Anyone know who works in a Human Resources department knows about the time, money, and regulations associated with documents. But when you implement an HR document management system, it will lead to more efficient processes, reduced costs, time savings, and fewer tedious tasks for your staff members.
Author Archives: zealth
How Automated Workflows Can Benefit Any HR Department
It’s safe to say that Human Resources is the heart of nearly every company. They deal with the most important asset within any organization the people. But with an automated workflow, HR can do their work faster, easier, and at less cost to their company.
Document Conversion: Frequently Asked Questions
Whether you run a small family firm or manage a large corporation with multiple locations, document conversion can change the way you do business.
Organizing, storing, and sharing paper documents is not only inefficient, it leaves your company’s information susceptible to security breaches. Document conversion can save your company significant time, labor, and money by streamlining all your processes. This post will discuss frequently asked questions about document conversion.
When should I consider document conversion?
● When many people or departments need access to the same documents. If your business is spread across multiple locations, digitally stored documents make it easy for more than one person to have full access to a document.
● When the documents must be retained for a long period of time. These documents may include blueprints, maps, financial information, or employee records.
● When the documents are highly sensitive and/or vital to business operations and require backups. Document conversion ensures there is always a digital backup if a paper copy is destroyed.
● When storage costs exceed the cost of conversion. Consider not only the cost of storing documents at off-site facilities or cost per square foot for the space in your office, but the cost to find, retrieve, and re-store documents and the employee and client relation costs incurred when you are unable to locate a misfiled document.
What is the difference between scanning internally or outsourcing these services?
Scanning documents internally requires resources. You will need scanners, staff to prepare the documents for scanning, capture and imaging software, and staff for quality control after scanning. Consider the investment required for equipment, software, licensing, upgrades, and staffing to successfully scan your documents in-house.
Outsourcing document conversion means all the resources are provided for you. When you use Datamation, you will also have access to your documents during the conversion process and can track the progress of your project.
What does it cost to convert documents?
The cost to convert documents to digital images depends on several factors:
● How much paper do you need to scan? For reference, a standard bankers box full of paper costs between $130-$220 to scan. If you’re unsure, use our document scanning quote calculator for an estimate of your conversion costs.
● How much document prep is needed? Are the sheets full of paperclips, bindings, and tears?
● How many pages are included in each file?
● Does your company have any indexing or metadata requirements?
How do I select the best document scanning provider?
Make a list of your criteria. What are your company’s needs and wishes? Consider the following:
● Volume of paper. Can the provider accommodate the volume of documents within your timeframe?
● Do your documents need to be scanned in color, grayscale, black and white, or all of these?
● Is there a resolution requirement?
● Do the documents need to be searchable?
● Document destination. Are the documents going into a document management system?
● Image format. What format do the images need to be in?
● Do you need access to documents while the conversion process is taking place?
How do I choose a document conversion file format?
The format of your documents is usually chosen according to the ECM/ERP/EMR system where the documents will reside. The most common format is TIFF. However, if you’re using a document management system, check with your software manager because some prefer files in the PDF format.
Should I keep or destroy the documents once they are converted?
In most cases, the paper documents can be destroyed, but you should always check the legal requirements for your state and industry. Contact Datamation or your state archivist with questions.
This post is part of the Datamation Guide to Document Scanning.
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2018-06-12 00:00:00
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FERPA Compliant Cloud Storage: 5 Questions to Ask Before Switching to the Cloud
When your district is considering a cloud storage solution to protect student records, there are several things to consider in order to take inventory of what system your district currently has, how well it is working, and what needs to be changed.
Increasingly, districts have been turning to cloud-based storage to manage their student records securely, and to maintain compliance with FERPA and other regulations. Successful implementation of the cloud takes careful planning, and a clear view of your districts goals. Here are five questions to ask when your district is considering the cloud:
FERPA Violations Explained: Student Records vs. Directory Information
Under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA, eligible students and parents have a right to privacy for student records. Students and parents must be able to access their records, and certain information within their records cannot be shared without written consent. There is a fine line between student information that can and cannot be shared, and school districts must take care to walk the right side of that line.
What Goes into Manual HR Onboarding?
