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Recruit v5Bournemouth and Poole Borough Councils:The Employee First PartnershipThe briefMaking online recruitment work for two councils in a partnership arrangementImprove the applicants’ experience, attract better candidates and achieve a strong internet presenceAchieve savings in time and money using online recruitmentReduce data entry with integrated systemsabacusemedia.com/public-sector/our-work
Recruit v5Bournemouth and Poole Borough Councils have implemented the Recruit onlinerecruitment solution from Abacus e-Media as part of a major new integrated HR & Payrollsystem, known as Employee First. Whilst benefitting from purchasing and using the samesystem, the flexibility of Recruit enables each Authority to use Recruit to meet their ownindividual and differing requirements.The Employee First ProjectIn 2006, the neighbouring authorities of Bournemouth and Poole began“We looked at the onlinerecruitment module within Visionbut chose Recruit because ofits track record at Bournemouthand for other local authorities.”work on their 2 million ‘Employee First’ project. Using their jointpurchasing power and the opportunity to achieve economies of scale,Bournemouth and Poole planned to implement new systems to handleHR, data management, training, appraisals, absence monitoring, reporting, payroll, manager self-service, pensions and online recruitment. Havingresearched suitable systems and their suppliers, the requirement wasSonia Lomaxput out to tender and the decision was taken in 2007 to adopt the VisionEmployee Systems Manager,HR and Payroll system from Selima. The HR and Payroll elements of thePoole Borough Councilsystem went live in 2009.Online recruitment remained to be implemented, although potential solutions had been identified in 2006 as part of the process of selecting theoverall HR and Payroll system. Bournemouth was already using Version4 of the Recruit online recruitment product from Abacus e-Media, whilstPoole was handling everything manually. Sonia Lomax, Employee SystemsManager, Poole Borough Council: “We looked at the online recruitmentmodule within Vision but chose Recruit because of its track record atBournemouth and for other local work
Recruit v5The case for RecruitImplementationAs the Vision system went live in 2009, the twoA dedicated project team began work to tailorauthorities decided to look again at the options forRecruit V5 to the specific needs of the twoonline recruitment. With concerns about the lackauthorities in November 2010, although some ini-of installations and the lack of added benefits bytial work had been done by the IT teams to set upusing the recruitment product offered by Selimahosting and servers from April of that year. Origi-and armed with supplier references for Abacus,nally it had been planned to go-live in April 2011,the decision to adopt Recruit was reconfirmed.but work on data migration for Bournemouth wasHowever, with the imminent arrival of Recruitmore complex and time-consuming than hadVersion 5 incorporating enhanced self-servicebeen anticipated. Considerable developmentfunctionality, easier navigation and an overall newwork, including major changes to the format oflook and feel, Bournemouth and Poole decided tothe application form and the ability to enable thewait for this new version of the software.system to handle multiple diary slots, was undertaken and this again caused the original date toWhilst other local authorities have installed onlineslip to the beginning of October. Integration withrecruitment systems with the primary objective ofthe Vision system threw up a few challenges butsaving money, for both Bournemouth and Pooleon the whole went fairly smoothly resulting in antheir over-riding aim was to achieve an onlineefficient integrated process.presence and only do things once. The majority ofthe Employee First project was about money-sav-Recruit in actioning but Recruit was about dramatically improvingthe applicants’ experience and bringing it into theAlthough most Recruit clients have chosen to use21st century. Its integration with the Vision HRRecruit as a Cloud based service, in this case theand Payroll system would ensure that data wasshared copy of Version 5 of Recruit, installed ononly entered once, rather than two or three times,a joint server is managed by Poole, with separatewhich had previously been the case.sites and databases to ensure data security. Theflexibility of Recruit has allowed the two authorities to use Recruit in quite different ways to suittheir own needs and way of working.abacusemedia.com/public-sector/our-work
Recruit v5Recruit at PooleThe arrival of Recruit at Poole was clearly anBoth internal and external jobs are advertisedenormous change for the HR team who hadusing Recruit, with internal applicants being ablebeen used to doing everything manually. As Sueto apply both from the workplace and from homeBennett, HR Services Manager at Poole recalls,(or elsewhere). At the closing date for the job, theputting in the necessary processes to support theirHR team send a PDF of the applications to theuse of Recruit was one of the first requirements.relevant manager who provides a shortlist. Setting“We decided, unlike Bournemouth, not to roll outup the interviews is all handled via Recruit, as arethe service option within Recruit to our manag-references and employee appointments. Sueers. They’d already had to cope with learningBennett: “We also handle the new starter