Government HR teams can do more in less time with Adobe

Image credit: Adobe Stock/ denizbayram.

A smoothly functioning human resources (HR) department is essential to a well-run government agency. By finding and onboarding talent, administering and enforcing civil-service rules and programs, handling personnel time off, and more, HR has the power to boost the agency’s operational performance and position employees to focus on serving constituents. And agency HR teams have long felt the pressure to become more strategic over time, making any opportunity to automate mundane tasks a potential source of advantage.

Agency staffing remains a challenge

While government HR teams are busier and more essential than ever, attracting and hiring agency talent remains a challenge. State and local agency job openings are at a decade high. At the federal level, strategic human capital management has been identified as a high-risk issue by the General Accountability Office (GAO) since 2001. The GAO outlines numerous reasons for the challenges associated with human capital management, including shortfalls with human capital planning and organizational training — challenges that are likely more acute at the state and local levels, where budgets and resources tend to be smaller.

At the same time, many government HR teams still rely on antiquated and fragmented HR systems. These systems often revolve around manual and paper-based processes that require employees to spend too much time recreating documents, chasing signatures, locating missing paperwork, and fixing errors. That eats away at productivity and creates an undesirable work environment that might cause employees to look for other work options.

Any HR process that is interrupted by manual or paper-based steps — such as approvals, signatures, data entries, and form filling — delays critical business processes and risks frustrating candidates and employees alike.

Digital workflows can alleviate these issues

But there’s a solution for overcoming these challenges: digital workflow management is one opportunity to automate tedious tasks and become more competitive in the modern workplace. Creating an all-digital HR experience streamlines workflows, saving time and making a better experience for the HR team, candidates, and new hires.

The digital experience also increases speed and satisfaction with the onboarding experience, internal collaboration, and approval workflows.

With digital document management, agencies present a professional, consistent, and modern approach to constituents, job seekers, and other stakeholders. They can protect and secure sensitive information with passwords, restrict access, and limit editing and printing.

HR systems modernization should focus on removing as many transactional, paper-based processes as possible. Electronic signatures can significantly streamline and simplify form-driven HR processes. Tracking applicant signatures, capturing signatures for open enrollment forms, signing off on time and attendance, and more can all be streamlined through electronic signatures.

But it’s not just the approving or signing of a document. All upstream and downstream activities associated with a document can be managed digitally — enabling a hybrid work environment and supporting a more collaborative and cohesive culture across the organization. Remote work is likely to be a long-term feature of governments, and HR departments will need to support paperless experiences throughout the HR lifecycle.

We’re working to drive agency efficiency

An effective digital workflow is about more than going paperless. Our goal at Adobe is to help HR teams to reduce their administrative burden and stay focused on supporting agencies in meeting their mission. We’re helping agencies create modern, customized, secured experiences that reduce friction and increase efficiency for HR teams, candidates, and constituents.

Adobe Document Cloud enables a transformation to 100 percent digital document workflows that integrate with existing Human Capital Management (HCM) systems and are complete with e-signatures that are legally binding and globally secure. The Document Cloud includes Adobe Acrobat DC, Adobe Sign, Adobe Scan, prebuilt integrations, automated workflows, and robust APIs.

Built-in security at the application level (sandboxing, pre-installed certificates) and the document level (password protection, signature tracking audit trails) creates layers of trust. With options including FedRAMP-Moderate authorized solutions and certificate-based digital signatures, agencies can choose the level of security that matches their needs.

This enables government HR departments to slash manual paperwork and digitize signing processes, from document creation, collaboration, and execution to archiving and management — speeding signature workflows and reducing costs. On average, Adobe Acrobat Sign customers experience an 80 percent reduction in time to onboard new hires across all industries.

Besides eliminating days from approval processes, Adobe Document Cloud can also help agencies improve efficiency and mobility to transform into a modern workforce.

No matter where your agency is at in the digital journey, we ready to help.

For more information, visit here.