This post is part of The Datamation Guide to Human Resources Records.
Taking on new employees in any industry is a huge undertaking. An immense amount of paperwork is needed to comply with industry and governmental regulations, which means that for each employee, that paperwork needs to be printed, filled out, and collected. Between collecting this information and entering it into your company filing system, you’re talking about several days or often weeks before all of this processing is done, and this doesn’t include fixing the mistakes that come with manual onboarding and processing.
Managing Your Files with an HR Workflow
This post is part of The Datamation Guide to Human Resources Records.
With each new employee comes a new, weighty file full of their personal records and hiring documents. The longer the employee is at the company, the bigger this file grows and the more space it takes up. If one of the documents within the file needs to be referenced, an HR employee has to go through that individual’s entire file to find that one piece of paper, which takes up time.
Onboarding each employee is a whole other story, and it involves a huge amount of paperwork that needs to be filled out, collected, and filed away. Just a few examples of necessary paperwork are medical records, banking information, emergency contact information, W-4s, I-9s, handbooks, job descriptions, references, and more. All of this information needs to be completed by the employee, and then processed.
Paper processes are simply too tedious and inefficient, but fortunately, an automated workflow easily solves all of the issues that paper presents. With an automated workflow and digitized records, employees can fill out this information using E-forms, or electronic forms, that eliminates the need to process paper. E-forms can be completed on computers, tablets, or even phones, and immediately integrated into the workflow.
Following completion, that paperwork enters the workflow. This means that all of the information that would normally have to be passed from desk to desk to be approved or entered into the system can be received and approved electronically. With less paper and less of the manual data entry that comes with the typical onboarding process, there will be less human error. Mistakes caused by human error cost your company valuable time and money. OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology is used to extract the data from E-forms and other digitized documents, eliminating the need for staff to enter important data by hand.
Besides onboarding documents, other processes that can be automated or put into a workflow (or both) include timesheets and leave requests. Employees can submit their timesheets as they are being pushed through the workflow for eventual approval, and automatically receiving those timesheets makes it easy for your department when it comes time for payroll. Employees can fill out leave requests using E-forms, and that information can be sent to be approved automatically.
It’s not just your department that will benefit from an automated workflow—your employees will benefit, and your customers will, too. With all-around quicker processes, faster access to files, and an easier onboarding process, everyone is happy, and better yet, they are able to focus on other things within their department that could use some work. You will quickly be able to see the benefits of automation throughout your entire company. Call Datamation (630) 321-0601 today to discuss the perfect plan for your company’s needs.
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2018-04-25 00:00:00
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Eliminate Paper Processing With Electronic Forms
This post is part of The Datamation Guide to Human Resources Records.
The staple of any Human Resources department is paper: paper employee files, medical records, evaluations, reports, payroll, and more. As a company grows, the amount of paperwork grows. It’s incredibly difficult to manage thousands of sheets of paper, much less utilize them to track performance, payroll, and so much more. Electronic forms, or E-forms, are designed to completely eliminate paper as a medium for a record, which also eliminates the need to process the paper altogether.
To use an example, let’s say that an employee needs to update a W-4 form. With paper files, this would require filling out a new form however often your financial situation changes. Then that paper would need to be processed and the information entered. Doing this for multiple employees as often as necessary takes time, and is also error-prone, which can be problematic down the line. E-forms make it easy to quickly adapt to ever-changing regulations without going through the entire process of filing and refiling.
Another scenario is the process of HR onboarding, which requires extensive paperwork. Whether you’re rehiring or hiring someone for the first time, it can be a paper nightmare. Gathering all of the employee records, job histories, resumes, evaluations, and work authorizations takes far too much time and effort.
The ideal situation would be that all of these documents have already been scanned, making them immediately accessible and easy to gather, or other documents can be filled out as E-forms, eliminating the processing of paper altogether. If some of your staff is seasonal or they work remotely, E-forms also make it easier to adapt to a wider range of employment types.
