E-signature for HR: How to Speed Up the Hiring Process

Learn how e-signatures can revolutionize your HR processes, helping you save time and money while putting you in the best position to hire the industry’s top young talent.

“What’s in a name?” or so the age-old question goes. The answer: everything. That’s why placing your name as a stamp of approval regarding the terms of a deal has been used since we began putting deals in writing.

A signature represents not only a name but also a person’s promise to uphold their end of the bargain. It also serves as a sign that a person understands and accepts the negotiated terms (now imagine Medieval royalty clicking “I accept the terms and conditions” at the bottom of a peace treaty!).

Chances are that the uses of signatures for your HR department aren’t as dramatic as we’ve made them seem so far, but make no mistake that the names inked at the bottom of a document have far-reaching legal and business consequences (and, as we will see later, financial consequences, too).

Signatures for HR Purposes 

Busy HR departments are inundated with paperwork, and hiring a new candidate comes with an endless stream of documents that can wind up burying an unsuspecting recruiter.

To make matters worse, getting signatures for each document can wind up taking days, grinding the wheels on the process to a halt and frustrating your top talent who has grown accustomed to everything being done instantly.

Thankfully, advanced software that helps automate tasks, digitize paperwork, and streamline HR processes is now on the market, and it helps companies get the best talent, cut costs, and save time.

In short, there are ways to completely overhaul your hiring process and get an upper hand on competitors. Over 50% of HR technology spending will be on cloud solutions in 2017, and at the center of it all is the fast, effective, and 100% legally binding e-signature.

Here’s how it works:

First, are e-signatures even legal?

Yes, e-signatures are 100% legal.

The E-Sign Act, passed in the year 2000, states that, if all parties choose to use electronic documents and to sign them electronically, then no signature shall be denied legal effect solely because it’s electronic.

In simpler terms, that basically says “as long as everyone agrees to use electronic documents and E-signatures, then they are completely legal.” No court will deny validity simply because they are electronic signatures.

Slow and Expensive Processes:

Why your company may be losing the hiring war

The world of HR today is hardly recognizable compared to where it was even just a decade ago.

Hiring is a fast and furious rat race, and there isn’t a moment to spare.

As an HR professional you’re:

1. Connected to thousands of potential candidates on social media
2. Responsible for managing the benefits of teams in different jurisdictions
3. Sending out dozens of offers each day
4. Still dealing with employee issues within your company.

Companies spend so much time on onboarding and the red tape surrounding bringing new talent into the organization that there’s little time left to actually search for the best talent.

Collecting ink signatures on documents is a process that is measured in hours, days, and weeks, making for a painfully slow and frustrating hiring process.

Signing paper documents the old-fashioned way means:

1. Inflated costs for paperwork, including printing supplies, organizational costs, shipping, and storage
2. Painfully slow hiring speeds
3. Inability to track where everyone is in the process (when one party has a document, when it’s signed, who is aware of the signature, etc.)
4. Lost employee productivity

The old business saying goes “when employees stop, business stops”. It’s true. Each time an employee goes to the printer to scan or print a document, stops to look for a file, or takes time out of their day to deal with messy paperwork, your company loses on valuable productivity (and don’t forget about the awfully mundane conversations around the printer that your employees will have to suffer through).

Are you making a bad first impression?

By 2020, Millennials will make up 46% of the workforce.

This generation has grown up in a world where every process is digitally streamlined and anything they could possibly want is done at the click of a button. They don’t want to wait weeks for the hiring process to work itself out.

In a market where 86% of recruiters believe hiring is a candidate’s world, and large companies cite lack of qualified talent as one of the largest barriers to filling positions, you need to knock em’ dead at first site or someone else will.

Demonstrating that you can create and quickly deliver professional documents, will send a strong first impression to today’s young, talented, and tech-savvy workforce.

This generation has been raised in a hi-tech world, and advanced technology is so ingrained in their daily lives that they actually expect to work with the latest tools in the workplace.

Solutions like Soda PDF allow you to create templates, quickly send out contracts, sign from anywhere, and get the ball rolling in a matter of minutes rather than days (more on that later).

Implementing digital documentation and e-signing them:

1. Eliminates delays
2. Streamlines your processes
3. Saves you money.

Simplify the entire hiring process with Soda E-Sign

As we’ve seen so far, convincing the best talent to latch onto your company is difficult enough. Further complicating everything by doing things the old-fashioned way is only going to cost you money.

Using the Soda E-Sign feature cuts the entire process down to a matter of minutes. Now, you can create, send, track, modify, and sign legally binding documents within minutes from any device around the world.

The benefits are clear:

1. Save money on materials
2. Save money on printing and mailing costs
3. Speed up the hiring process
4. Project a better corporate image to potential employees

Some of the features of Soda PDF’s e-signature solution are:

Create and send documents in the blink of an eye 

Digitizing your HR documentation with Soda PDF streamlines the entire hiring process. It allows you to create documents quickly, save the template, and store them for immediate future use.

With E-Sign, you can:

1. Easily place where you want the e-signature fields to go
2. Add in a title for the signee (in case there happens to be a madam or monseigneur)
3. Use Quick Send or Advanced Send to quickly shoot off any contract
4. Control the order of signers to be sure that disclosures have been read and accepted prior to signing

1.Keep close tabs on everything from one central hub

The cloud has revolutionized how companies handle the hiring process from job posting to closing the final offer (hopefully with an e-signature).

With the Inbox Manager, your team can peruse the status of each package. This lets your company and candidate know exactly where the two of you are in the process at all times.

Keeping all documents in a central archive helps to manage things much better than the old filing cabinet way. You can see who has signed which document, which ones they still need to sign, and who might need a reminder that they’ve got to look things over.

2. Error-free workflows

Using automated processes allows for error-free workflows, and managing signees helps to ensure documents won’t come back with missing signatures.

3. Make your business more agile

Taking the time to scan, print, or send documents is tedious and expensive.

By switching over to electronic signatures, you allow your company to operate in the cloud. This will open new doors to you and make your company more flexible than ever.

Now, anyone with access can view the contents or status of any document, quickly modify it if necessary, and sign immediately, rather than having that process take days or weeks.

Anyone can view any document on any device from anywhere (ANY questions?).

 Check out this real-life example of how Soda E-Sign helped Solaria Group:

How Soda E-Sign has helped The Solaria Group simplify employee on-boarding

Soda PDF:

Helping your HR department work smarter

Harnessing the power of e-signed documents for your human resources department will:

1. Free up valuable time for better usage
2. Save your company money
3. Help you hire the best talent faster.

Managing documents from the cloud, quickly creating and sending professional HR documents, allowing for e-signatures, and monitoring or managing employee offer packages helps your team work smarter.

If you want to learn more, check out our other posts about E-Sign:

1. Steps on how to electronically sign a document with E-Sign
2. Electronic signatures history and origins
3. E-Sign: How to collect electronic signatures using PDF

The modern hiring war comes down to speed and efficiency, So, the extra polish and agility will give you the advantages you need to succeed.

Lucky for you, Soda E-Sign will revolutionize the way you do HR! Download Soda PDF today and start revolutionizing: