Recruit v5
Bournemouth and Poole Borough Councils:
The Employee First Partnership
The brief
Making online recruitment work for two councils in a partnership arrangement
Improve the applicants’ experience, attract better candidates and achieve a strong internet presence
Achieve savings in time and money using online recruitment
Reduce data entry with integrated systems
abacusemedia.com/public-sector/our-work
Recruit v5
Bournemouth and Poole Borough Councils have implemented the Recruit online
recruitment solution from Abacus e-Media as part of a major new integrated HR & Payroll
system, known as Employee First. Whilst benefitting from purchasing and using the same
system, the flexibility of Recruit enables each Authority to use Recruit to meet their own
individual and differing requirements.
The Employee First Project
In 2006, the neighbouring authorities of Bournemouth and Poole began
“We looked at the online
recruitment module within Vision
but chose Recruit because of
its track record at Bournemouth
and for other local authorities.”
work on their £2 million+ ‘Employee First’ project. Using their joint
purchasing power and the opportunity to achieve economies of scale,
Bournemouth and Poole planned to implement new systems to handle
HR, data management, training, appraisals, absence monitoring, reporting, payroll, manager self-service, pensions and online recruitment. Having
researched suitable systems and their suppliers, the requirement was
Sonia Lomax
put out to tender and the decision was taken in 2007 to adopt the Vision
Employee Systems Manager,
HR and Payroll system from Selima. The HR and Payroll elements of the
Poole Borough Council
system went live in 2009.
Online recruitment remained to be implemented, although potential solutions had been identified in 2006 as part of the process of selecting the
overall HR and Payroll system. Bournemouth was already using Version
4 of the Recruit online recruitment product from Abacus e-Media, whilst
Poole was handling everything manually. Sonia Lomax, Employee Systems
Manager, Poole Borough Council: “We looked at the online recruitment
module within Vision but chose Recruit because of its track record at
Bournemouth and for other local authorities.”
abacusemedia.com/public-sector/our-work
Recruit v5
The case for Recruit
Implementation
As the Vision system went live in 2009, the two
A dedicated project team began work to tailor
authorities decided to look again at the options for
Recruit V5 to the specific needs of the two
online recruitment. With concerns about the lack
authorities in November 2010, although some ini-
of installations and the lack of added benefits by
tial work had been done by the IT teams to set up
using the recruitment product offered by Selima
hosting and servers from April of that year. Origi-
and armed with supplier references for Abacus,
nally it had been planned to go-live in April 2011,
the decision to adopt Recruit was reconfirmed.
but work on data migration for Bournemouth was
However, with the imminent arrival of Recruit
more complex and time-consuming than had
Version 5 incorporating enhanced self-service
been anticipated. Considerable development
functionality, easier navigation and an overall new
work, including major changes to the format of
look and feel, Bournemouth and Poole decided to
the application form and the ability to enable the
wait for this new version of the software.
system to handle multiple diary slots, was undertaken and this again caused the original date to
Whilst other local authorities have installed online
slip to the beginning of October. Integration with
recruitment systems with the primary objective of
the Vision system threw up a few challenges but
saving money, for both Bournemouth and Poole
on the whole went fairly smoothly resulting in an
their over-riding aim was to achieve an online
efficient integrated process.
presence and only do things once. The majority of
the Employee First project was about money-sav-
Recruit in action
ing but Recruit was about dramatically improving
the applicants’ experience and bringing it into the
Although most Recruit clients have chosen to use
21st century. Its integration with the Vision HR
Recruit as a Cloud based service, in this case the
and Payroll system would ensure that data was
shared copy of Version 5 of Recruit, installed on
only entered once, rather than two or three times,
a joint server is managed by Poole, with separate
which had previously been the case.
sites and databases to ensure data security. The
flexibility of Recruit has allowed the two authorities to use Recruit in quite different ways to suit
their own needs and way of working.
abacusemedia.com/public-sector/our-work
Recruit v5
Recruit at Poole
The arrival of Recruit at Poole was clearly an
Both internal and external jobs are advertised
enormous change for the HR team who had
using Recruit, with internal applicants being able
been used to doing everything manually. As Sue
to apply both from the workplace and from home
Bennett, HR Services Manager at Poole recalls,
(or elsewhere). At the closing date for the job, the
putting in the necessary processes to support their
HR team send a PDF of the applications to the
use of Recruit was one of the first requirements.
relevant manager who provides a shortlist. Setting
“We decided, unlike Bournemouth, not to roll out
up the interviews is all handled via Recruit, as are
the service option within Recruit to our manag-
references and employee appointments. Sue
ers. They’d already had to cope with learning
Bennett: “We also handle the new starter data
how to use the Vision system and it didn’t seem
using Recruit as this takes just seconds and is
a worthwhile use of their time to train them how
much faster than the managers doing it them-
to use Recruit when they might only recruit one
selves within Vision. The information is passed
person a year. As we are quite a small authority, it
automatically from Recruit to Vision for all the
is faster and more efficient for us to keep recruit-
other HR and payroll requirements to flow from
ment centralised.”
this core data.”
