Work Hours
8:00 am - 6:00 pm UTC+3

Daria Kugatova

Stepan Ovchinnikov

Case: HR process automation for a large pharmaceutical company

Having employees in companies is not only very important, but also very expensive.

And we’re not even referring to wages and salaries. An organization with a staff of 1-3 thousand people spends a lot on HR processes - on recruiting, preparing, training, team building and organizing the work of new employees.

According to data received from our clients, 1 office employee requires at least 30 hours of recruiters time to hire, and at least 50 hours of training to be effectively incorporated into work and business processes. This is the time of the HR department, managers, colleagues and the employee himself.

The constant complexities of personnel management requires HR processes to be automated. The problem however, is that the full scope of HR processes are not always clear to management. 


1.png

This presents a problem. Hence the business objectives of the project:

  • To increase the efficiency of the HR department through automation of HR processes;

  • To make all HR processes (recruitment, adaptation, retention and development) clear and transparent to management.

INTERVOLGA knows how to solve such problems.  In fact, we developed the first complete HR platform for Bitrix24 - RAE. RAE automates recruiting, Adaptation (Onboarding) and Education( staff training and development)


In today's article, we'll share a case on creating an automated HR portal for a large pharmaceutical company.


About the client

Our client is in the top 5 manufacturers of pharmaceutical products in Russia.

This is a pharmaceutical manufacturer that has been working with many distributors throughout its 20-year history. You can find their products in every pharmaceutical store nationwide.

Over the years, we’ve had the privilege of working with different companies in the Pharmaceutical industry. We know the specifics of the pharmaceutical industry, and have shared some cases of our projects with pharmaceutical companies: A website for a pharmaceutical networka drug marketplace, distributors' sales management personal account


The task of Implementing an HR portal with Process automation

Bitrix24 has become the "de facto" tool for building internal portals for Large organizations in 2022. 

There are generally 2 reasons for this

  1. It's convenient and suitable for automating everyday Business processes 
  2. Building an HR portal with HR process automation.

Before this project, our clients had already been using Bitrix24 for some time. We had worked on a couple projects which include - a task tracker, a calendar for booking meeting rooms, and a customized feed for posting congratulatory and informational messages.


2.png


Solution: Building a HR portal with process automation in Bitrix24

INTERVOLGA implemented an HR platform with process automation in Bitrix24.

Our solution automates over 50% of the HR processes of large business right out of the box. The corporate style and individual peculiarities of the enterprise are put into consideration during implementation.

3.png


Automation of the employee selection and recruitment processes in the HR portal

The “hiring” block is built on a kanban board. The Kanban board reflects the stages of the recruitment process. Each recruiter can view their "vacancies in progress", while management can view everything - all HR recruitment processes.

Each recruitment direction has its own version of the kanban board.

4.png


The “Hiring direction” Board allows you to monitor indicators

5.png


Included in the HR process automation is a plugin for job placement sites. When a recruiter goes through the site, and finds a candidate who fits a vacancy in the company, he can save the candidate's resume automatically to bitrix24  by clicking on the "Save to Bitrix24" button. This saves the recruiter time.

6.png



The manager has access to the control panel - Dashboard.


7.png


Dashboard of the office manager showing job vacancies, applications and the recruiters


8.png



Communication Processes Automation in the HR management system.

Bitrix24 in its standard state, has useful ready-made functions for building a single corporate environment for an enterprise: workgroups, chats, ready-made business processes, the ability to work from any device and from any location. 

Our platform increases the capabilities of Bitrix24 and expands its features by adding automated HR processes and functionalities which are needed by large businesses.

It is difficult for employees of a large firm to communicate by phone or e-mail with colleagues in another office or city. Solving seemingly simple issues such as planning a vacation, purchasing new equipment, and getting documents are  inconvenient and take a long time.

With HR process automation, team building processes takes place in the internal portal, which has a familiar design. The business processes also become clear to employees.

