Scenario: You recently left public accounting seeking a more flexible and exciting career. You recently accepted a consulting position to work on an Oracle implementation. You are looking forward to using the skills you learned in your ITAC class at UT. Your role will assist the HR department of DGI, Inc. on their implementation. You are new to the organization and your first assignment is to setup a meeting with the IT, HR, Finance and Legal departments to discuss the on-boarding process for new employees. Your manager has asked you to create a flowchart of the current manually intensive process, as well as the new HR process in Oracle. Below are the notes you captured from your meeting with the relevant departments.

Consultant (You): Hi Everyone, thanks for joining the meeting today. I am new to the company and hope to learn more about the process for onboarding new employees to DGI.

HR Sr. Manager: We can certainly help you with that and welcome to DGI.

Consultant (You): Thanks, I know everyone is short on time, so can you help me understand the new process in the Oracle system for a new hire and how it will change from the current process?

HR Sr. Manager: Sure. The process starts after the recruitment process is complete. Once a new employee accepts an offer for employment, we initiate our new hire process.

You: That seems to make sense tell me more.

General Counsel: Im short for time and need to go to another meeting, so I will describe the new Oracle process next for Legal. A Legal Analyst will input the first name, last name, and SSN found in Oracle into the EEC application to perform the background check. We get a report from the EEC system that either states that no criminal history was found or provides a detailed report of the prospective employees criminal history. If the background check revealed criminal history, the legal department will print the background check result and stamp approved or denied on the print out. If the background check does not identify criminal history or the history is approved, the Legal team will input the employee as approved in Oracle. If the Legal team denies employment, the employee will be input as declined in Oracle and Legal sends a certified letter to the prospective employee. Previous to the new Oracle system, our current process was manual and the Legal Analyst would call the background check company and receive the employee background history over the phone. The employee would be marked approved or denied manually on the signed offer letter.

HR Sr. Manager: Once the employee has mailed in the signed offer letter, a member of the HR department will enter the employees information online into our new HR system (Oracle). The information I enter includes the employees name, phone, address, and SSN. In addition, I assign the position, department, direct report manager, and salary details into Oracle. Once all information is included, and I hit the submit button, the Oracle information is automatically routed to Legal to perform a background check and the employee is marked pending in the system until the background check is completed. Prior to the Oracle system, the current process was to enter the data into an Excel spreadsheet that was saved on the network for Legal review.

Consultant (You): Oh dear, Im lost. What happens to the signed offer letter?

HR Sr. Manager: Oops! I forgot to mention that part. It is filed by last name in the HR employee records cabinet after I enter the information in Oracle as I described earlier. In the current process, the signed offer letter is filed after Legal approves or denies the new hire.

Consultant (You): What about the background check information?

Finance Manager: In the current process the background check information is routed to the payroll manager for input into the payroll database. That all changes now. Im fairly certain that the result of the background checks from the new system are always kept based on the reference number in a secure filing cabinet accessible only by the Legal department.

Consultant (You): Thanks for that information. What happens next?

HR Sr. Manager: The HR department is alerted through a system message that the employee has been approved by Legal. We will then complete a system access form in Oracle for the IT Department to grant access to the network. Our current process is to deliver the system access form to the IT department to initiate the setup for the users laptop and network access.

Consultant (You): Im sorry, but I meant to ask earlier if we maintain the hire date in our HR system. Would that be in the Oracle system?

HR Sr. Manager: Correct. We enter the hire date when we enter the assigned position and direct report manager. I should have mentioned that earlier.

Consultant (You): Im not understanding the new process yet. Can you share more about the process to grant the user access to the network?

IT Analyst: Once the system access form is received by the IT department, the IT department (likely the network administrator) will systematically grant the user access to the network. Currently, the new user form is then marked as complete and returned to HR for filing with the offer letter.

Consultant (You): Can we go back to the background check process and find out how Legal is informed that a new employee has been added?

Finance Manager: Good question. Its much more efficient now that the Oracle system will send Legal an automated email message that a new employee requires a background check.

Consultant (You): Sounds like you are leveraging system automation embedded in the workflow process, which is terrific. Im wondering how Legal is notified of a new hire in the current process.

Finance Manager: Currently, when the Excel file is updated with the new hire information, Legal is informed via an email from HR to review the new hire information in the spreadsheet. Unfortunately, it might take a few days before the Legal Analyst reads the email.

Consultant (You): Is there any other component of the new hire process that we should discuss today?

HR Sr. Manager: Do you want to talk about payroll?

Consultant (You): Whoa, not today. I will document what weve talked about and add the payroll process next week.

HR Sr. Manager: Great. I also wanted to clarify something. The user access form, once manually completed, is signed by the COO prior to providing to IT. She likes to review and validate that the appropriate access is requested. She annotates her initials on the user access form or in the system, she will add her approval in the workflow process.

Consultant (You): Thanks. This is very helpful. I really appreciate your time.