Use Case

Staffing appraisal for an organisation with 500+ employees and volunteers is tedious. In most cases, the traditional HR system doesn’t quite fit perfectly with the staffing appraisal process that requires utmost transparency, privacy, and efficiency. 

As every use case is different, what if you are a non-profit organisation or event manager who needs a systematic feedback and appraisal system to gather data about all the people involved? You may have casual workers and volunteers who work on a seasonal basis but still need to assess their performance through a staffing appraisal system.

Let’s assume a scenario where staffing appraisal might require a custom robust yet simple-to-use solution. 

Suppose you are an event organiser where you have paid and volunteer workers. Also, you employ different employees and volunteers each year based on their performance and peer reviews. Among the employees, you have Supervisor Support Officers, Supervisors, and Volunteers to conduct day-to-day operations during the events. To run everything smoothly, you have additional back-office managers and system admins. 

Now, your Volunteers and Supervisors work directly in the field while Supervisor Support Officers manage and monitor everything from the office. Once the event is completed, you need to evaluate the teams’ performance which is a hectic task unless you have a unified system that passes the information from each individual to a central system using a streamlined process. Also, the process might include skipping specified persons to maintain privacy and returning those documents to designated individuals with any comments made. 

Based on our scenario, Volunteers will submit their observations about their Supervisors through a form which will be forwarded to Supervisor Support Officers, who will scrutinise the document and add necessary comments before sending it to the Supervisors. The exact process can be applied to other employees to serve the purpose efficiently and on time. 

However, something like this doesn’t necessarily come on its own from most HR systems. This is where you need a custom solution. 

Our preferred method is to use PaaS (Platform as a Service), using Zoho Creator to build a custom application on the cloud. Just in case you are not sure what Zoho Creator is, it is like MS Access on steroids, where you can create custom databases with business rules and logic but on the cloud. It also has an out-of-the-box mobile application— meaning you built it once. And it will be readily available on mobile devices, including Apple or Android. So, there is no need to create another separate app native to mobile, making it very cost-effective and fast deployment compared to traditional custom application development.

Challenges

The main challenge is to avoid multiple processes and achieve a unified interface that gets everything done in a few clicks. Easier said than done. To step towards success, we need to identify core challenges and obstacles that an event organiser like you may face during the process.

Some of the issues responsible for limiting their productivity could be —

Isolated Staffing Details
The documentation process mainly was manual and paper-based. Hence, efficiently tracking the staffing details was impossible given a large number of Volunteers.

Data Management and Storage
Data management is tedious for the team as evaluating statistics while going through paper-based processes is never easy. Besides, managing storage across the various branches (assuming you have a vast network across the region) and syncing them all together is almost impossible within the Staffing Appraisal cycle.

Staffing Hierarchy and Notifications
Each staff member handles a group of volunteers. So, the managers need to be updated with their hierarchy which is difficult in the traditional HR system. Besides, emails and PDFs (too common in the conventional HR system) are not enough to track the volunteers’ and staff dependency in the Staffing Appraisal review process.

Lack of Visibility and Scalability
Since everything is done manually and often confined to paper-based processes, the data can’t be accessed whenever wanted; it becomes difficult to follow the progress and evaluate the degree of engagement in real-time for the management or admins.

In the following steps, you will see Oscillosoft solve the issues and create a systematic solution that allows the organisation a robust, well-organised, and automated Staffing Appraisal system through Zoho applications.

Are you struggling with your complex business process and looking for a reliable solution for better productivity and a refined customer retention rate?

Oscillosoft’s top-notch Zoho Consultants can make that happen. Contact us, and we will show you how you can harness all the Zoho apps to solve all your complex business rules with automation.

Solution

From creating a unified interface that enables management and associates to access necessary information at ease to enjoy flexibility in operations, bringing a revolutionary change in how Staffing Appraisal works and interacts with the users is possible. 

Here at Oscillosoft, for every solution, we like to conceptualise the flow, follow every step, and achieve a catered end-product our clients deserve. 

As our process goes through rigorous checking and improvisation while seeking clients’ approval throughout, it gives the clients and us confidence in what is being developed. We follow a set of processes including but not limited to—

  1. Conducting workshops to gather details on business requirements.
  2. Wireframing it or creating the skin on the creator for better visualisation.
  3. Inputting the business rules and logic to set things right.
  4. Getting clients’ approval and moving to the next stages of development.
  5. As we run SPRINTS, we provide progress regularly and follow the precise User Acceptance Testing (UAT) code.

However, for this specific project, a robust solution is achievable and to do so, our developers and analysts will follow the procedures mentioned above. This will ensure your idea is implemented in reality while customising it with modern UI/UX.

Application in Scope

  • Zoho Creator

A cloud-based software that allows even users with no IT expertise to create tailored applications without writing complex codes.

