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LABOR FINDERS AUTOMATES EMPLOYMENT APPLICATIONS AND ONBOARDING WITH PROCESS DIRECTOR

Labor Finders International, Inc. is the oldest and largest privately held industrial labor staffing company in the United States. Founded in 1975, the company outsources to construction, maintenance, industrial, hospitality and manufacturing companies as well as offering skilled staff for electrical, carpentry, hospitality, office and clerical. Labor Finders continues to place over 20,000 temporary workers every day.

Unlike other staffing companies, Labor Finders’ nationwide network of almost 200 offices are locally owned and operated. Labor Finders strength comes from the commitment of its local offices to consistently satisfy customers, while demonstrating the core values of Respect, Appreciation and Safety.

Since its inception in 2010, Labor Finders received the prestigious Best of Staffing® Client award for six consecutive years. In 2014 Labor Finders secured the Best of Staffing® Diamond Award for the fifth consecutive year. The company has also been ranked and included in the Entrepreneur Magazine 36th Annual Franchise 500® list.

Jorge QuintanaCIO

The IT staff wanted to

integrate a new portal with our

existing systems –and wanted a BPM tool

designed from the beginning

with APIs. That way we could

develop around the tool and use it as an engine.

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A CORE AND CRITICAL BUSINESS PROCESSJorge Quintana is the CIO of Labor Finders, respon-sible for providing technology solutions for this unique company. As a light industrial staffing franchise com-pany with almost 200 offices nationwide supported by a centralized organization, Labor Finders International is, according to Quintana, both a large and small com-pany at the same time.

Another unique aspect of the company is the high temporary employee turnover due to the nature of its businesses. Serving a very specific niche of the blue

collar, light industrial staffing industry, Labor Finders hires some people that work literally one day — and others that work with the company for years. In ad-dition there are people who might apply — yet never work. In 2014, for example, Labor Finders issued 59,000 W2s; only 19,000 of those worked at least one month (more than 30 hours per week).

With all of the recruiting, hiring, onboarding and off-boarding that the company does, Labor Finders had not previously implemented either an electronic employment application or onboarding process. As a result of a significantly higher number of people applying per year than those who ultimately became employed, Quintana observed that this was an area ripe for improvement.

“We try to employ a standard hiring process, elicit complete responses and not skip steps,” he re-marked. The company works very hard to be com-pliant with all employment laws and regulations as well with all company policies to avoid any potential employment claims.

THE SELECTION PROCESS AND CRITERIAWhen the IT staff wanted to integrate a new portal with its existing systems, they decided that what they wanted was a BPM tool designed, from the beginning, with APIs. “In that way we could develop around the tool and use it as an engine,” Quintana commented.

The first process they wanted to automate was the Employment Application and the Onboarding. Quin-tana had to decide how Labor Finders was going to address its process flows and business logic. He re-searched products that met his primary requirements: 1) A competitive price, 2) Provided APIs, 3) Was developer-friendly and, 4) Offered robust functionality including electronic forms and logic.

The core research, which included talking to vendors and developing an RFP, took three months. At the end of that time Quintana’s team shortlisted three vendors and began to schedule demos. One company was quickly disqualified, as the team recognized that it was not a good match. “Having delayed responses and slow turn-around during pre-sales is not a good sign,” observed Quintana. When the team narrowed the selection to the last two products they were then able to proceed.

The head of the software development group liked the developer-friendly interface of Process Director. Quintana personally liked the support that he received from BP Logix throughout the evaluation process. The next step was to develop a Proof of Concept (POC) to make sure Labor Finders could accomplish what it wanted to do.

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Having a good audit tracking log is important, as it helps us show what transpired at our end. In the past, we have done

that manually, which makes it difficult to defend to a government agency.

Support was important, as well as customer references. According to Quintana, “I spoke to three customers and there were two things they all had in common. They ranked the level of customer service and support they received from BP Logix as high and spoke about the

level of technical understanding the companies received from the BP Logix staff. That helped to make my deci-sion easier.”

INTEGRATION AND COMPLIANCEThe decision was made that the company’s much-needed electronic Employment Application would be the first deliverable developed by the Labor Finders team. Onboarding, which will incorporate that electronic ap-plication, would then become the first of its processes to be standardized and automated.

A major concern and consideration with all employment applications has to do with compliance. As Quintana views compliance he notes that there are actually two kinds of compliance: 1) What the company is required to do by law and, 2) Company policies. Being a franchise system, Labor Finders needs to provide a mechanism for franchisees to ensure branch offices do not deviate from their own individual hiring policies and address their compliance requirements as well (insurance, tax credits, the Affordable Care Act etc.).

A very important example for ensuring compliance with company policies is the work opportunity tax credit that involves employing people of a specific demographic

in a specific region of the country. Some franchisees are involved in doing that which, in turn, requires those branch offices to complete specific forms. Failure to do so means leaving money on the table — which is never a good business practice.

Another issue has to do with the errors that occur in the applications themselves. Unfortunately, mistakes in the hiring process can be used as justification for a claim — something that Labor Finders seeks to avoid! By standardizing the employment process, the company can reduce human error, achieve consistency and be in compliance.

ESTABLISHING AN AUDIT TRAILReporting is very important to Labor Finders and was a significant consideration in the company’s evaluation process. “At any moment an applicant or employee can file a claim against us. Having a good audit tracking log is important, as it helps us show what transpired at our end. In the past, we have done that manually, which makes it difficult to defend to a government agency,” reported Quintana.

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We have a number of processes that could benefit from being automated by Process Director. There are too many to think of at the moment however automating them will

help us to be more agile, efficient and in compliance.

While Labor Finders hasn’t completed its final analysis yet, senior management has already acknowledged that the paper costs (printing, shipping, and handling) and time savings (data re-entry and time to process) are al-ready significant. By saving time, the company is saving money — and making the resources at branch offices more productive.

Another cost-saving that Quintana noted is being able to enforce compliance. “Being able to validate what was done, and when it was done, is very important,” he commented.

MOVING FORWARD The software development team has recently finished its design and will begin development this month. Quin-tana must have a workable demo ready to share with franchisees at the next semi-annual franchisee meeting.

“In the eyes of our franchisees, all they have to do is log-on, then all the magic happens. What we are building will look like a web app developed by us. The solution actually will be built on Process Director and integrate with our proprietary software — something the franchisees do not need to know or care about,” Quintana explained.

Labor Finders also needs customized processes within each franchise entity— from light industrial staffing to more traditional staffing. The processes vary slightly so Quintana will have a progressive roll-out, doing one franchise at a time. The skeleton of the product (the portal) will be similar for all of them however.

The end result of automating its Employment Applica-tion process will be that all Labor Finders employee applications, onboarding data and documents will be in-tegrated seamlessly with its proprietary staffing solution.

“We haven’t identified which of the business processes we are currently doing manually will be next on our list. We have a number of them, including expense report-ing, office relocations and time sheets that could benefit from being automated by Process Director. There are too many to think of at the moment however automat-ing them will help us to be more agile, efficient and in compliance,” concluded Quintana.