E-forms eliminate the middle-man, or in this situation, the paper itself. The information is entered straight into a computer, tablet, or phone, and because the employee themselves is entering the information, there is less error. Information can be entered anywhere, at any time, and involves zero data entry or processing—it goes straight into any workflow. This allows your business to save time that would normally be spent processing, space that would normally be used to store paper, and money that is spent buying paper and paying employees to process and enter information. The biggest benefit is a cohesive, seamless workflow that makes your business more efficient and airtight. With industry regulations in constant flux, E-forms make it easy to keep up effortlessly.
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2018-04-20 00:00:00
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Use Data to Create Momentum In Your Business
This post is part of The Datamation Guide to Human Resources Records.
Your company’s human resources department is the touch point for the entire organization, managing and storing a huge percentage of the documents that come through your door: employee records, payroll, evaluations, reports, and more.
If your company is still working using paper-based processes, then you know that locating, storing, and using the important information that crosses your desk is messy and difficult. Scanning all of these important documents with Datamation not only makes storing and accessing your documents easier, but it also gives your company the ability to take that gathered data and form useful reports to foster data-driven decision making.
Just a few of the daily tasks encountered by HR departments are dealing with payroll, employee onboarding and offboarding, training, and hiring. An automated workflow implemented by Datamation makes those processes infinitely easier using E-forms to update documents, the digital cloud to store and access files, and automated routing to get the right information to the right people. One of the best features of Datamation’s system, however, is that it can use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to extract data from your documents and compile that data into comprehensive reports that can be faxed, printed, and shared.
The data from these reports is invaluable in developing strategies and assessing your company’s performance. With this window into productivity, payroll, onboarding, training, and more, your company gets a comprehensive look into what employee should be promoted, given a raise, or even demoted. It allows you to leverage pinpointed talent, helping the entire company perform better as a whole.
Having a report on recruiting processes can also give you insight into success rates between departments and offices, allowing you to see what is working and what isn’t working. When it comes time to make a decision, your company will always have hard, practical data to back up whatever decision you make.
Because HR processes touch every department, automating HR processes serves to provide momentum that carries over into other departments. With comprehensive reports on all processes, it becomes easy to target a certain area that may need some work, or an area that has been particularly successful that could serve as a model for other departments.
Document-driven processes will never give your company the same visibility into your processes that automatic workflow will. Getting rid of paper processing gives your HR department the time to focus on the people in your company—not the processes.
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2018-04-20 00:00:00
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Are You Maintaining Compliance?
This post is part of The Datamation Guide to Human Resources Records.
One of the many roles of the Human Resource department in your company is to ensure that compliance is being maintained. Complying with local, state, and federal laws is vital to protecting your organization, especially during lawsuits and investigations. Many of these regulations entail keeping certain employee records on hand for a specified amount of time, even if that employee has retired or has been terminated. As more employees leave the company for one reason or another, in addition to those who stay, the number of paper documents that must be on hand just gets bigger and bigger. How do you know what to throw out, and when?
A good example of one such document is an I-9 form. These forms serve as a record that verifies both the employees identity and their authorization to work in the United States. It is recommended that these forms are kept separate from personnel files, and they must be kept on file for both active and terminated employees. I-9 forms must be kept for three years after the hire date, or one year after the date employment ends—whichever comes later.
When you think of that in terms of paper, think of the number of employees who have at least one sheet of paper dedicated to just that record. You also have to think about the fact that that specific paperwork cant even be stored in the employees personnel file—it needs its very own space.
When these records are maintained in paper form, they may be difficult to find, but the more likely scenario is that they are difficult to keep an eye on when it comes to retention. If certain documents are kept for too long, it may be considered an invasion of privacy for an employee who has long since stopped working in your company. On the other hand, if a document is thrown out too soon, it may leave your company open to lawsuits and unpreparedness in case of an investigation. This makes it extremely important to know how long to keep a certain record.
When you scan and store these records electronically, Datamation can keep track of that retention window for you, automatically alerting you when a document can be disposed of. This makes sure that every record, like an I-9 form, is kept as long as it needs to be kept, and no longer. It also protects your company from lawsuits and makes sure that you are prepared for investigations. Besides this major benefit, scanning your HR records with Datamation will save your company time, money, and space.
Call Datamation today at (630) 321-0601 to get your free quote.
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2018-04-20 00:00:00
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