Responses from a 1999 study by the Incentive Marketing Association and Ralph Head & Affiliates Ltd:
61% | Apparel |
60% | Plaques and trophies |
59% | Gift certificates |
56% | Writing instruments |
51% | Watches & clocks |
43% | Desk accessories |
41% | Electronics |
39% | Food & beverage |
37% | Sporting goods |
31% | Jewelry |
Workforce, January 2000, Vol. 79, No. 1, p. 68.
As a 75-year-old institution providing a full range of hospital-based services, from inpatient care to behaviorial health, MacNeal Health Network in Berwyn, Illinois, is a premier organization that has steadily expanded its scope of services to provide quality health care throughout Chicago.
Today, MacNeal Health employs approximately 4,000 and fills 1,000 positions per year for more than 38 facilities. Its selection and recruitment of that staff is an integral factor in the organization’s ability to fulfill its mission of medical excellence.
“We felt we were efficient in our recruitment and selection efforts, and were told so by outside consultants,” says Tony Rea, director of human resources for MacNeal Health Network. “But, as with anything, there’s always room for improvement. If we wanted to remain at the top of our field, we would need to automate our applicant tracking system to ensure hiring the best candidates, first.”
Revving Up Reaction Time
Knowing they could take a good system and make it even better, MacNeal began looking for software specifically designed for recruitment and selection. They turned to Lawson Software’s recruitment and selection product, ijob, for a unique solution to its staffing issues. ijob is a Web-based human resources solution that automates and reengineers the job candidate registration, recruitment and selection process. It allows candidates to enter job preferences, résumés and interview information online, giving the employer a pool of pre-screened candidates.
“When we looked into the price of recruitment and selection technology solutions, ijob stood out because it had all of the applicant tracking sophistication, but was Web-based and easily implemented,” said Rea. ijob matches skill sets selected by the employer with skills in the candidates’ work experience. Its workflow functionality automatically and instantly notifies hiring managers or human resources personnel when qualified candidates register online. The manager receives a complete package with all the candidate information, allowing them to review it and respond quickly.
In addition, ijob statistical metrics increase the chance of a successful hiring process by calculating which candidates will be the most successful employees.
The program seemed like a perfect fit except for one problem. In the scramble to meet Y2K compliance regulations, the company didn’t have the time to implement the application or host it on its server.
“One of the interesting ideas that was advanced by ijob at the time was to build it on the Web, using ijob servers,” says David Printz, chief information officer, MacNeal Health. By outsourcing the application, MacNeal Health Network could enjoy the benefits of the program without the headaches and additional hardware purchase associated with running it alone.
From Two Weeks to Two Hours
According to Printz, installation was a hands-off process that required just two meetings and a total of two hours of his time. Planning and installation was completed in two months about the same timeframe it once took to hire a candidate.
Staffing and development manager Bernadette Szczepanski remembers the effect the system had on recruitment. “We were two months into the process, really working with the recruiters, when we realized rather quickly and intensely what the system was capable of doing.”
Prior to the implementation, it took MacNeal staff more than 38 days to process an application, from entrance into the computer to offer extension. Suddenly, MacNeal was able to contact the candidate, interview and extend an offer within 20 days.
“We were actually contacting a candidate within 10 minutes of their entry into the system,” Szczepanski says. “They would be submitting their application from home and the recruiter would contact them before they were able to leave their desk. It was phenomenal.”
Adds Szczepanksi: “We’re not the only ones who are pleased with the system. Our candidates walk away thinking MacNeal is a high-tech environment, the type of environment where they want to work.”
The system has also paid for itself.
“We felt we would return our investment in ijob in a year, and I can tell you we’ve done that,” says Rea.
According to Szczepanski, the company now is looking at more ways to use the Internet for recruiting. “In the future we really hope to utilize the Internet to a great extent. We really want to drive the traffic outside of our office and really encourage individuals to apply online, at home or in the office.
“We’re confident that ijob will get the job done.”
