Effective leaders are always looking for ways to make their businesses leaner and more efficient, by improving productivity and profitability.  The main way to achieve this objective is through increased automation.  We have talked about Recruiting Automation in a few of our blogs and how it can revolutionize the staffing industry. While typically automation focuses on the recruitment lifecycle (from sendout to placement), in this blog, we are going to highlight some of the less obvious staffing processes where efficiency gains can be made relatively easily.

Screening

Automating candidate screening can help reduce costs as well as save time. As a staffing firm, you would typically have thousands of resumes at any time and it is practically impossible to efficiently keep those candidates engaged without automation. End-to-end automation of the screening process will require:

• Auto-matching capabilities to find the most suitable candidates from a pool of resumes against a job based on configurable parameters.
• Automated messaging to be sent out to all the candidates selected by the Auto-matching process along with initial screening questions relevant to the role.
• Automatic score calculation based on responses to the initial screening questions 

All of this can work reliably with minimal human intervention if workflows are configured properly, and can save many hours a week for a typical consultant while delivering them the most suitable candidates for their open roles.

Onboarding

If you are onboarding manually right now, you will recognize the cost and delay it can cause.  Getting a candidate from inbound resume to ready to work can take hours, or even days, depending on the industry / sector you recruit for.

With automated onboarding, you can collect data about your new hires efficiently and store all information collected while onboarding securely.

Automated onboarding can be achieved through sophisticated parsing technology, but also through the availability of self-service portals, to allow candidates to enter the minimum information needed to create a viable candidate record initially , with automated follow-ups to ensure GDPR or CCPA compliance, and to prompt for uploads of any compliance documentation (certification, accreditation, eligibility to work, etc.).  

Furthermore, where necessary, background checks and/or electronic signatures can be seamlessly integrated within these portals to ensure that the onboarding process can be managed entirely online.

Invoice Generation

Invoicing for many staffing firms is still a manual, paper-based process which, as above, requires significant resource levels to operate efficiently, and also increases the margin for error.  By automating invoice processing, staffing firms can achieve reduced cycle times and improved cashflow, increase visibility into their process, improve relationships with candidates and clients, and much more.

With invoice automation, invoices can be sent automatically based on placements made or time logged/approved, helping you to improve your cash flow and reduce accounts receivables. It will allow you to configure invoice frequency as well as invoice generation types. You should also be able to select who receives invoices and also identify “bounced” emails. Consultants who manage the relationships with candidates and clients should then have visibility into all the financial information, allowing them to manage financial inquiries as well as operational ones, increasing efficiency and responsiveness.

Invoice automation solutions should also support automatic attaching of timesheets, receipts and expenses for dispute management. It should also be possible to easily create consolidated or custom invoice templates, allowing you to invoice your clients in the format they require.