From Our Founder: Still Using Paper for That?!?!
Modernize or You’ll Damage Your Brand
When I was the Manager of HR Data and Automation at SpaceX, my team worked on many projects to help make internal processes more efficient. It is vital to ensure your internal tools optimize workflows and free up time for your people, and automation is a central component of that optimization activity. Change can be difficult however, and many organizations opt to keep outdated technology and solutions in place long past their natural expiration date. The old methods are tried and true, and while not ideal do seem to work well enough. This conclusion is typically incorrect, as the potential ROI for optimization are generally 2x-10x the cost of the change initiative. But let’s leave the monetary argument aside for a moment. Instead, I want you to consider the optics of your current processes, specifically your talent acquisition and on-boarding workflows.
If you are like most organizations, there is a point during the talent acquisition or on-boarding process where you are still handing out a clipboard with a stack of papers and a ballpoint pen. Maybe you require talent to sign an NDA, or perhaps request reimbursement for travel expenses for an onsite interview. You ask new hires to record personal information for I-9s and other crucial new-hire documents on paper, and then your team manually enters this information into your HRIS or document management system. It’s a tedious activity for everyone involved. Worse still, all of these processes invite human error; decipher handwritten documents at your own risk (is that a 6 or a 0?), and get ready for a series of unnecessary and unpleasant conversations when you need to fix a mistake.
Don’t get stuck in the past, embrace paperless processing.
What Year is It?
What is your candidate or new-hire to make of this non-digitized, manual experience? You’ve likely invested heavily into your corporate branding and marketing, intent on positioning your company as modern and forward-thinking. All of that cost and effort is immediately undermined the moment you hand out that stack of papers and a pen. I remember one new-hire at a technology company blurting out “Seriously? What else is stuck in the dark ages at this place?” after scrambling to find a pen. This same tech company maintained an arduous applicant process that required candidates to apply, upload a resume, and then field-by-field recreate their entire work history. Inconsistent brand messaging, particularly between what is externally presented and internally demonstrated, puts candidates and new hires on high-alert. I’ve seen it over and over again, where the new-hire looks like an excited customer at a diner only to realize that while their pancakes look good, the fruit topping has spoiled and the whole dish smells bad.
Looks good, smells bad. Non-digitized HCM workflows undermine your brand.
So where does your organization fall? Are you operating like a 21st century company, or are you advertising slow, monolithic thinking to an audience you need to convince to join your team and push the business forward into the future? There has never been a better time to unleash the power of HCM technologies than today. Refuse to change, and not only will you lose valuable time and money, you’ll also drive the next generation away from your doors and into the welcoming arms of your competitors.
A single 10 minute conversation is all it takes to see if Eljun’s iPaaS for HRIS can help you streamline your talent acquisition and on-boarding processes. We also specialize in centralizing your HCM data so you can make better decisions and be the hero that shows your executive team how these decisions positively affect the bottom-line!
