Implementing Paperless for small IT Staffing Firm <10 Employees

[Chase Wheeler]

Hello all, I just found this board today and thank god. I am fresh out of college and have an IT/Process background. I was hired by a small IT staffing firm in the Bay Area to help begin an ISO 9001:2008 implementation until I start my full time job. Currently I am trying to implement a completely paperless system through an excel dashboard. We have very few employees so the system cannot be a document time suck. My questions are these:

1. I am trying to have the dashboard be an all in one do it all document including electronic approvals. Should I just password protect the "Approved" cells so only management can type in them?

2. We use a hosted DB system called Bullhorn (BH) to store data on Candidates, Clients, Client Jobs, and Placements (a candidate placed on an open client job/engagement) as well as for email, and I was wondering if I could leverage this for our product realization records.

3. I use 824 Monitoring and Measuring, as our product realization procedure, but am confused as how to measure our process. Basically I have records implemented in our DB system that say candidates were interviewed, rated, matched to a client job, placed, and approved, but have no way of measuring our placement process, b/c it is subjective based on how well our recruiters do their job/their opinion of candidates after they've been interviewed and added to the system.

4. For my client feedback procedure I am simply asking the clients if they would hire the candidate again and if no, why not. Is this enough?

Attached is my dashboard along with my process flow.
View attachment F-423-001 QMS Master Dashboard.xls

Thanx in advance for any help provided, this forum is a godsend.

 

[Pancho]

Hi, Chase, welcome to The Cove!

Currently I am trying to implement a completely paperless system through an excel dashboard... Attached is my dashboard along with my process flow.

You've obviously put quite a bit of effort into it.

1. I am trying to have the dashboard be an all in one do it all document including electronic approvals. Should I just password protect the "Approved" cells so only management can type in them?

If only management is authorized to approve procedures, then by all means. Who can do this should be spelled out in your P-P-423 Document Control procedure (which you get to write).

2. We use a hosted DB system called Bullhorn (BH) to store data on Candidates, Clients, Client Jobs, and Placements (a candidate placed on an open client job/engagement) as well as for email, and I was wondering if I could leverage this for our product realization records.

I'm not sure what you mean by your "product realization records". But, again, you get to write what is appropriate for your organization. If the database keeps the information you need in order to determine that the work was done in conformance with your own procedures and your client's requirements, then yes, you can leverage it for your "product realization records".

3. I use 824 Monitoring and Measuring, as our product realization procedure, but am confused as how to measure our process. Basically I have records implemented in our DB system that say candidates were interviewed, rated, matched to a client job, placed, and approved, but have no way of measuring our placement process, b/c it is subjective based on how well our recruiters do their job/their opinion of candidates after they've been interviewed and added to the system.

The designation "824 Monitoring and Measuring" is not from ISO 9001. What do you need this procedure for? Or, in other words, What are you trying to measure and why?

I looked for your Quality Policy and Quality Objectives in your Dashboard, but didn't find them. Write these docs first. They will help you decide what you want to measure. And whatever it is that you measure, make sure it is useful.

Here is a comprehensive list of "Key Performance Indicators". Pick what helps your company deliver quality.

4. For my client feedback procedure I am simply asking the clients if they would hire the candidate again and if no, why not. Is this enough?

I think their opinion about the candidate is helpful, but only one incidental characteristic of your service. How about asking them (1) Will you hire our company again? (2) Did you feel you got your money's worth? (3) Would you recommend our company to others?. You could also ask about speed, quantity of potential candidates, match between candidate and position, etc.

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You may consider using a wiki instead of the Excel dashboard. With a wiki, each of your excel sheets can become a wiki page, but you only need one bit of data for each entry. This bit of data is the title of the document, which, by enclosing it in brackets, also becomes the link to the document itself. All versioning and authoring gets done automatically. The time you spend learning to use the wiki you will save many times over in the first few changes to the documentation.

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Good Luck!
Pancho

 

[Chase Wheeler]

Hey Pancho,
Thanks for all the great tips.

-824 Monitoring & Measuring refers to clauses 8.2.3-8.2.4 I've titled the procedure 8.2.4 Monitoring & Measuring of Product Realization, sorry for the confusion. I've used my procedure for these two clauses as the one that details how we produce our product, that is, the steps we perform to find a candidate, screen, match them to a job, vett them, then place them on a client engagement. I chose these clauses, because our product realization process, is essentially one big monitoring and measurement of candidates to make sure they have the prerequisite experience and skills required for the client engagement. Do you think I should switch the product realization process to clause 7.5.1-7.5.2?

