The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many of us to adopt new measures, some of which have extended to become the new norms. In all these drastic changes that are happening and disrupting the way business is carried out, we may tend to feel stressed out due to various factors. We are trying to stay safe from getting infected, stay healthy confined in our small spaces and at the same time trying to be productive in our work because when the pandemic is over, we will be back to our offices and we will be faced with the new changes of post COVID-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, it is important for every business to secure their firm spot during and after the pandemic to ensure their continuation.

Although we all feel the effect of this pandemic, different industries have been affected differently. In the recruitment industry probably the adoption of work from home (WFH) has posed some challenges such as data accessibility, data security, drop in positions available and increase in the number of candidates. This blog will address data accessibility, data security and productivity during this period of WFH.

Managing your recruitment data online by Spreadsheet

Some companies that have been using an in-house system which is only accessible when in the office, and those that didn’t use any system before. As much as this method seems to be a workable solution since the data is consolidated and everyone can access the latest information, it has its own share of challenges. Some of those challenges are namely:
- Multiple people can edit the files at the same time therefore there is the possibility of some information being accidentally updated and completely left out of the final version
- It is not possible to keep track on who edited what and at what time
- When it’s discovered that there may be mistakes, there will be back and forth checking on previous email communication or asking colleagues for more information to rectify the problem
- In the end, it is possible that the file may not be fully reliable to give an accurate account of the data status

With that said, I would like to introduce to you how the above challenges can be countered. Porters HR-Business Cloud being a cloud based recruitment software not only ensures accessibility of recruitment data from anywhere at any time as long as there is internet connection, it also supports sharing of the data across the company and all the activities done are recorded such that you can track who updated what data and at what time.


Data Security

Maintaining data security while WFH could also be a challenge. Sometimes a password to access files alone is not enough. In Porters HR-Business Cloud, you can easily create security groups and assign permissions to access some functions and deny others. For example, you can set groups such as ‘permission to export’, ‘permission to edit/delete’, ‘permission to search’ etc.




Another security measure is to restrict IP addresses and issue remote access permission when accessing the database.
 

Tracking and monitoring progress

Now that WFH has taken root and you are getting the hang of it; how do you track your progress? Some companies opt for daily or weekly reports that the employees must submit to their seniors. This kind of reporting may work for that time but when need to refer to a specific period in the past or need to project future performance, it becomes difficult to work with. On the other hand, it takes quite some substantial amount of time to create those reports, of which could have been put in other productive activities. Here I will introduce some of the tracking and monitoring methods that are efficient, real-time and take much less time.


Dashboard

The Dashboard makes it possible to visualizes the number of current recruitment processes in each phase. This can be used to monitor KPI of individuals, departments, and the company as a whole. It is a very convenient tool when you want to have a glimpse of the performance at any given time since the period and person/group can be set. The consultants can also keep an eye on the numbers on the dashboard and be aware of their performance. With the dashboard, reporting daily/weekly figures is made easier since the numbers can be accessed with just mouse clicks.


Progress Navigator

This is also an application on HR-Business Cloud that allows the user to see the stagnations of projects at a glance and take the necessary action. It helps to prevent errors of omissions when handling multiple recruitment processes at the same time. The Progress Navigator will indicate if there are any JDs or Candidates who have not been acted upon for a certain number of days. It also shows recruitment processes that have not had any progress for a certain period. The time periods to show the alert can be set depending on the company needs.

Process



Job


Resume


Report

All the data related to recruitment activities can be tracked with the report function. Unlimited number of reports can be created ranging from revenue by consultants, revenue by clients, recruitment process at different phases, number of new candidate entries in a certain period and the channels, etc. These reports can also be downloaded in CSV format for further analysis if need be. Below is an example of a report to track each recruitment progress by each consultant.