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City of Hamilton: The best and the brightestCutting-edge solutions for recruiting and employee self-service |
Abstract
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The City of Hamilton in Ontario wants to be known as a city of choice to live, work and play — with a diverse economic base that delivers healthy and sustainable growth. To accomplish that goal, the city needs to hire and retain the most talented and experienced public servants available across a wide range of disciplines. Until recently, the City of Hamilton had been losing top job candidates to other municipalities with more efficient hiring systems. Its process of manually receiving and screening applications was labour-intensive and slow, making it hard to snare the candidates most in demand. "We knew if we didn’t change our process we would be in danger of losing the best candidates to competing employers who recruit more efficiently," said Mark Amorosi, director of employment and client services for the City of Hamilton’s HR department. Beating other cities to the punch Deloitte helped the City of Hamilton develop a new hiring system based on PeopleSoft’s eRecruit solution – eliminating the hassles and delays normally associated with recruiting. Key features include:
In the past, HR staffers manually screened an average of 700 resumes for every job opening. Now, they can quickly create queries that automatically identify the best applicants. By reducing paperwork and bureaucracy, the new hiring system cuts weeks out of the hiring process — giving the City of Hamilton a decisive advantage in attracting top candidates. Helping employees help themselves But recruiting is only half the challenge. The city also needs to keep the talented employees it already has — by making their lives easier and more productive. That’s why the City of Hamilton was one of the first in Canada to implement HR self-service, giving each of its 9,000 employees direct access to the city’s new Human Resources system. Previously, the only way for employees to get information about HR was to call the HR department directly. If employees wanted to know how many vacation or sick days they had left, they called HR. If they wanted to confirm a payroll deduction or get a copy of a routine form, they called HR. The HR staff was buried in manual transactions and administration, preventing them from serving a more valuable and strategic role. Deloitte helped the HR department develop a new self-service system, putting the power of information where it belongs — with the employees. City employees can now do everything from viewing their benefits and available vacation days to updating their marital status and changing their mailing address. Because employee self-service was a new concept in Canada, there were some initial concerns about privacy and security, prompting the city to commission an independent audit. But according to Stephen Mansfield, a principal with Deloitte, "The security audit exceeded expectations, providing independent validation that spoke volumes for the city." The new HR system is already immensely popular among city employees, with 96 percent rating it as "excellent" and 95 percent praising its ease of use. It has also transformed the role of the HR department by dramatically reducing manual transactions and administration — freeing up HR staff to focus on project management, workforce planning and other strategic activities. HR employees are happier, more productive and ultimately more valuable to the city. Deloitte and the City of Hamilton: A winning combination "Deloitte had many solid partnerships in the municipal sector and an appreciation of how municipalities work and operate," said the City of Hamilton’s Amorosi. "They worked with us side-by-side as a partner, rather than directing us, helping our people understand how to operate and maintain the new system so we could be self-sufficient." |
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