-Also how well candidates meet the job requirements provided by the client is up to the opinion of our relevant recruiter, thus I am unsure as how to measure this process. Any tips?

-I have a quality manual thats still pretty rough, so I didn't include it, but it's getting there.

-In terms of quality objectives and the list of KPI's you posted (which are great by the way), do I need to relate my KPI's to specific procedures?

-I like your customer feedback ideas, but I'm curious as to we should record the process. Would an email trail suffice? Also, what would be the best way to metric and analyze the feedback during management review meetings?

Thanks again for the help.

-Chase

 

[Pancho]

Hi again, Chase,

-824 Monitoring & Measuring refers to clauses 8.2.3-8.2.4 I've titled the procedure 8.2.4 Monitoring & Measuring of Product Realization, sorry for the confusion. I've used my procedure for these two clauses as the one that details how we produce our product, that is, the steps we perform to find a candidate, screen, match them to a job, vett them, then place them on a client engagement. I chose these clauses, because our product realization process, is essentially one big monitoring and measurement of candidates to make sure they have the prerequisite experience and skills required for the client engagement. Do you think I should switch the product realization process to clause 7.5.1-7.5.2?

Oh, I see where the number came from. Thanks for the clarification.

I think controlling the conditions of production (7.5.1) is quite different from the monitoring and measurement of the product or service (8.2.4). The first enables your staff to do their work, while the second provides evidence that they did. You should address them both.

-Also how well candidates meet the job requirements provided by the client is up to the opinion of our relevant recruiter, thus I am unsure as how to measure this process. Any tips?

Maybe you can create a checklist of client requirements in the planning stage (when you get an order), then compare against that checklist the candidates that you submit? That'd be much more objective than relying on your recruiter's post-fact opinion. I'd imagine many of the client requirements are analogous from one assignment to the next, so your checklist customization at time of assignment, if any, could be simple.

-In terms of quality objectives and the list of KPI's you posted (which are great by the way), do I need to relate my KPI's to specific procedures?

I don't think so. But your KPIs should be related to your Quality Objectives and should be measurable against your goals and prior achievements.

-I like your customer feedback ideas, but I'm curious as to we should record the process. Would an email trail suffice? Also, what would be the best way to metric and analyze the feedback during management review meetings?

I'd advise against relying on individuals' email boxes to keep your records, but other than that, printed or properly archived and backed-up emails are as good a record as any.

One idea for feedback tallying: Ask customer satisfaction questions in a list of independent, positive affirmations (i.e. "The service was timely.") with seven boxes to the right of each. The boxes are labeled from "Strongly Agree" at the left through "Neither Agree nor Disagree" at the center, and to "Strongly Disagree" on the right. Then assign a value of 0 to "Strongly Disagree" and 7 to Strongly Agree. You can then present the data in bars, lines, averages, or whatever you like.

Hope this helps!
Pancho

 

[Chase Wheeler]

Once again thank you for all your help. Instead of a checklist we work with the client to develop job descriptions and then make sure that our candidates meet the requirements outlined in this document. Unique job descriptions are made for each new client job we receive. Would this suffice or would we need something more formal?

 

[Chase Wheeler]

Also our database system stores both the job descriptions and resumes of all candidates.

 

[Pancho]

Once again thank you for all your help. Instead of a checklist we work with the client to develop job descriptions and then make sure that our candidates meet the requirements outlined in this document. Unique job descriptions are made for each new client job we receive. Would this suffice or would we need something more formal?

If you have a way of demonstrating that you met your clients requirements, then it suffices.

 

[Chase Wheeler]

Hey Pancho,

It's up to our clients to hire a candidate, so if an offer is extended to the candidate we submitted, that would demonstrate we met the client's requirements. Basically a client won't hire one of our candidates unless they like them. Would that work or do I need something more?

 

[Pancho]

Chase,

Whether such record is sufficient is entirely up to you and your management. Record your client's actions consistently and that may be all that you need to start off. As you use the system you will discover ways to improve it -- that's one way you will know its working.

Good luck!
Pancho