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3 HR Workflows You Can Automate Right Now

Lindsay McGuire
January 13, 2022
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Min Read

“There are hours and hours of time that I didn't know I was losing.”

This is a realization Carolyn, an HR Analyst, recently made when reflecting on the impact automation has made in her workday. 

Right now, her email is exploding, calendar is booked solid, and her to-do list is miles long. All her teammates are at capacity—maybe even beyond it—thanks to the crazy environment HR teams are living in right now. 

Some have called it The Great Resignation, The Great Reshuffle, or The Big Quit. No matter what you call it, one thing is clear: HR teams need more time to get their work done. But how do you make more time? 

Technically, you can’t. But with Formstack, it will seem that way. If you’re looking for ways to maximize your time, consider automating the HR workflows below. By doing a bit of workflow building now, you can save yourself hundreds of hours in the long run. Stop spending time on tedious manual work, like data entry and physical paper processes, so you can focus on what really matters: people. 

Formstack customers save an average of 18 hours per week


Creating HR Workflows with Formstack 

Looking for one tool to streamline many of your time-consuming HR tasks? Formstack is a great option. Our workflow automation platform includes secure online forms, automated document generation, and electronic signatures. Enable any employee within your HR department to create the workflows they need in minutes with our drag-and-drop, no-code solution. 

All of the workflows below are easily built within Formstack’s suite of workplace productivity tools. With Formstack, you can automate the processes that matter most to your department—securely, in the cloud, and without code.

Job Application Workflow 

When you’re on the hunt for the best talent, you need a system that works quickly, correctly, and efficiently. Skip the manual work and automate your job application workflow with Formstack! Use one tool to streamline the entire process, from application submission to signing an offer letter. 


Step 1: Job Application Form 

Build a beautiful job application form in minutes with our drag-and-drop form builder. Start with our job application template and customize as needed. Use the Email Confirmations and Notifications to automate email messages across applicants, the HR team, and hiring managers upon form completion.   

Step 2: Interview Workflow 

By adding a workflow to your form, you can assign team members for each interview and collect their feedback within a single form. Recruiters or hiring managers can select to move an applicant forward or not, which then sends the appropriate messaging automatically. 

Pro Tip: You can make a duplicate of this workflow and tweak as necessary for other types of hiring workflows, such as internship applications or short-term contracts. 

Step 3: Employment Offer Letter 

Once an applicant is selected for a role, connect the form to our Documents product to automatically generate an offer letter. Any information collected within your forms can be automatically inserted into the document, eliminating the need to copy and paste data. Get a jumpstart by using our employment offer letter template

Related: Candidate Experience Matters: 3 Practical Tips for Successful Hiring


Onboarding Workflow 

Welcoming new employees to your organization should be an exciting time—not stressful. Take the pain out of employee onboarding by eliminating paperwork, email chains, and manual data entry. Set up your system once to enable your HR team to gather important employee data quickly, easily, and securely. 


Step 1: Onboarding Portal 

Forget the days of tracking employee form completion through a spreadsheet. Formstack’s Portals tool is an intuitive web portals system that acts as an easily accessible hub for your forms. Set automated reminders, track completions, and provide employees a one-stop shop for their entire onboarding experience. 


Step 2: Forms and Training

The onboarding portal can store all forms employees need to fill out within their first few weeks at work. This could include gathering data on: 

This portal can also house employee training and quizzes. If you want to house educational content within a form, simply add a description box at the top to add text, or you can embed a video. After reading or watching, employees can submit their quiz answers and automatically receive a pass or fail message. 

Learn More: How to Create a Basic Employee Training Program with Formstack


Step 3: Employee Handbook Agreement 

Improve the new employee experience by packaging everything employees must sign off on within a single electronic document. Never make employees download an array of documents or search through email attachments ever again! Easily create a digital new hire handbook that lives within the onboarding portal and allows employees to electronically sign or initial each page. Automate all tracking, reminders, and completion data in one single tool. 

Annual Review Workflow 

Streamline your annual review process by creating a single workflow that flows across individual contributors, managers, and department heads. With a single platform, you can gather data, dissect it, and redistribute it in an easy-to-digest format. 


Step 1: Employee Self-review 

Kickoff your annual review workflow by providing individual contributors a self-assessment form. Use Smart Lists to make picking department, manager, and role easy across all forms. Add Save and Resume to ensure employees are able to work on their review over time instead of in a single go. 

Why spend $30-50K on complicated annual review software when you can use Formstack instead? Carolyn shares her story above. 

Step 2: Manager Review

Upon employee submission, the manager receives an automated alert and is asked to fill out their assessment of the employee. To remove bias, the employee's self-assessment responses are hidden, but other fields—such as how the employee wants to grow and develop—are visible. If the review is tied to a salary increase, Approvals can be added to streamline this process.  

Step 3: Final Review Documentation 

Upon manager submission, all the information from the workflow is automatically sent into a beautiful Documents template. This can be created within the no-code builder or uploaded from a Word document. This creates a comprehensive document for the manager and employee to review together. Add in a document delivery integration to securely store the review in your preferred document storage tool. 

Start automating more of your HR systems now! 

It’s your job to focus on people. To do that, you need processes in place that free up your time so you can get to work on bigger problems than manual data entry. With Formstack, you can easily build the automated, efficient workflows you need to skip the paperwork and never need to hit copy and paste again. 

The workflows above only scratch the surface of possible automations. Discover more ways Formstack can help you automate, optimize, and simplify your HR processes

automate your workflows now



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Lindsay McGuire
Lindsay is the Content Marketing Manager at Formstack, splitting her time between creating blog content, writing reports, and hosting Formstack's Practically Genius podcast. She's a proud graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism (MIZ!) and loves connecting with others on LinkedIn.
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