 

Corporate Portal Design

To contribute to team spirit, we developed a corporate design of the HR portal based on the style and UI Kit of the group of companies. It was important that the new design:

  • looked organic;

  • did not interfere with the default functionalities of the system;

  • would not lead to huge cost of maintaining the system when further improvements are made;

  • would not interfere with the portal’s ability to receive updates from Bitrix.

INTERVOLGA is able to provide solutions that meet these demands. 

In our project for this pharmaceutical company, we developed the general style of the portal and the design of several key pages: the main page, profile page, and the "new employee" page of the portal.

 

Main page of the HR portal

The purpose of the main page is to keep each employee involved in all aspects of Company life and provide convenient navigation. It's hard to feel like you're part of something big when you don’t keep up with the little changes that take place day to day. 

What we included on the branded home page:

  • News feed: News is divided into categories. We highlighted news from the different branches so that the employees are updated about the events in Novosibirsk, Kazan and other cities. Industry news was placed in the “Pharma herald” section. News in this section is automatically filled in from relevant media outlets. It turned out  to be convenient - users actively read materials, and new headings appear. 

    9.png

  • Upcoming events: We automated the display of events from the company calendar for a month ahead. The goal is to inform the staff in advance about important events: when the next corporate event will take place, where a training will take place or a meeting with the director. With this new feature, everyone knows what will happen this week and this month. They can plan their time, sign up for an event, and ask questions. Getting people together became a lot easier.

  • Birthdays: We created a branded widget with blocks for birthdays "today" and this "month". This is especially important for large teams. To prevent staff from seeing only congratulations from unfamiliar colleagues in the news feed, we improved the functionality of congratulations. Now, by clicking the “congratulate” button, congratulatory messages are visible only to employees in the celebrant’s department, everyone else sees information about the celebrant in the widget and, when the “congratulate” button is clicked, they are added to the recipients of the message, and a “like” is added to the text of the congratulatory message.

  • “Successful start!”: In a large organization, not everyone knows each other by face. To make the familiarization process easier for a new recruit, we added a block with information about other staff on his team.

  • Hall of Fame: In this block, we highlight the successes, and achievements of employees. This is a great tool for staff motivation.

  • Poll of the week: It is difficult to quickly collect feedback from employees of a large company, so we moved the poll block to the main page, and placed it in a separate widget. An important poll will not be lost in the live feed, and everyone’s opinion counts in decision making and the development course of the company.


The result of implementing an automated HR portal, designed to suit the brand image, not only automated HR processes, but also created an open and pleasant atmosphere in the company. The main page is a summary of all important information: news, awards, birthdays, calendar events, polls, new hires. The information on the page is frequently updated, and everyone can see how life goes on in the company. 

 

Broadcasting the corporate mission and values ​​through the HR portal

In the life of a large organization, many events take place: awards, seminars, sometimes sports, and so on.

It is difficult to see yourself as part of a team if you do not work in the main office. The major difficulty in building a unified corporate culture is the existence of different atmospheres in the branches.

To unite the team and keep everyone in a single information field, a section with corporate news was created in the HR-portal. In addition to having a news block on the main page, we dedicated a page to News.

Automation of events and publications reflect the movement of the company towards common goals and help show everyone’s role. Broadcasting the company's mission and values ​​show how the company is growing.

News is divided into categories with tags for easy navigation.

10.png

It was important to the customer to emphasize that values ​​are not just slogans on walls, but a reflection of the company's practical actions.

11.png

The key publications of the "News" section show the history of the company and its spirit, which is important for every employee in every office to know and feel.

 

Profile page and Employee tasks 


12.png


13.png


Welcome page for new recruits

The first work day is always stressful for both new employees and their supervisors. 

The impression a new recruit gets is created in the first few days. Therefore, It is important to establish contact with colleagues, and to make the adaptation process more comfortable. 

We created a page for new employees. Here, they get acquainted with all the necessary information they need to start work and receive step-by-step instructions for their adaptation process.

14.png


Each step the new employee goes through is linked to a separate section of the corporate portal. In this case, he needs to sign up for a training course, and read company regulations provided in the drive.


