very good at standardizing processes to make sure all necessary steps are followed in hiring, managing and retaining the right people. Getting people to follow these processes every time is really the challenge. Document management software that works for HR needs to go beyond simply an electronic file cabinet and have the capacity to become a process management platform as well. Halting Hiring Holdups In a standard hiring process, HR creates specific documents required to officially begin the process. While some are filed, others require approvals and signatures. If one of those documents becomes lodged in a folder under a magazine in someone s office, the whole process is held up while that document is either re-created or a search is conducted. This is a great example of where a robust document management software solution can speed onboarding and save time and effort commonly wasted people chasing. Document management software that acts as a both content management system and process management platform provides the structure and controls to set up easily repeatable processes that work the way you want them to. Instead of documenting your processes and continuously training your staff to follow them, put your processes into a system that will make it easy for everyone to follow the right steps every time. And because your processes are managed and executed electronically, there are additional benefits. Documents can be routed and approved electronically, speeding up the time it takes to see tasks to completion. Confidential information is secure because you control users access rights. Individual processes are tracked and reports can be generated that pinpoint where various items are in the cycle and where potential bottlenecks may lie. Human resources and management can access and work via mobile devices, so there is no need to lug sensitive hiring documents home from work or on the road. Not only will the right document management software solution help improve control and efficiency, it will provide you with peace of mind that all the steps you have prescribed are being followed and can be verified.
Most HR leaders want to provide controlled access to employee files and processes without requiring access to the HRIS. Only a solution that begins with document management software can provide this clear advantage. INTEGRATE WITH EXISTING SYSTEMS THINK BIG PICTURE It is essential that document management software integrate with your HRIS system if you have one in place. This integration may be as simple as synchronizing employee demographic information from the HRIS to the employee record structure in the document management software. Or it may involve a more sophisticated integration that allows the users in your HRIS to access the document management software without having to log in. This approach typically requires development using an Open API. The third type of integration relies on the document management module built in to your HRIS if one exists. All of these approaches are valid and come with specific advantages: Option 1. Pick a document management software solution and synchronize the data with your HRIS. With this approach, you can select the best document management solution to meet your requirements and build a real process management system. Since the documents and processes are not contained within the HRIS, you have the flexibility to change the HRIS in the future without impacting your employee files and processes. Option 2. Pick a document management software solution and use an Open API to create a custom interface to your HRIS. This approach saves clicks for users but will also add expense to your implementation, and any custom coding will not carry over to a new HRIS system in the event a change is made in the future. We like to recommend starting with Option 1 and assessing the cost-benefit of customization after your team has used the system for a period of time. Option 3. Use the document management capability of the HRIS. The main advantage of this approach is the inherent integration of the systems. However, there are a couple of key questions you should ask before going with this route. First, does the HRIS add-on really have the features to create, manage, automate, control and process your employee files? Or is it simply an electronic file cabinet? Second, and most important, who will be able to access documents in the HRIS add-on? If you have a vision of involving management and others in electronic process management, you will need to be able to provide them with secure access to the system.
SECURITY AND CONTROL Security and control are paramount to moving your employee files and process from the locked up file room to an electronic document management software solution. With a paper-based system, there are people who have keys to the file room and keys to specific cabinets, but maybe not all the cabinets. With electronic document management software, you can do the same thing plus you can control access at the individual folder and document level like giving every document and folder its own lock and key. User credentials and privileges are controlled by the system administrator, much like the file room and cabinet keys are controlled by whoever is in charge of the file room. Documents Don t Disappear: Additionally, a good document management software solution provides the ability to control specific user rights like create, edit and delete, making it impossible for a user to perform one of these actions on a document where those rights do not exist. The best systems for human resources, specifically, even save copies of deleted files to a recycle bin, just in case a file needs to be restored. Fully Compliant: Many HR documents contain confidential and personally identifiable private information that require HIPAA compliance. Using a top-notch document management software with solid electronic content management to control access and encrypt files at rest and in transit will greatly reduce exposure to violations. Even something as simple as filing I-9 s becomes easier to control and manage when implemented using document management software. Version Control: One control issue facing not only HR, but entire organizations, is the simple matter of getting everyone to use the most current versions of documents. Whatever your standard documents are, you should be able to load them into the document management software so that all users are creating and using the most recent version. Changes to these standard templates can then be made once and then simply rolled out to your team automatically. This rather simple content management task can become complicated without a platform in place to make centralized changes. CLOUD VS. ON-PREMISES INSTALLATION Historically, locally installed software that runs on premises has been viewed as a safer choice by human resources departments. However, the development of exceptionally secure and robust CLOUD solutions really makes this decision a coin toss in terms of security. And as long as the organization s IT is performing regular backups and restore testing, disaster recovery can be accomplished with either on-premises installations or CLOUD. Cabinet provides both CLOUD and on-premises options for our customers, and while most of our HR customers are using our CLOUD product, we still have many who run the system on their network.
When you look at monthly fees for CLOUD versus licensing fees for on premises, the CLOUD option typically appears to be more expensive over time. However, if you truly add the cost of hardware, maintenance and IT support, you will find that CLOUD options are really more in line with the true cost of running a document management software solution as an installed application on your servers. If security, disaster recovery, and true cost essentially cancel each other out in the CLOUD versus on-premise decision process, then what factors remain? Project implementation is streamlined with the CLOUD approach because of minimal need to involve IT resources (people and hardware). This allows you to get your project up and running faster on your timeline. Offloading disaster recovery responsibility to the CLOUD document management software provider can be viewed as a huge advantage to many HR departments. A good CLOUD system has disaster recovery built in. Whichever route you decide to go, make sure your document management software solution provider takes security and disaster recovery seriously. The best and simplest way to check this is to ask about their security and controls, especially SOC2 certification. Conclusion As technology and process automation professionals, we acknowledge that there is no one product out there that is perfect for every organization. Every company and every HR leader has specific priorities and objectives that make some systems a better fit than others. Our goal here is simple: To help you find the best fit so you can take your HR team and company to the next level. WANT TO INTERVIEW CABINET AND LEARN WHAT WE CAN DO FOR YOUR HR TEAM? SCHEDULE A DEMO TODAY Or contact Jon Clark: jclark@cabinetpaperless.com (256) 258-0460