The Problem
The City of Lewisville purchased Laserfiche to help reduce the amount of time they spent storing and retrieving documents for internal staff and their citizens. The City chose Laserfiche due to its ability to easily roll out as an Enterprise Content Management system. The Human Resources Department was determined to be one of the first departments Laserfiche would be deployed in. Almost every process within the Department was paper intensive and they were drowning in paper. Not to mention protecting employee records has become even more of a concern today with regulations such as HIPAA.
Prior to bringing Laserfiche on board the HR Department struggled with keeping track of their records and open records requests took days to fulfill. Personnel files were kept in press-board folders with six tabs each containing a variety of employee information. High turnover of their Clerk-Typist position resulted in a lack of consistency in filing information. At times staff members felt as if they were searching for a needle in a haystack when looking for records that were more than a year old. Open records requests were a struggle when trying to sift through paper documents only to have to remove bound pages, redact confidential information, make copies and then re-file the documents in their proper location. Lack of document control and a centralized place for storage lead to files being misplaced or even lost.
Another pain point for the department was processing their employment applications. Once an application was submitted through their website they had to print, process and file each one manually. At times they could receive upwards of 200 ten-page applications per job posting; this could mean 2,000 pages for just one job posting alone. Now with Laserfiche and its batch processing tool, Quick Fields, the applications can be automatically sent to Laserfiche and processed with the associated metadata to allow the hiring managers to quickly find and view the applications, thus reducing the shuffling of papers and time associated with the old manual process.
The Solution
As with any HR department employee files are often updated as employees sign off on policy changes, medical coverage changes, pay changes, as well as many others. With over 650 employees city-wide the process of filing these documents in and of itself is time consuming. Again using Quick Fields, the department can quickly file and process the forms to ensure they are properly filed, indexed and the integrity of the employee file is not compromised.
Over the first five years after implementation, the department has been able to cut about $30,000 from their operating budget by reducing the amount of printer paper, files and supplies, needed to keep and distribute their records previously in paper form. These types of savings are extremely helpful in a time when each department is being asked to cut their budget due to low revenues in the current economic conditions.
Today with the use of Laserfiche, the department has scanned all of their records with the exception of about 10 years of terminated files which are currently being scanned. They are operating as a true paperless office. Department managers, directors and secretaries now have immediate electronic access to personnel documents and have embraced the advantages that using Laserfiche has provided.
Having seen much success in their department they are now positioned to expand their usage of Laserfiche. As for the future, they look to continue to find more ways to use Laserfiche in the department. Melinda Galler, HR director for the City, sees the next focus as “Streamlining our business processes so we can continue to increase efficiency in our department. Laserfiche has been embraced so well by our staff that they are willing to try new things that can continue to help us save time and cut money from the City budget.”
