HR, Streamlined

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The Enterprise

HR, Streamlined

8/1/2008

By Rama Ramaswami

Powerful HR modules now efficiently deliver the applicant data needed to comply with employment regulations.

AT CORNELL, a department manager can review all the material on an applicant and determine who to interview or reject, without HR intervention.

THE WORDS 'HUMAN RESOURCES' and "paperwork" go hand-in-hand-- or do they? On many college campuses, that assumption is changing. Human Resources administrators are finding that as software modules are installed to automate various processes, they have more time to focus on strategic objectives. And as compliance with affirmative action and other employment regulations comes under increasing scrutiny, HR staffers are finding that software can deliver and track data with an accuracy that paper-based processes can't match.

In fact, higher education institutions that launched such automation a few years back are now reaping the fruits of their foresight. With nearly 10,000 employees and about 20,000 students at its campus in Ithaca, NY, for instance, Cornell University had urgently needed to streamline its uncoordinated employee recruitment efforts. Faced with difficulty recruiting and retaining top talent, and with no mechanisms to track or report on search efforts, Cornell administrators decided to install an online applicant tracking system from Taleo.

"What we had before was completely paperbased, with no automation in any way, shape, or form," says Allan Bishop, director of Cornell's Recruitment and Employment Center in the Office of Human Resources. "It was very decentralized. There was very little ability to know what jobs were available, or get details on affirmative action or the responses we were getting."

The new software changed all that, allowing approved users direct access to applicant information. Now, all academic and some nonacademic job opportunities are posted to a central site, and a consistent employment process is used across campus. According to Bishop, today a manager can review all the material on an applicant and determine who to interview or reject, without HR intervention. In addition, "Affirmative action data collection is up by 50 percent," he reports. "We're very pleased with that; we now have a much more proactive recruiting environment." What's more, he adds, "The system's ease of use attracts more applicants."

The Taleo program was designed primarily for corporate environments-- and that, Bishop says, was actually a plus. "We did not want to mirror our old academic ways," he says. "Taleo helped us break the mold. The Taleo people forced us to make changes." As Taleo's first academic client, Cornell had the opportunity to educate the vendor about the academic environment, thereby receiving a solution customized for the university's needs, as well as helping Taleo with its R&D for the education market.