datahow to use the Vision system and it didn’t seemusing Recruit as this takes just seconds and isa worthwhile use of their time to train them howmuch faster than the managers doing it them-to use Recruit when they might only recruit oneselves within Vision. The information is passedperson a year. As we are quite a small authority, itautomatically from Recruit to Vision for all theis faster and more efficient for us to keep recruit-other HR and payroll requirements to flow fromment centralised.”this core data.”The recruitment team at Poole has significantlyreduced in size and is achieving savings onpostage, printing and the cancellation of mostnewspaper-based advertising. However the speedof the recruitment process using Recruit standsout as one of the major benefits. “We can receivea job advertisement at noon and it’s on the website an hour later. With the old paper-basedsystem, we had to allow two weeks to processapplications. Now we can get the application toa manager within hours and set up interviews forshortlisted applicants within two hours. Someonecan apply on a Sunday and be on a shortlist onLast year Poole advertised about 600 vacanciesMonday. Applicants love it, and it is helping us(some 50% of which were for schools). Remarka-to attract more and probably better candidates,bly the last two months has shown that 99% of allwhilst also making it less likely that we will losePoole’s applications were submitted online. “Wethem to another faster offer.”have done lots of promotion about online application, and have spent lots of time talking peoplethrough how to complete the form – but this hasreally paid off.”abacusemedia.com/public-sector/our-work
Recruit v5Recruit at BournemouthIn stark contrast to the centralised approach toManagers access the system once the jobadvertising at Poole, Bournemouth has rolledcloses to review applications and set up theout Recruit to about 300 managers, HR Supportshortlist. Some 85% of all applications are nowand Systems administrators, schools and servicereceived online.directors. Bournemouth advertised just over 332vacancies last year.The HR team at Bournemouth is about a thirdsmaller than it used to be. For Angela James,Job advertisement requests are initially createdHR Support Manager at Bournemouth and Joyceby individual managers in the Vision system. TheyColeman, HR, Payroll & Pensions Services Man-then log into Recruit for job descriptions, personager, the speed and efficiency of the interfacespecifications, creation of the advertisement, EARbetween Vision and Recruit has proven to be onechecks and final completion of the advertise-of the main benefits reducing data entry for thement request. This is passed to the HR team toHR team.process the advert, to administer all stages of theapplicants’ workflow including using the templatelibrary, JD and person specs, and diary slots.The mail merge facility issues emails, letters andcontracts, and the job offer page is interfacedto the Vision system. The workflow element ofRecruit is used to both create and change posts;all reporting, including diversity and KPI, is handled by Recruit.abacusemedia.com/public-sector/our-work
Recruit v5Looking aheadNow that the system is firmly bedded in for bothBournemouth’s Recruit system, but with its ownauthorities there are plans to extend the usebranding, the new microsite will provide BH Liveof Recruit.with a sophisticated online recruitment systemLooking back over this lengthy and culture-chang-For Poole the use of the Talent Pool module woulding project, Sonia Lomax believes that “althoughreap huge benefits. They currently have accessat times we all experienced frustrations with theto about 140 temporary administrative staff andproject and the time it seemed to take, both theare keen to be able to integrate their details intorecruitment teams and our applicants are veryRecruit. Poole will also be adding on the ability topositive about the Recruit system.” Sue Bennettproduce employee contracts which is not currentlyagrees: “From the day that Recruit went live andhandled within Recruit.we could really start to use it, it was brilliant.It has changed the way we work.” Angela JamesSonia Lomax: “We are also considering rollingconfirms that “with the changes from versionit out to managers, or at least those who recruit4 to version 5 of Recruit, we have had positivequite regularly, although this will only happen iffeedback from managers that the system is easierwe are absolutely certain that it will save bothto use.”time and money.”At the present time, Poole handles job advertising,but no further part of the recruitment process, forall its schools. This is another area which is beingexplored to see how using the other functionswithin Recruit might be of value for the counciland for schools.“From the day that Recruitwent live and we couldreally start to use it, it wasbrilliant. It has changedthe way we work.”For Bournemouth the principal new developmentSue Bennettaccording to Angela James is the launch of aHR Services Managermicrosite for BH Live, a large employer for LeisurePoole Borough CouncilServices which is a charitable trust and used tobe part of the Council. Piggybacking onWorking withCall 44 (0)20 7766 9810abacusemedia.comEmail: info@abacusemedia.com14 - 16 Regent Street, London SW1Y 4PH
The HR and Payroll elements of the system went live in 2009. Online recruitment remained to be implemented, although potential solu-tions 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
