Bournemouth and Poole Borough Councils: The Employee First Partnership

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1 Bournemouth and Poole Borough Councils: The Employee First Partnership The brief Making online recruitment work for two councils in a partnership arrangement Improve the applicants experience, attract better candidates and achieve a strong internet presence Achieve savings in time and money using online recruitment Reduce data entry with integrated systems

2 Bournemouth and Poole Borough Councils have implemented the Recruit online recruitment solution from Abacus e-media as part of a major new integrated HR & Payroll system, known as Employee First. Whilst benefitting from purchasing and using the same system, the flexibility of Recruit enables each Authority to use Recruit to meet their own individual and differing requirements. The Employee First Project We looked at the online recruitment module within Vision but chose Recruit because of its track record at Bournemouth and for other local authorities. Sonia Lomax Employee Systems Manager, Poole Borough Council In 2006, the neighbouring authorities of Bournemouth and Poole began work on their 2 million+ Employee First project. Using their joint purchasing power and the opportunity to achieve economies of scale, Bournemouth and Poole planned to implement new systems to handle HR, data management, training, appraisals, absence monitoring, reporting, payroll, manager self-service, pensions and online recruitment. Having researched suitable systems and their suppliers, the requirement was put out to tender and the decision was taken in 2007 to adopt the Vision HR and Payroll system from Selima. The HR and Payroll elements of the system went live in Online recruitment remained to be implemented, although potential solutions had been identified in 2006 as part of the process of selecting the overall HR and Payroll system. Bournemouth was already using Version 4 of the Recruit online recruitment product from Abacus e-media, whilst Poole was handling everything manually. Sonia Lomax, Employee Systems Manager, Poole Borough Council: We looked at the online recruitment module within Vision but chose Recruit because of its track record at Bournemouth and for other local authorities.

3 The case for Recruit Implementation As the Vision system went live in 2009, the two authorities decided to look again at the options for online recruitment. With concerns about the lack of installations and the lack of added benefits by using the recruitment product offered by Selima and armed with supplier references for Abacus, the decision to adopt Recruit was reconfirmed. However, with the imminent arrival of Recruit Version 5 incorporating enhanced self-service functionality, easier navigation and an overall new look and feel, Bournemouth and Poole decided to wait for this new version of the software. Whilst other local authorities have installed online recruitment systems with the primary objective of saving money, for both Bournemouth and Poole their over-riding aim was to achieve an online presence and only do things once. The majority of the Employee First project was about money-saving but Recruit was about dramatically improving the applicants experience and bringing it into the 21st century. Its integration with the Vision HR and Payroll system would ensure that data was only entered once, rather than two or three times, which had previously been the case. A dedicated project team began work to tailor Recruit V5 to the specific needs of the two authorities in November 2010, although some initial work had been done by the IT teams to set up hosting and servers from April of that year. Originally it had been planned to go-live in April 2011, but work on data migration for Bournemouth was more complex and time-consuming than had been anticipated. Considerable development work, including major changes to the format of the application form and the ability to enable the system to handle multiple diary slots, was undertaken and this again caused the original date to slip to the beginning of October. Integration with the Vision system threw up a few challenges but on the whole went fairly smoothly resulting in an efficient integrated process. Recruit in action Although most Recruit clients have chosen to use Recruit as a Cloud based service, in this case the shared copy of Version 5 of Recruit, installed on a joint server is managed by Poole, with separate sites and databases to ensure data security. The flexibility of Recruit has allowed the two authorities to use Recruit in quite different ways to suit their own needs and way of working.