Responses from a 1999 study by the Incentive Marketing Association and Ralph Head & Affiliates Ltd:
62% | Mailing to customer / employee |
50% | Company newsletter |
48% | Memos (internal or external) |
48% | Company / dealer sales meetings |
44% | |
38% | Word-of-mouth |
37% | Voice-mail |
30% | Bulletin boards |
Workforce, January 2000, Vol. 79, No. 1, p. 68.
Responses from a 1999 study by the Incentive Marketing Association and Ralph Head & Affiliates Ltd:
84% | Increase or maintain sales |
65% | Build morale |
51% | Build customer loyalty / trust |
51% | Increase market share |
49% | Build employee loyalty / trust |
49% | Improve customer service |
44% | Create new markets |
42% | Foster teamwork |
40% | Develop contracts |
32% | Demonstrate concern for workers |
Workforce, January 2000, Vol. 79, No. 1, p. 63.
Critical components of your telecommuting program are the screening and evaluation processes. It is imperative to assess what impact telecommuting will have or has had on the organization.
The checklists and questionnaires below can be used to generate screening and evaluation forms for use by telecommuters, managers, and control groups. If they are administered to the participants before the program is implemented and again at the end of the pilot program, the two surveys can be compared and analyzed.
GENERAL INFORMATION
Have you ever telecommuted?
How often do you expect to telecommute?
What type of work will be done while telecommuting?
___Administrative | ___Analysis | ___Auditing reports |
___Batch work | ___Calculating | ___Computer conferencing |
___Conducting business by telephone | ___Contract preparation/ monitoring | ___Data analysis |
___Data entry | ___Data manipulation | ___Data processing |
___Data programming | ___Dictating | ___Field visits |
Maintaining databases | ___Meeting with clients | ___Planning |
___Project-oriented work/ management | ___Reading | ___Recordkeeping |
___Research | ___Sending/receiving electronic mail | ___Spreadsheet analysis |
___Support activities | ___Thinking | ___Typing |
___Using a computer | ___Word processing | ___Writing |
___Other |
|
|
Do you have a room or an area at home to dedicate to telecommuting?
What equipment/services do you need to successfully telecommute? What equipment do you currently have?
| Need | Currently Have |
Additional phone line |
|
|
Answering machine |
|
|
Bookcase |
|
|
Calling card |
|
|
Computer |
|
|
Desk |
|
|
Facsimile machine |
|
|
File cabinet |
|
|
Internet access |
|
|
Modem |
|
|
Pager |
|
|
Printer |
|
|
Software |
|
|
Typewriter |
|
|
Voice mail |
|
|
Other |
|
|
COMMUNICATIONS INFORMATION
Do you have a separate telephone line at your residence for work-related calling?
Do you use residence or business telephone services for your work-related calling?
Which of the following special telephone services do you use in your work-related calling?
___Conference calls | ___Call forwarding |
___Voice mail | ___Call waiting |
___Three-way calling | ___Other |
What additional communication equipment or services would improve your productivity?
___Video | ___Fax |
___Voice mail | ___C800 |
___ISDN | ___Modem |
___Internet services | ___Other |
Would you use your telephone more if it cost you less to make the calls?
Estimate the monthly cost of work-related telephone usage for local and long-distance services.
How many hours each day do you use a computer?
Do you use a modem for computer communications?
How long is your average online session?
Approximately how many online sessions do you have each day?
Would you use computer communications more often if the communications cost less?
COMMUTE INFORMATION
How do you usually travel to and from work?
___Drive alone | ___Carpool |
___Vanpool | ___Public transportation |
___Motorcycle | ___Bicycle |
___Walk | ___Other |
How many miles do you travel to work each day (round trip)?
How long does it take you to get to and from work (round trip)?
What time of day do you arrive at work?
What time of day do you leave work?
