How robota.ua automated HR processes with PeopleForce. Case study

About robota.ua

robota.ua is the first online platform for job searches and recruitment in Ukraine. The company's mission is to help job seekers and employers find each other as quickly, easily, and stress-free as possible.

Over the past year, around 60,000 employers have found employees using the company's website. That's why robota.ua wanted to improve its internal HR processes and achieve more ambitious goals. This could only be done by developing employees as the company's main asset.

As such, robota.ua was looking for an HRM system with powerful functionality for personnel management, recruitment assistance, goal setting, and talent development capabilities.

We spoke with Yuliya Babaieva, the HRD at robota.ua, Irina Lytvynova, Head of HR Administration and Reporting at robota.ua and Kateryna Radko, Internal Communications and Employer Brand Manager robota.ua, who explained why they chose PeopleForce, how difficult the decision to switch was and how the setup and automation processes were carried out. We also wanted to understand how the robota.ua team perceived the difference between PeopleForce and other products.

Why PeopleForce?

robota.ua started using the Ukrainian HRM system PeopleForce before the beginning of 2022. The team required tools for performance tracking, OKR goal setting, and employee assessment, and wanted to work with a fellow Ukrainian company. PeopleForce was able to assist and offer tools for HR process management and recruiting in a single system.

At that time, robota.ua's partners had an urgent need to create and fill an internal portal for employees, so using an all-in-one system was crucial. Thus, the team considered a complete transition from previous products to PeopleForce.

We are completely satisfied with the transition process. We have received positive feedback from the team regarding the ease and intuitiveness of using the system. It warms our hearts to use a Ukrainian product because PeopleForce is truly a worthy solution on par with its Western counterparts. Even more so: the system has numerous advantages and benefits even compared to global HR Tech industry players.

— Irina Lytvynova, Head of HR Administration and Reporting at robota.ua

Automating OKR

The process of automating goal-setting at robota.ua started long before the full transition to PeopleForce. The company worked under the OKR framework and looked for proposals on the market to better implement it into their workflow. With the help of the PeoplePerform module by PeopleForce, the company successfully set goals for its employees at the beginning of 2022. In August, the goals were reviewed and, despite the ongoing war of aggression against Ukraine, the majority of the targets were successfully hit by the company’s top management.

• Recommendation from the team: Try to set and achieve goals that are transparent to everyone, as this will help set the basis for annual employee evaluations.

Since the system is intuitive, management requires minimal support when setting goals.

What they liked:

• The objective tree
• Set objectives for both departments and individual employees
• Percentage values to monitor objective progress
• Employee objectives are listed on their personal dashboard for easy viewing and check-ins
• Reminder settings to ensure the team doesn't forget to update objectives periodically
• Accessible analytics to view real-time progress

We spent two weeks building and distributing OKRs in the PeopleForce system. When one of our partners asked us to share our experience, we initially didn't believe it was possible. Similar setups in other European systems can take months.

— Yulia Babayeva, HRD at robota.ua

Automation of holiday accruals and leave requests

The company received a ready-made tool for implementing leave requests that only needed to be configured, without separate applications or programs. The process is fully managed by the responsible HR specialist, so there is no need to seek additional customization.

What they liked:

• It took less than 2 weeks to launch the process.
• Previously, waiting for an individual request for an additional application was necessary, but with PeopleForce, everything is all-in-one and immediately accessible.
• The system calculates leaves according to assigned policies.
• Functions only need to be set up once; then the system takes care of everything automatically.
• You can assign multiple policies for calculating leaves for different departments or positions.

PeopleForce allows employees to see how many vacation days they have available, and how many and when they have taken. Our employees have reported that they find the system convenient and customer-oriented.

— Irina Lytvynova, Head of HR administration and Reporting at robota.ua.

Automating the newsfeed and knowledge base

A high priority for robota.ua was to fill its knowledge base using the PeopleHR module. Thanks to this tool, any employee can easily find the history of the company, its values, contacts of the HR department and help desk, brand book, description of benefits, and more.

The robota.ua knowledge base is structured as follows: there are seven folders for documents or texts - one for each main department. Representatives of the departments can easily upload whatever they need to their respective folders.

If someone from the team has a question, we simply provide them with a link to the knowledge base, simplifying the work routine and saving time. Previously, we also worked with a knowledge base from another product but couldn't quickly find materials, links or documents in it. There were difficulties in adding instructions. With PeopleForce, we had no problems with that.

— Kateryna Radko, Internal Communications and Employer Brand Manager robota.ua

The company also actively uses a newsfeed , to the extent that it has a separate content plan with a rubricator that is updated weekly with new information. Publications are released frequently (at a rate of 2-3 per week) and some of them are published by email.

News and newsletters help us increase engagement and encourage people to log into the system to monitor their vacations and goals.

— Kateryna Radko, Internal Communications and Employer Brand Manager robota.ua

Recruiting automation

The robota.ua team also started using the PeopleRecruit module, which is responsible for automating recruitment processes. Here are the features that proved to be the most attractive to the company:

• The ability to organize employee profiles, and add custom information fields
• The ability to post job openings from one system to job boards
• A well-structured recruitment funnel that makes it easy to move candidates through the selection stages
• A convenient PeopleProspector plugin that allows the user to add candidates to the company's database quickly
• A user-friendly interface

Top 5 advantages of PeopleForce according to robota.ua:

1. Speed of transition and process building

Compared to other HRM systems, most complex processes can be configured in up to 14 days.

2. A single system with a full set of tools is better than separate customizations

In alternative systems, separate customization is required for each function and process. In PeopleForce, all tools are already at hand.

3. One person can perform all configurations

From the administrator's point of view, working with the system is very simple. There is no need to create a large team to assist with process migration, or to wait for additional help with the development of these processes.

4. Easy communication with the team regarding usage

Since PeopleForce has an intuitive interface, the team has no problem using it. All routine issues are resolved using the knowledge base, and simple instructions can be posted publicly and shared via links.

5. Access to customer success support

The PeopleForce support team has its own knowledge base with instructions on how to use the system, communicates in English and Ukrainian, and listens to customer wishes.

Review from robota.ua:

For us, life is either before or after PeopleForce. It's a completely different level of employee experience. We have the impression that thanks to this system, our 2022 was successful in terms of implementing long-awaited work processes that we had been contemplating for a long time. Therefore, based on our own experience, we recommend to those who are hesitant - switch to PeopleForce and bring your HR processes in order in just a few days.

— Yulia Babayeva, HRD at robota.ua