Coldspring-Oakhurst Consolidated Independent School District (COCISD) is located in Coldspring, Texas, the county seat of San Jacinto County. The district covers 416 square miles within the Sam Houston National Forest and serves approximately 1,500 students from early childhood through 12th grade. Their mission is to educate and equip all learners with the knowledge, skills, and experiences to be successful in life.
Coldspring-Oakhurst saves 50% HR Time with Helios
Summary
COCISD went paperless with Helios for managing employee e-files, teacher certifications, reports, new hire onboarding, electronic forms and workflows, employee self-service portal, applicant management, and hiring. COCISD chose Helios for its ease of use, comprehensive functionality covering all aspects they needed, as well as a friendly partnership team.
Challenges
Candy Yeager, HR Coordinator at COCISD, and her team were handling everything on paper – onboarding, form approvals, employee files, and signatures. A lot of time was spent tracking forms like Travel Approvals and Supplemental Pays. Frustrations occurred when needing to search through stacks of forms after employees weren’t getting paid on time.
Solution
Helios’ seamless software and user-friendly interface has made COCISD processes so much easier. Now that Candy and her team are not having to shuffle through stacks of paper to find what they’re looking for, they are saving more than 50% of their time. They’re also saving money by not needing as much paper and printing service.
We chatted with Candy to get an update on her district’s use of Helios.
Q: What was your work life like before Helios?
Everything we had was paper; no workflows, onboarding, nothing. Everything, literally, would just go from desk to desk to desk. Supplemental pay forms were being submitted without people being paid, causing us to have to sort through stacks of paper. Thanks to Helios, that has been eliminated and it is wonderful.
Q: How has Helios helped you so far?
Onboarding is now wonderful! It was much more stressful before using Helios. All the paper that used to come along with the old process, not to mention having to get all the appropriate physical signatures. It’s a much more seamless process now. Not having to file any more is huge! Knowing I can just click a button and find everything that’s within the employee’s e-file and not have to dig through stacks of paper looking for something is wonderful.
We haven’t had an audit, yet. Our first one is in August and I’m looking forward to it since our auditors simply need to go into Helios, make a few clicks, and see everything they need to see. So, I’m looking forward to this audit, as opposed to in the past when I, certainly, wouldn’t have.
One of the great forms we can now use electronically is the Begin Hire form. Prior to having Helios, that information was just written on a piece of notebook paper and stowed away in a file somewhere. Now that it’s all connected, we know who we interviewed and don’t have to go digging for information. The new Travel form has been very helpful as well.
Q: What has the setup process been like and what would you say about the support you have received?
I cannot say enough about the support we have received! It is fabulous. It’s, at least, within a day that we get a response back. And the help is good, step-by-step and thorough. Helios having Deeper Dive video tutorials for users is an extremely helpful tool. And the setup was easy after learning the process of how it all works.
Q: How has Helios helped you save time and money?
Just in the amount of time we are saving not shuffling paper around, that’s money right there. About half of my time is saved, or maybe more!
We are also saving money in paper costs. Our maintenance department was confused at first, asking, “You all don’t need paper!?” We have a few departments that still want their paper copy, but that’s okay because it hasn’t slowed us down. One of our employees has been with us for 35 years. She handles Supplemental Pays and approves Travel Forms. She says, “Helios is the easiest program I’ve ever seen and has made my life so much simpler!” Time savings in their department alone has been huge.
Q: How easy is Helios to use?
Helios is absolutely user friendly! Forms are so easy to create and I can make changes with just a couple of clicks. It’s made life a lot easier, from my end, for sure. It is seamless. I can develop a form in less than 3 minutes. It’s that simple. I can really appreciate this considering this process no longer takes me away from all the other things I need to do.
Q: What has been the most helpful functionality to begin with?
I’d say the onboarding module, so far. It’s caused me to think outside of the box from the ways in which I’ve always done things and made the process more efficient.
Q: Any final thoughts on Helios that you would share with someone who is considering a new system?
I would say, “Jump in!” It’s an easy system to learn and super user-friendly. Setup is easy, once you learn the process. And, considering all the modules talk to one another, it cuts your time in half.
Candy sums up COCISD’s experience of working with Helios:
“It’s a pleasure working with Helios! I’m always happy to chat with anyone from another district about Helios and give it two thumbs up because it has been very seamless and made us more efficient!”