15.png

 

Automation of adaptation of a new employee on the HR portal in Bitrix24


16.png

For each step a new recruit goes through, a task is created. Automation of this HR process allows you to track progress and completion of each task on the New Employee page. 

With this automation, a new employee learns necessary information quickly, gets accustomed to communication in a digital environment and starts working.

 

HR portal workflows: office map, tasks, events, meeting rooms

Office map

The group of companies occupies several floors of a large business centre. Finding a specific employee’s workstation is always a quest. In order to solve this problem, the customer entrusted us with automation of the process using Bitrix24.

To develop a solution, we requested for the floor plans, and we redrew them in accordance with the design and developed an interactive office map.

17.png


On the right is a list of all the departments. When you hover over the desired department, the area where it is located on the map is highlighted. 

When you click on a department, information about that department comes up - what floor the department can be found on, the subdivision it belongs to, the Head of the department, phone numbers, email. It’s location on the map is also highlighted.

You can find a specific employee using the search. You  see a detailed page with contacts and a highlighted area on the portal map. 

The office map is a floor plan where you can find the location of a department or a specific employee. The floors were drawn from scratch based on already existing static plans. 

18.png

 

Synchronisation of meeting room bookings

For large enterprises, the struggle for meeting rooms is typical due to the heavy load and the abundance of incorrectly implemented booking tools. 

A pharmaceutical company is no exception. At the start there were: 7 meeting rooms, 3 separate portals and 3 separate outlook domains.

The task - to automate a single information space with up-to-date bookings for meeting rooms.

Our Solution - an organised synchronisation service, which manages and regulates the process of booking to ensure there’s no issue of duplicates or overlaps.


19.png

The design of the meeting room booking service has also been updated to suit the corporate style.


Calendar and events


20.png



Automation of corporate staff training within the HR portal.

We developed a section with training courses  for employees. To access the catalogue of all available training courses, an employee can send an application by clicking on the "apply" button.

The training section is made up of pages: a page with a list of courses, and a detailed course page for each course.

The detailed course page is a set of blocks with information that should be studied, as well as events on the course topic - trainings, meetings, webinars, etc.


21.png


When an employee sends an application to enroll in a course, the course moderator receives the application and  can either grant or deny the applicant access. All course materials are only available to employees after approval. 


22.png


Courses consist of information which employees study independently (documents and links) and training events (events in the calendar). 

After an application to enroll in a course is approved, all events related to the course will appear in the employee's calendar, and a folder with training documents will be available in his drive. 

After going through all course materials, there are two ways to complete a course:

  1. Taking a test - The employee can answer the test questions.

  2. Attestation - Here, the employee will be  tested by the course manager. The employee clicks on the “pass certification” button, and a task is assigned to the course manager with a link to the profile of the employee who needs to be certified. 

The option for completion for each course is specified in the course settings

A passed test or a completed attestation task means that the training is completed and the beginner can generate a certificate. 

23.png 

 

Results of our HR portal implementation in Bitrix24.

An internal HR portal is a trend in the automation of the corporate processes of large enterprises.


24.png


An HR management system gives businesses the opportunity to automate the processes of employee recruitment, hiring, adaptation and development in a single solution - Bitrix24:

  • The hiring process becomes transparent to managers;

  • Businesses can get employees fully prepared for work faster and more efficiently;

  • The HR manager sees analytics of each recruiter and controls the quality of work;

  • Automation of routine tasks  - Recruiters’ routine tasks  with candidates are automated. They enjoy the benefits of having a an HR Management system;

  • The Company management and IT department do not have to worry about introducing a new system - the HR portal is based on a system the company already uses (Bitrix24).

 

Development plans for the HR portal of a pharmaceutical company

An automated HR platform simplifies the creation of an HR portal. The platform is constantly evolving as we keep adding new modules to automate even further. 

Our client is very interested in them. We plan to implement the following:

  • 360 degree feedback;

  • one-stop shop for internal employee services;

  • digitization of personnel workflow and advanced integration with 1C: Payroll and personnel management;

  • Careers section on internal growth planning for HR professionals and executives.

We make the work of the HR department in a large company transparent and efficient.

  • 04.03.2022