The recruitment team at Poole has significantly
reduced in size and is achieving savings on
postage, printing and the cancellation of most
newspaper-based advertising. However the speed
of the recruitment process using Recruit stands
out as one of the major benefits. “We can receive
a job advertisement at noon and it’s on the web
site an hour later. With the old paper-based
system, we had to allow two weeks to process
applications. Now we can get the application to
a manager within hours and set up interviews for
shortlisted applicants within two hours. Someone
can apply on a Sunday and be on a shortlist on
Last year Poole advertised about 600 vacancies
Monday. Applicants love it, and it is helping us
(some 50% of which were for schools). Remarka-
to attract more and probably better candidates,
bly the last two months has shown that 99% of all
whilst also making it less likely that we will lose
Poole’s applications were submitted online. “We
them to another faster offer.”
have done lots of promotion about online application, and have spent lots of time talking people
through how to complete the form – but this has
really paid off.”
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Recruit v5
Recruit at Bournemouth
In stark contrast to the centralised approach to
Managers access the system once the job
advertising at Poole, Bournemouth has rolled
closes to review applications and set up the
out Recruit to about 300 managers, HR Support
shortlist. Some 85% of all applications are now
and Systems administrators, schools and service
received online.
directors. Bournemouth advertised just over 332
vacancies last year.
The HR team at Bournemouth is about a third
smaller than it used to be. For Angela James,
Job advertisement requests are initially created
HR Support Manager at Bournemouth and Joyce
by individual managers in the Vision system. They
Coleman, HR, Payroll & Pensions Services Man-
then log into Recruit for job descriptions, person
ager, the speed and efficiency of the interface
specifications, creation of the advertisement, EAR
between Vision and Recruit has proven to be one
checks and final completion of the advertise-
of the main benefits reducing data entry for the
ment request. This is passed to the HR team to
HR team.
process the advert, to administer all stages of the
applicants’ workflow including using the template
library, JD and person specs, and diary slots.
The mail merge facility issues emails, letters and
contracts, and the job offer page is interfaced
to the Vision system. The workflow element of
Recruit is used to both create and change posts;
all reporting, including diversity and KPI, is handled by Recruit.
abacusemedia.com/public-sector/our-work
Recruit v5
Looking ahead
Now that the system is firmly bedded in for both
Bournemouth’s Recruit system, but with its own
authorities there are plans to extend the use
branding, the new microsite will provide BH Live
of Recruit.
with a sophisticated online recruitment system
Looking back over this lengthy and culture-chang-
For Poole the use of the Talent Pool module would
ing project, Sonia Lomax believes that “although
reap huge benefits. They currently have access
at times we all experienced frustrations with the
to about 140 temporary administrative staff and
project and the time it seemed to take, both the
are keen to be able to integrate their details into
recruitment teams and our applicants are very
Recruit. Poole will also be adding on the ability to
positive about the Recruit system.” Sue Bennett
produce employee contracts which is not currently
agrees: “From the day that Recruit went live and
handled within Recruit.
we could really start to use it, it was brilliant.
It has changed the way we work.” Angela James
Sonia Lomax: “We are also considering rolling
confirms that “with the changes from version
it out to managers, or at least those who recruit
4 to version 5 of Recruit, we have had positive
quite regularly, although this will only happen if
feedback from managers that the system is easier
we are absolutely certain that it will save both
to use.”
time and money.”
At the present time, Poole handles job advertising,
but no further part of the recruitment process, for
all its schools. This is another area which is being
explored to see how using the other functions
within Recruit might be of value for the council
and for schools.
“From the day that Recruit
went live and we could
really start to use it, it was
brilliant. It has changed
the way we work.”
For Bournemouth the principal new development
Sue Bennett
according to Angela James is the launch of a
HR Services Manager
microsite for BH Live, a large employer for Leisure
Poole Borough Council
Services which is a charitable trust and used to
be part of the Council. Piggybacking on
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