TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS STREAMLINE HR PROCESSES FOR CONSTRUCTION COMPANIES
BY NICK FORTUNA
When you’ve got 165 employees, including 100 skilled crafts- men out in the field, handling human resources through paper processes is an inexact science. Between vacation requests, benefit enrollment forms, performance reviews, paystubs, training materials and more, the task of data entry never ends, and it’s easy for paperwork to get lost, creating more work for HR professionals and frustrating employees.
In response to those challenges, McAlvain Cos. Inc., a Boise-based general contracting and construction management firm and Idaho AGC member, digitized its HR processes in 2018 by implementing Viewpoint HR Management. The software is powered by Trimble Construction One, a cloud-based construction management technology platform that aims to increase productivity, efficiency and ac- curacy at each phase of construction projects.
Cloud-based HR platforms are just one of the technology solutions helping general contractors streamline HR processes and maintain appropriate staffing levels amid a persistent labor shortage. Other solutions such as digital talent-management platforms are greatly reducing the workload for HR professionals, allowing them to spend more time engaging with employees.
Gay Lynn Anderson, information technology director at McAlvain, says a key component of Viewpoint HR Management is its employee self-service portal. Employees can log in from any smart device and enter data themselves instead of filling out forms and passing them on to HR professionals, who then must manually enter the data into the HR system.
Employees can track how much paid time off they’ve accrued and submit vacation re- quests through the portal. They can access a calendar to see whether other employees have requested the same days off, which might determine whether their request will be ap- proved. For managers, the calendar makes it easy to see whether approving a vacation request would leave the team inadequately staffed.
Once a request is approved or denied, the employee receives an email notification. Prior to implementing this system, workers would have to submit paper vacation requests to their supervisors, who would then relay them to the HR department. Approvals flowed in the opposite direction.
Amid the daily hustle of fast-paced job- sites, forms could be lost or forgotten about, leading to scheduling mix-ups that can affect the progress of construction projects and employee morale.
“Streamlining that process was a vast improvement for us,” Anderson says. “By implementing this software solution, we have eliminated some redundant data entry that we had to do before. Now, everything is there in the portal, and you can find it easily, so we do things faster, and there’s greater visibility for the employees into some things that are really important to them.”
Employees use the portal to keep digital time cards, which speeds up the payroll process. They also can review training materials, view and sign documents, access their tax information and paycheck history, update their direct-deposit information, change their address and review and update information regarding their benefits.
In the past, Anderson says, McAlvain might send disclosure notices and benefit forms to an employee’s jobsite at the start of an open- enrollment period, and if the forms weren’t promptly returned, the company might send duplicate forms to the employee’s home ad- dress. When forms were returned to the HR department, staff would enter that information into the system manually, a process that can lead to errors and discrepancies.
Digitizing this process has made conducting open-enrollment periods vastly more efficient, eliminating duplicative work, im- proving the accuracy of data and allowing McAlvain to complete them within a shorter time window, Anderson says.
“I think it’s increased the level of trust and confidence between management and employees because things aren’t getting for- gotten or lost,” she says. “This can also be beneficial in terms of employee engagement because it demonstrates to younger workers who expect technology to be there that, yes, we are embracing technology.”
The platform has a dashboard allowing HR managers to track jobseekers throughout the hiring and onboarding process. HR professionals can view and organize applications and then send email notifications to guide applicants through the interview process. New hires digitally enter their personal information, and HR professionals can assign them onboarding tasks and manage signatures for company documents with an audit trail showing who did what and when.
Digitizing HR processes may help construction companies get by with fewer HR employees, and it’s allowing McAlvain’s HR professionals to respond more quickly to workers’ issues and questions, Anderson says. Now, they can devote more time to the fun side of HR, such as organizing free lunch events at jobsites to show workers that they’re appreciated, a key component of employee retention, she says.
“This is something that’s definitely been beneficial to us, and we certainly wouldn’t want to go back to doing things the old way,” Anderson says. “I believe it’s freed up our HR staff to have more face-to-face interaction with employees in the field. If you want your company to grow, you really do need to embrace technology because you’re not going to be able to scale the manual paper processes that you’ve used before.”
DIGITIZING TALENT MANAGEMENT
The labor shortage has given rise to a number of digital talent-management plat- forms that aim to provide companies with reliable short-term employees. Platforms such as Upshift, Wonolo and Mogul serve a variety of industries, including hospitality, warehousing, retail, manufacturing and event services, allowing companies to hire shift workers and fill coverage gaps on short notice.
Those platforms cater primarily to blue-collar workers, but there are platforms building rosters of college-educated, white-collar independent contractors, including Rosemont, Illinois-based PeopleCaddie. The company specializes in eight employment areas: finance and accounting; human resources; technology; administrative and office; engineering; legal services; marketing and creative; and health care.
In May, PeopleCaddie had more than 70,000 registered independent contractors, according to Chief Technology Officer Tim Rowley. “And that number grows every week,” he says. “You can see the growth of the community accelerating.”
Companies specify how much they’re will- ing to pay per hour, and the platform matches them with independent contractors who are willing to work within that pay range, so there’s no haggling over wages.
Just like Uber drivers and Amazon sellers are rated by customers, independent contractors receive performance ratings from companies that hire them through PeopleCaddie. The company also vets independent contractors through references and interviews with its recruiters, so hiring managers can be confident that they’re getting qualified candidates, Rowley says.
As an added layer of talent evaluation, the platform uses algorithms to match companies with jobseekers who have just the right skill set for the open positions. Each independent contractor has a profile viewable by hiring managers, and the platform allows companies to communicate with jobseekers in real time.
“We provide the candidates that we feel are the strongest available contractors in the marketplace for your needs,” Rowley says. “After a contractor has a handful of verified performance ratings from employers, you can be fairly confident that that person is a strong performer.”
PeopleCaddie serves as the employer of record for its independent contractors, so it pays them every two weeks and invoices companies for the approved hours. Traditionally, these contractors were forced to bill companies directly and then wait weeks or even months to be paid. PeopleCaddie also provides its contractors with the equipment they’ll need on the job and handles much of the HR paperwork and “administrative hassle” associated with onboarding, Row- ley says.
Contracts cover a specified length of time, say six months or a year, but employment is at will, so companies can terminate independent contractors at any time without paying severance. Contracts also can be extended if both parties agree. If a company wants to bring an independent contractor aboard permanently, it may do so for free after six months. Prior to that, the company must pay a fee to PeopleCaddie, Rowley says.
Companies typically interview candidates before hiring them, and they may choose to give them much of the same orientation and training that permanent employees receive, especially around company culture. Still, for HR departments using PeopleCaddie, hiring and onboarding are “huge burdens that are offloaded to us,” Rowley says.
“It leaves the client in a position where their HR team can focus more on filling their permanent employment needs because they’re not spending an inordinate amount of time finding or supporting these short-term workers,” he adds.