We Need to Recruit Staff – Fast!

Each time a manager at Sarnia-Lambton, Ontario healthcare facility Bluewater Health needs to hire somebody, an applicant tracking process begins.

Downsides of the all-purpose job request form

In the past, managers completed all-purpose paper requisition forms. These forms contained fields that left some managers scratching their heads. Why am I completing this? they would wonder.

Manager as form shepherd

Managers had to shepherd their requests to directors and vice-presidents for approval. “Shepherding” meant advancing forms either in hard copy or via email. Finally, the forms (and their shortcomings) reached human resources associate Michelle Robertson’s desk.

“I would receive forms with information missing,” she recalls, then contact the manager to obtain the information she needed to process the request. At other times, entire forms would go missing. Managers, Human Resources and other people lost valuable time keeping this rickety paper-based process on track.

Manual request shepherding and confusing forms no longer reign in the Bluewater Health job requisition process. Since Bluewater Health implemented the Njoyn applicant tracking system, managers use customized online job requisition forms that guide them using workflows and logic.

Quicker online job requisition forms

The form allows managers to choose a template that autofills certain fields. It keeps them from seeing questions they don’t need to answer, while obliging them to answer the ones that matter. This reduces both the complexity and the amount of work involved in completing job requisition request forms. “They know what they have to put in,” Robertson explains.

Managers who periodically recruit for the same job can also copy requisitions using Njoyn’s “clone” feature. They don’t need to start each form from scratch, so they save time recruiting and can move on to other duties sooner.

No more shepherding

Njoyn’s Approval Module cuts out another time-waster: users can create customized approval chains that funnel approval requests to the right people through either e-mail. This is great for approvers who don’t have an Njoyn user account: they can register approvals right from an email.

“This person clicks a button, gets more information, and can approve or decline the request,” Robertson explains. Once approved, it “automatically goes to next person, then the next person. Nobody is responsible for sending this to the next person.”

Staying in the loop

The system also records milestones in the recruiting process. This helps Robertson easily answer any questions about the progress of individual requests, including missing approvals. Approvals can take time, she admits. “Directors are swamped with emails, so if need be, the message can be resent.”

“Now I can talk to my labour group and be ahead of the game,” she says. Group members have read-only access and are copied in on all final approvals. “We all stay in the loop.”

This is part 2 of our 7 part in depth and expanded case study of how Njoyn integrates and provides solutions for Bluewater Health. Check out our previous blog: Finding Good Candidates Faster to read part 1. If your ready to read on, click here for part 3: Respecting a Union’s Hiring Rules, and if you would like to learn more about Njoyn you can contact us here.