3 examples of smart leaders digitizing HR

Digitizing HR can transform your organization

Whether or not your HR department is distributed across multiple work spots, it’s time to ditch paper-based, manual processes and provide easier access to employee files and improve the employee experience.

That’s where Hyland’s Human Resources solutions come in:

• Reduce or eliminate paper, paper waste and retention of physical documents
• Mimic your existing paper file structure
• Streamline management of employee files digitally and reduce associated costs
• Automate the foldering processes
• Identify missing or duplicate documents

3 examples of organizations digitizing HR

1. A retail store with 640 locations mastered its digitization for HR documentation

• Kwik Trip HR eliminated paper file systems, digitized their records and adopted a centralized repository
• Employee requests of HR were standardized with online forms, streamlining processes and creating a better employee experience
• Compliance around document retention and destruction were automated
• HR staff can access completed employee information from anywhere

The full story:

To enable HR to focus on improving the employee experience, your HR professionals can’t be spending most of their time on paperwork. Tracking, filing and managing paper forms take up a significant portion of the day — not to mention the unnecessary compliance and security risks that come with manual, paper-based processes.

In a continually changing workplace environment, HR needs to be able to work efficiently and effectively, especially when working remotely.

For retailer Kwik Trip, which has 640 locations in Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin, relying on paper files and manual processes for its 21,000 employees proved unsustainable for its centralized, shared service HR department. Human resources staff struggled to keep up with paper files, including 98 different document types. All that paper took up costly real estate at the office.

After digitizing those files onto a central electronic repository, HR staff now easily accesses complete employee information from wherever they are.

“Previously, these sub-functions were very siloed,” Sarah Jilk, Kwik Trip’s OnBase administrator, said. “Documents would set on somebody’s desk for four days before anyone even knew about them. OnBase has given them a lot of visibility into the documents in a better timeframe.”

Meanwhile, the digitization of HR documentation through standardized online forms also:

• Streamlined employee-initiated requests like mileage reimbursement and status changes
• Eliminated cumbersome paper forms
• Provided a seamless experience in line with employee expectations in today’s digital world

Digitizing HR processes also improves data security. Kwik Trip’s OnBase solution houses an impressive two million HR documents containing sensitive employee information, but with built-in role-based security features, the wrong people cannot access these documents.

“I have 100% more confidence in the security of our information,” Jilk said.

As any HR professional knows, how long you hold on to documents can be the difference between meeting compliance requirements and a hefty penalty to the organization. With automated document retention and file management functions, HR staff no longer need to worry about manually tracking every document for compliance.

“When we updated our system, we were finally able to do purging effectively,” said Jilk. “Now we can create rules for document retention that allow us to automatically purge documents after their termination date.”

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2. A healthcare system eliminated 80 hours of HR filing

• The integrations eliminated manual data entry, automated indexing and data validation, and made the latest data accessible from anywhere
• “We save half a day with a click of a button.”

The full story:

For MetroHealth — a comprehensive health system in Cleveland, Ohio that includes an 861-bed major medical center, a rehabilitation hospital, two long-term care/skilled nursing centers, an outpatient surgery center and a network of community-based healthcare centers — eliminating paper was only the first step. To truly optimize processes enterprise-wide, it needed a solution that would seamlessly integrate with existing applications.

So the healthcare provider turned to OnBase, which has a built-in integration with its enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution, Infor Lawson, as well as its electronic medical record (EMR), Epic. MetroHealth was able to eliminate manual data entry, automate indexing and data validation and make the most up-to-date information instantly available to users who need it — from wherever they are. This has been invaluable to its HR department.

“OnBase lets HR free up 80 hours per month to do something other than filing, so our employees can get more work done in less time. We save half a day with a click of a button,” said Dennis Murray, MetroHealth’s director of compensation.

3. A growing business goes to the cloud to focus on what it does best: serve customers

• Amidst tremendous growth, Heinen’s HR and IT department struggled to keep up without adding personnel
• On-premises server was draining IT resources
• HR needed a faster, more secure way to manage employee data
• Heinen’s took their content to the cloud to speed operations and maximize organizational strengths

The full story:

For grocery chain Heinen’s, “getting out from underneath all the paper” has been key to its growth.

“From 2011 to 2012, the company grew by 20–25%, opening four new stores. But the number of bodies doing the work stayed the same in HR,” said Bob Walters, business analyst and OnBase system administrator at Heinen’s.

Because the grocery manages more than 90 types of digital HR documents for each associate, Heinen’s needed a faster, more secure way to store, access and share associate files. The organization also knew it didn’t want to drain IT resources by managing a server on-premises.

“We’ve hosted solutions before, and we knew we didn’t want to be in the data center business. It’s expensive and difficult,” said Walters. “Managing a server is a job in and of itself. What if something happens and the server gets destroyed? We wanted to know with certainty that the data was being cared for outside of our building.”

Since deciding to deploy their OnBase solution in the Hyland Cloud, Heinen’s can rely upon the safe, off-premises storage of its sensitive information. This has enabled staff to focus on the things that matter, like providing excellent customer service.

“Having OnBase in place gives us the ability to serve customers better,” Walters said. “We’re a grocery store, and now we get to focus on our strengths.”

Explore Hyland for HR departments