Local Government:
Roanoke County, Virginia - Human Resources
by Christine B. Ilardi, 2007
Roanoke County, while being a progressive, forward-thinking community, is also oriented towards its citizens, and their enjoyment, comfort and protection. Located in Southwest Virginia, Roanoke County is an ideal area to work and raise a family – and so each year, it is no surprise that the Human Resources office receives and processes an extensive amount of paperwork dealing with all current and potential employees.
“Human Resources is very paper intensive; we wanted to eliminate paper and create more office space by eliminating filing cabinets,” said Assistant Director of HR, Anita Hassell.
But there was a problem: HR was filing all paperwork into employee files which were stored in filing cabinets that were taking up valuable space throughout the entire office. The stress of manually copying, filing and retrieving all of those documents was taking its toll on the employees of the HR office….
…Enter Unity Business Systems! In 2005, Unity Business Systems implemented Laserfiche for the storage and management of the County’s personnel records. “We developed a program that created empty documents for each of the nearly 14 different document types related to employee records,” said Technical Support Director, John Geist. However, due to changing security requirements, a system re-design was needed in early 2007. “This time—unlike the original file structure which had secure and non-secure areas—files were organized according to document types first, with departmental folders under those, and employee documents within the departmental folders,” added Geist.
With the new solution in place, Roanoke County HR decided to add the Laserfiche QuickFields component to their procedure. “The entire process is now managed with core Laserfiche products, with no reliance on custom programming. This makes on-going management of the system more efficient,” said Geist. “The updated solution enables easier management of security and a more streamlined capture process.”
The relationship formed between UBS and the HR office has been a huge factor in the success of the solution. “John has been great to work with; he is cooperative, knowledgeable and quick to respond when we do have any issues or questions,” said Hassell. “A good team has been created with the County and UBS employees; we work well together and all system issues are resolved in a timely manner. The best part is that the product is simple to use.”
“So far, the entire process UBS set in place has worked well—both the product and the service,” said Hassell. “Currently, we are still handling paper and scanning at the same time; we just haven’t cut those apron strings, yet.” But if Hassell and company have anything to say about it, a paperless office is just around the corner. “We are definitely moving in the right direction,” said Hassell.
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Monday, September 08, 2008 