4 Recruit at Poole The arrival of Recruit at Poole was clearly an enormous change for the HR team who had been used to doing everything manually. As Sue Bennett, HR Services Manager at Poole recalls, putting in the necessary processes to support their use of Recruit was one of the first requirements. We decided, unlike Bournemouth, not to roll out the service option within Recruit to our managers. They d already had to cope with learning how to use the Vision system and it didn t seem a worthwhile use of their time to train them how to use Recruit when they might only recruit one person a year. As we are quite a small authority, it is faster and more efficient for us to keep recruitment centralised. Both internal and external jobs are advertised using Recruit, with internal applicants being able to apply both from the workplace and from home (or elsewhere). At the closing date for the job, the HR team send a PDF of the applications to the relevant manager who provides a shortlist. Setting up the interviews is all handled via Recruit, as are references and employee appointments. Sue Bennett: We also handle the new starter data using Recruit as this takes just seconds and is much faster than the managers doing it themselves within Vision. The information is passed automatically from Recruit to Vision for all the other HR and payroll requirements to flow from this core data. Last year Poole advertised about 600 vacancies (some 50% of which were for schools). Remarkably the last two months has shown that 99% of all Poole s applications were submitted online. We have done lots of promotion about online application, and have spent lots of time talking people through how to complete the form but this has really paid off. The recruitment team at Poole has significantly reduced in size and is achieving savings on postage, printing and the cancellation of most newspaper-based advertising. However the speed of the recruitment process using Recruit stands out as one of the major benefits. We can receive a job advertisement at noon and it s on the web site an hour later. With the old paper-based system, we had to allow two weeks to process applications. Now we can get the application to a manager within hours and set up interviews for shortlisted applicants within two hours. Someone can apply on a Sunday and be on a shortlist on Monday. Applicants love it, and it is helping us to attract more and probably better candidates, whilst also making it less likely that we will lose them to another faster offer.

5 Recruit at Bournemouth In stark contrast to the centralised approach to advertising at Poole, Bournemouth has rolled out Recruit to about 300 managers, HR Support and Systems administrators, schools and service directors. Bournemouth advertised just over 332 vacancies last year. Job advertisement requests are initially created by individual managers in the Vision system. They then log into Recruit for job descriptions, person specifications, creation of the advertisement, EAR checks and final completion of the advertisement request. This is passed to the HR team to process the advert, to administer all stages of the applicants workflow including using the template library, JD and person specs, and diary slots. The mail merge facility issues s, letters and contracts, and the job offer page is interfaced to the Vision system. The workflow element of Recruit is used to both create and change posts; all reporting, including diversity and KPI, is handled by Recruit. Managers access the system once the job closes to review applications and set up the shortlist. Some 85% of all applications are now received online. The HR team at Bournemouth is about a third smaller than it used to be. For Angela James, HR Support Manager at Bournemouth and Joyce Coleman, HR, Payroll & Pensions Services Manager, the speed and efficiency of the interface between Vision and Recruit has proven to be one of the main benefits reducing data entry for the HR team.

6 Looking ahead Now that the system is firmly bedded in for both authorities there are plans to extend the use of Recruit. Bournemouth s Recruit system, but with its own branding, the new microsite will provide BH Live with a sophisticated online recruitment system For Poole the use of the Talent Pool module would reap huge benefits. They currently have access to about 140 temporary administrative staff and are keen to be able to integrate their details into Recruit. Poole will also be adding on the ability to produce employee contracts which is not currently handled within Recruit. Looking back over this lengthy and culture-changing project, Sonia Lomax believes that although at times we all experienced frustrations with the project and the time it seemed to take, both the recruitment teams and our applicants are very positive about the Recruit system. Sue Bennett agrees: From the day that Recruit went live and we could really start to use it, it was brilliant. It has changed the way we work. Angela James Sonia Lomax: We are also considering rolling it out to managers, or at least those who recruit quite regularly, although this will only happen if we are absolutely certain that it will save both confirms that with the changes from version 4 to version 5 of Recruit, we have had positive feedback from managers that the system is easier to use. time and money. At the present time, Poole handles job advertising, but no further part of the recruitment process, for all its schools. This is another area which is being explored to see how using the other functions within Recruit might be of value for the council and for schools. From the day that Recruit went live and we could really start to use it, it was brilliant. It has changed the way we work. For Bournemouth the principal new development according to Angela James is the launch of a microsite for BH Live, a large employer for Leisure Sue Bennett HR Services Manager Poole Borough Council Services which is a charitable trust and used to be part of the Council. Piggybacking on Working with Call +44 (0) abacusemedia.com info@abacusemedia.com Regent Street, London SW1Y 4PH