Independent School District 196 Automates Their Human Resources

Streamlining a School District’s Hiring Processes

Thanks to DocuWare, Independent School District 196 has streamlined their hiring and other Human Resource functions. Applicant’s résumés are indexed and stored electronically allowing principals in any one of the district’s 31 campuses to search and review the applications online, ensuring that the right applicant is matched to the right position. This is one example how DocuWare, by improving a process, enables the district to make better use of their resources allowing them to focus on their core mission of education and helping students reach their full potential.

About ISD #196

• Industry: Education
• Location: Minnesota, USA
• Application: Personnel Files, Student Records
• Document Types: Resumes, Applications, Student Records

Independent School District 196 is a state and nationally recognized K-12 public school district located in the south suburban Twin Cities, conveniently accessible to both Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. The 110 square mile school district serves more than 28,000 students enrolled in 31 schools and is one of the area’s largest employers, with more than 3,500 full and part-time employees and eight employee bargaining groups.

The Tasks

• Reduce document retrieval and refiling time
• Streamline hiring processes
• Improve the security and maintenance of employee files
• Make employee files easier to maintain

With 31 schools, the district’s HR department is constantly receiving and processing applications and résumés. When a principal or hiring supervisor needed to fill a position, he or she had to drive to the district office and manually sort through a batch of résumés in order to study find a candidate that met the job requirements. The size of the district and the volume of applications to review required principals to spend significant amounts of time away from their schools in order to research a candidate for a position. Under the paper-based system, the HR department “checked out“ the original résumés to the principal while he had them for review. The downfall of this system was that only one principal could review a résumé at a time and résumés sometimes sat on desks unreturned to the district office for weeks.

In addition, the HR department was continually accessing and updating paper-based employee files. Combined, the department spent almost 10-12 hours a week finding and refiling files within the department. The employee files were stored in thirteen locked filing cabinets located in a common area near the department.

Requirements

The District began looking for an integrated document management solution. Initially, they were focused on finding a solution that could streamline their hiring practices and allow hiring supervisors to search the applicant pool by qualifications. They needed to improve the security of employee files and make them easier to maintain. Future plans included moving away from microfilm to store student transcripts and other records; putting them in electronically in an easy to access and print format. For this reason, they needed to implement a flexible system that could expand to meet the district’s growing record storage needs.

Solution

AMI Imaging Solutions, Inc., an Authorized DocuWare Partner, implemented District 196’s DocuWare solution. The HR department worked with AMI to designate the index fields based on the way information was requested.

Document management has streamlined the district’s hiring process. Today, applications, résumés and letters of recommendation are scanned and manually indexed by name, licenses and coaching qualifications. Next, they are stored in the “Applicant“ DocuWare file cabinet. Those needing to fill a position, can access the “Applicant“ file cabinet online and instantly narrow the applicant pool by searching for an individual with specific qualifications.

It is really easy for a principal to fill a position. They don’t have to drive to the district office and spend hours sorting through paper. Many of them access the résumés from home. With DocuWare they can search for a teacher licensed to teach elementary school or quickly review the résumés based on years experience in order to meet budget needs. DocuWare hasn’t saved time just on the district administration level, its efficiencies have impacted every school,“ said Tom Voigt, Information System Coordinator for District 196.

Storing applicant information in DocuWare was such a success that the HR department converted all of their paper employee files for current, terminated and retired employees to electronic files.

The use of DocuWare is expanding throughout the District. Today, student records and transcripts, special education records, Board of Education records, as well as the Payroll and Facilities

Benefits

• Simultaneous access to applications ensures better employee placement
• Efficient HR processes save resources across the district
• Better control of confidential employee records

The benefits of using DocuWare in the HR department have affected the entire organization. On an individual level, principals and other hiring supervisors no longer have to allocate significant amounts of time to drive to the district office and sort through applications. Résumés can be searched and sorted from each campus or home office, giving each principal more time to focus on their school and their students. Additionally, the ability to search and review the applicant pool simplifies the hiring process and reduces employee stress levels.

On a department level, the move to electronic document management allows the HR department to improve the security of confidential employee information, thanks to DocuWare’s security features. Before DocuWare, the HR department spent 10-12 hours a week handling employee files. Today, the HR department spends only 4 hours a week scanning information and accessing the files is almost instantaneous. By maintaining a self-serve database of applicants, the HR staff is operating more efficiently and can focus on their core responsibilities instead of “checking out“ résumés. Employment verification requests can be easily answered while on the phone. Once someone is hired, DocuWare makes it easy to transfer documents from the “Applicant“ file cabinet to the “Employee“ file cabinet. The HR staff is also able to easily comply with governmental and internal regulations regarding numerous forms and procedures that must be a part of every employee record.

Our employee files are now accessible to everyone simultaneously. This is the best thing DocuWare has done for us. We used to spend 20 minutes or more looking for a file within the department. The file was usually on someone’s desk, but if they were in a meeting we would have to wait to retrieve the file. We don’t have to refile or wait any more, it’s great,“ said Suzy Klein, secretary to the director of Human Resources.

On the district level, DocuWare allows more than one supervisor to look at the same résumés at a time, ensuring that qualified candidates’ résumé are quickly reviewed and the right person is matched to the right position and not overlooked because their résumé was being reviewed by someone else.

Electronic storage allows the district to store employee files indefinitely. By removing HR filing cabinets, the district office gained additional office space and has set up a terminal that employees can use to review their own file.

Independent School District 196 stores a copy of their records in a secure facility. By storing the information electronically instead of using microfilm or paper, storage costs per cubic foot are now 14 times less expensive.

Although hard to quantify, the district has realized savings on recruitment costs and all the other related costs including time and legal exposure from having better tools to put the right person in the right job – the first time.

Implementing DocuWare helps Independent School District 196 meet their goal of educating their students to reach their full potential; by maximizing their resources toward finding and hiring great teachers and staff, thus allowing the administration to focus more time on educating students.

Conclusion

Our employee files are now accessible to everyone simultaneously. This is the best thing DocuWare has done for us. We used to spend 20 minutes or more looking for a file within the department. The file was usually on someone’s desk, but if they were in a meeting we would have to wait to retrieve the file. We don’t have to refile or wait any more, it’s great.“ - Suzy Klein,Secretary to the Director of Human Resources, Independent School District 196