GENERAL ATTITUDES
Please indicate, by degree, the extent to which telecommuting has changed your life (Greatly Increased, Increased, Neither Increased nor Decreased, Decreased, etc.):
Productivity
Motivation
SOCIAL ISSUES
Assess the following issues by degree, as above:
MANAGEMENT ISSUES
The following factors should be included in your screening/evaluation surveys for management, supervisors, and control groups, and assessed by degree, as above:
Excerpted with permission from the Journal of AHIMA, February 1999.
HR 101 is a special monthly section that gives you everything you need to know about important HR topics.
Responses from a 1999 study by the Incentive Marketing Association and Ralph Head & Affiliates Ltd:
65% | Cost vs. desired result |
62% | Profitability |
60% | Has a lasting impact |
58% | Good appeal |
56% | Ease of administration |
55% | Fairness |
50% | Perceived value |
35% | Uniqueness over time |
34% | Matching program to audience |
28% | Comparable to previous programs |
Workforce, January 2000, Vol. 79, No. 1, p. 63.
Responses from a 1999 study by the Incentive Marketing Association and Ralph Head & Affiliates Ltd:
75% | Employee feedback |
51% | Peers (Networking) |
34% | Trade Magazines |
33% | Vendors |
25% | Trade shows |
22% | Direct Mail |
20% | Employee Surveys |
15% | Consumer Magazines |
Workforce, January 2000, Vol. 79, No. 1, p. 62.
Responses from a 1999 study by the Incentive Marketing Association and Ralph Head & Affiliates Ltd. (numbers represent the number of respondents):
| Extremely | Very | Fairly | Somewhat | Not Very | Not at All |
Merchandise | 12 | 38 | 33 | 11 | 5 | 3 |
Group travel | 23 | 20 | 22 | 13 | 9 | 14 |
Individual | 26 | 36 | 17 | 11 | 1 | 10 |
Cash awards | 37 | 43 | 12 | 4 | 1 | 3 |
Gift | 15 | 40 | 33 | 7 | 2 | 3 |
Debit cards | 13 | 11 | 7 | 18 | 11 | 40 |
Workforce, January 2000, Vol. 79, No. 1, p. 68.
We have a difficult time imagining that work will ever be different from what we know now.
Think about the movies and television series set in the future. Sure, the clothes and the furniture have changed (most often, they re streamlined versions of the familiar) but little else has. People still work in a very structured hierarchy. They still have jobs, which look pretty much like jobs as we know them. And, generally, everyone is still working in the same place at the same time.
But work will change. It will change because everything around it is changing. It will change because it has to.
We shouldn t be surprised. Work has changed before in very dramatic ways. There was a time when the majority of the population worked on farms. Those who didn t work on farms usually lived in small cities and had a trade (not a job) that they learned as apprentices from the masters.
That world changed forever with the advent of the Industrial Revolution. What began with a move away from an agrarian economy ultimately led to Henry Ford s assembly line. And whatever we knew about productivity and work systems were challenged and ultimately improved by the need for mass production during World War II.
So change is not new, but it may feel new because the pace of it has accelerated so much. We can blame that on the Information Age. Change has always been slow in the past primarily because it took so long for information to get from one place to another. That s obviously no longer true. With e-mail, cell phones, pagers and more, we can communicate to anyone anytime even when we re 30,000 feet above the earth in a jumbo jet.
Because we can work en route from Los Angeles to New York, we do work. And that fact reflects everything about today s economy: A smaller world; work largely based on ideas, not tasks; ideas as the currency of the new economy; a workforce that can work anywhere and must work almost constantly to keep up.
We ve come a long way from working on the assembly line. Yet in some ways we haven t come far enough, because we re still trying to fit the square peg of outdated work systems into the round hole of the new economy.
Ultimately, the new economy will win and work systems will change. Happily, that inevitability offers HR one more opportunity to be at the center of everything interesting and important.
We re already in the midst of that change, and there s nothing magic about January 1, 2000. But the new year does offer us an opportunity to take a deep breath and think about where we re going and how we re going to get there. The insights shared in this month s special section may read like science fiction, but change will be here before you know it.
Workforce, January 2000, Vol. 79, No. 1, p. 29.
