Bristol City Council unveiled its new Job Shop and E-Recruiter online recruitment service

Bristol City Council (BCC), one of the country’s largest local authorities, unveiled its latest recruitment initiative last week, at a ceremony attended by the Lord Mayor Cllr Bill Martin. BCC’s new Job Shop is located at 38 College Green in Bristol, offering a complete recruitment service with personal advice and assistance, and a new web site where applicants can view the latest jobs and download details such as Job Descriptions and Employee Specifications. As of June 2004 applicants will be able to apply online as well. Workforce’s web-based Recruiter module is forming the backbone to the new service, providing seamless integration with BCC’s Workforce-based HRIS platform, providing the full range of HR and recruitment functionality.

As one of the largest employers in the South West, BCC offers an average of 30 new jobs every week, handling around 15,000 enquiries and processing 1000 applications per month. The programme to devise and introduce a new job website commenced some 18 months ago, with HR Information Systems Officer Antony Weeks responsible for evolving the new platform, working closely with the Intellect team to customise Workforce Recruiter to match BCC’s requirements. After the launch, a relieved if tired Antony commented: ìThis has been a tremendous project for the HRIS team, involving the creation of a brand-new web front-end and a lot of hard work! The Job Shop itself is the physical portal for the new service -staffed to provide a personal service to job seekers. There are also two terminals on site, where people can go online to our new E-Recruiter site and browse for themselves. Our objective is to provide as much flexibility as possible, as well as a friendly access point to the jobs on offer. We are already well underway with the second phase of the programme, which will involve offering a complete online application service. The software will also support multiple job applications, by auto-filling the forms if applications are made at the same time, therefore reducing the amount of data entering that applicants will have to do.

These improvements are a result of a Best Value Review of Personnel services. By integrating the entire recruitment process with our Workforce database, we are able to automate the cycle and achieve significant time and resource savings. From the public perspective, our aim is to open up BCC’s job opportunities to as wide an audience as possible. With E-Recruiter and our Job Shop, we are confident that we are offering a new portal to the Council’s job opportunities.î

The second phase of Workforce Recruiter will enable BCC to communicate vacancies and capture job applications via its new website, with applicant information being automatically fed from Workforce Recruiter into the main Workforce Recruitment Manager software. This streamlines the management of the entire recruitment cycle, as well as dramatically reducing paperwork and routine administration tasks.

BCC has fine-tuned Workforce Recruiter extensively, creating a new-look front-end, as well as tailoring the interfacing and download facilities in line with its E-Recruiter specification.

BCC’s HRIS team works under the supervision of Gill Wilmott, HR Systems Manager. The Council’s implementation of Workforce encompasses all aspects of the central HR reporting function, as well as e-recruitment, training monitoring and recording. It also includes a new online self-service access initiative that is due for launch later in 2004. Bristol City Council, under the democratic control of 70 elected councillors, provides a huge range of services to the South West’s regional capital city, and works hard to achieve value for money while meeting the service needs of local people. Workforce provides a key element to assist BCC with monitoring progress towards achieving these objectives.