Why Zoho Creator?
Zoho Creator offers many customisable features that enable even a non-technical user to create top-notch applications. While Zoho Creator’s pre-built functionality is adequate to develop a tailored solution for the Staffing Appraisal system, our seasoned coders can adjust every bit of it for the client’s specific needs. So, the robust functionality and endless customisation opportunity made Zoho Creator an obvious choice for the process.

However, commencing the creation process will take a tour through the below functionalities:

sample only, not real data

sample only, not real data

Staffing Appraisal Form
The form is to be filled out by Volunteers in each event and serves as the primary feature of the Staffing Appraisal application. The form will include questions from the organisation and will follow the designated workflows. Also, any comments from admins will be included in the form before it returns to the Supervisors with approval from Supervisor Support Officers during the process.

Appraisal Dashboard:
Whenever the Volunteers and Supervisors/Supervisor Support Officers log into the system, they will be displayed a detailed view of the process in one place, termed as Appraisal Dashboard.

Hierarchy Dashboard:

Supervisors and Supervisor Support Officers can quickly look at the organisation’s hierarchy through a secondary interface. However, this interface will show documented and stored information based on the relationship within the Volunteers, Supervisors and Supervisor Support Officers’ user list.

Notification System:
The organisation’s Staffing Appraisal will utilise email reminders as the core part of the workflow. While they have templates created and stored within the system, customised emails can also be pulled out dynamically whenever required.

Volunteers/Supervisors/Supervisor Support Officers List and Relation:
A list of the active Volunteers will be stored within the Customer Portal user list of the event organiser. This will enable them to log in and access the Creator Application’s dashboards and appraisal forms. Besides, it will enlist Supervisors and Supervisor Support Officers within the application to establish reporting/review hierarchies.

Overall, a custom-built solution can be made within Zoho Creator to achieve the following goals: 

  1. Provide a central repository for the Department to store their Staffing/Volunteer list for cycle. 
  2. Provide an area to establish Staffing/Management/Volunteer groups and hierarchy. 
  3. Provide Volunteers with their own custom login to answer their Appraisal questions. 
  4. Provide automated mass emailing and notification capabilities for the Staffing Appraisal.
  5. Provide the management with an overview of the whole custom Staffing Appraisal system. 
  6. Provide easy storage and backup process to handle multiple Volunteer cycles.

An overview of the Flow of the Volunteer Process can be seen here. DIAGRAMS Will NEED TO BE CENSORED AND REDONE:

The application aims to provide the Volunteers with a quick and easy experience to provide their feedback to the department via custom made forms.

Redesigning the PDF Appraisal forms of old into a modernised digital form allows their responses to be allocated against each Volunteer automatically and funnelled into the Appraisal approval process with no manual intervention.

With the new digital formats, it is possible to create a custom-tailored dashboard for the management team to keep track of every Volunteer’s Appraisal and provide them with the opportunity to set automated reminders and escalation when required.

Result

With strategic tweaking and cross-checking, the system can successfully achieve a spontaneous Staffing Appraisal process ready to minimise keystrokes and ensure efficiencies at every level. Our expert implementation of Zoho Creator into any Event Management Agency or Non-profit system will enable them to achieve the following results:

Volunteers

  • Volunteers can access an online portal to submit their appraisals.

  • Volunteers can keep track of where their appraisal is within the process.

  • Volunteers can save their appraisal submissions to complete at a later date.

Supervisors

  • Supervisors or Volunteer managers are able to keep track of the Volunteers they are responsible for.

  • Volunteer managers are automatically alerted when action is required on their end for the appraisal process.

  • Volunteer managers can resend reminders and follow-ups automatically and manually.

General Managers

  • General Managers are provided overall visibility of all Volunteers and Volunteer Managers or Supervisors.

  • General Managers can filter appraisals based on completion and stages.

  • General Managers can dynamically update automated email notifications and their notification periods.

  • General Managers can gain a system that is easy to export and keep historical data on for reporting.

Overall Result:

  • The department can gain a robust digitised solution to their appraisal process that reduces manual personnel tracking and email notification.

  • The application is much more scalable with the size of the department with the assistance of prebuilt import functionality system backups.

  • Volunteers can gain more confidence in the appraisal system by accessing a custom-made portal to submit and track their appraisals.

  • Mobile application for push notifications and alerts

If you want to solve such complex business issues, do not hesitate to contact us. We have in-house Zoho Consultants and top-notch plugin developers who can strategically integrate automation systems to streamline your business processes and optimise them for better productivity. 

N.B. This is one of the many use cases where Zoho applications can be utilised to create a streamlined solution and fast-forward the workflow with a minimum tweaking. Zoho solutions are the best for such purposes because of their pricing and convenience in customisation regardless of complexity.