Three good reasons to use integrated recruitment in your HR platform

1. Closer integration: Ideally, while many separate platforms can be linked using APIs, there is no better integration than staying within one platform. This applies to more than just how the platform works; it applies to the terms and conditions of using the platform and, importantly, their approach to data security. It is also beneficial to unambiguously have only one company to speak to if things go wrong.
   1. No gaps: when using one platform, there are no gaps or loose ends that can exist between two separate platforms (where data or processes aren't aligned and importantly, external hackers can't exploit).
   2. One encryption: there is only one encryption to the personal information of employees and applicants. This means that prospect personal information is not unencrypted, sent over to the HR platform and re-encrypted. It is just more secure.
2. Better, seamless experience for everyone: when an organisation is recruiting new employees then many interested parties have interests and requirements. Having one unified platform where roles, responsibilities, platform access and access to a single place for support makes using a single HR platform (and the important processes it delivers) easier and more consistent.
   1. Applicants: There are currently more jobs than applicants. So, it is important for companies to deliver a recruitment process with a workflow that applicants like. They should know where they are and that the process moves reasonably quickly.
   2. Rejected applicants might not seem to be important, but they do deserve to be told they are not going forward. There are too many recruiting companies that ignore them. But they will be telling their friends not to apply to companies that don’t treat them well.
   3. Recruitment agents want to be able to have access to the platform to submit candidates and to know whether they have exclusive rights to the commission due for that candidate.
   4. Job sites need to have automatic API connections with a platform so jobs and candidates can be matched and transferred effortlessly.
   5. Recruitment teams need a platform that is flexible and can be configured to fit their recruitment process. They need visibility on the process and dashboards to ensure they are obtaining the new employees they are tasked to secure.
   6. HR department needs to see new employees as early as possible, probably at the point of signing a contract, so they can start to organise the onboarding process e.g. setting up employee cards, which is much easier if the data is within the same system.
   7. Lastly, the HR Director needs to have end-to-end visibility of all HR processes, including recruitment, so they can ensure it is efficient, fit for purpose and good value for money. They will also need to model future options and this is easier if you are pulling data from one platform.
3. Onboarding: the transition from applicant to employee and then, after a period of months in the organisation, passing probation is critical to the success of the business. It is expensive and inefficient to have a new employee churn during or at the end of the probation period –recruitment teams need visibility of this early churn to deliver the best possible value to the business.
   1. Holding personal information: Having applicants’ personally identifiable information held on fewer platforms is good GDPR practice. Good HR platforms are now encrypted for data held in the database and in transit to a user (because most HR platforms are now sold on a cloud basis).
   2. Using digital signatures: Digital signatures are now commonplace and should be used for employment contracts to speed up the process and demonstrate to a new employee this is a forward-looking organisation.
   3. Setting up employee card once: HR will want to set up the new employee on the HR platform and start planning the onboarding process. It is good to have a clear plan and checklist before the first day and to ensure the checklist is followed on time.
   4. Coordinating with other departments: HR will have to coordinate with other parts of the organisation. One of the most important will be with payroll to ensure the new employee is paid. Normally a payroll platform will require demographic data which is held in the HR platform (because the employee is first seen, and data collected when they are an applicant). Other areas that might need access to new employee information could be finance (to set them up to receive expense payments) and with IT (so they can get IT equipment and email set up). Getting this from one source is good practice.
   5. Appraisals: Lastly, the new employee’s manager needs to set up the appraisal process so the first review/probation interview can be set up.

At Exelsys, we have integrated our recruitment, digital signatures, onboarding, and appraisal modules to give a better, more seamless experience for new employees. We like to enable employees to give them excellent experiences, such as integrating training needs into our appraisal process.

We think first impressions matter.