The modern workplace is constantly changing, and with that change comes new challenges for HR professionals. One of the most difficult tasks that an HR department faces is the hiring process.
If you’re like most businesses, the hiring process can be long and arduous. From getting the right candidates to signing offer letters, there are many steps that need to be taken in order to make a successful hire. There are many documents that need to be signed, and it’s often difficult to get everyone in the same place at the same time.
One way to make the process a little bit easier is to use e-signature software. This software can help you speed up the hiring process by allowing you to sign documents electronically. This means that you can get the documents signed quickly and easily, without having to wait for everyone to be in the same place.
Quick Tip:  Searching for the perfect e-signature software, you can now check the review of different e-signature software on our website. |
In this blog post, we will discuss how e-signature software can streamline the hiring process and make it more efficient for your company. We will also provide tips on how to choose the right e-signature software for your business.
What is a Digital Signature?
E-Signature or digital signature can refer to any electronic signature used to sign a document. In a simple way, it is the signature that is not on paper but exists in digital form. In order for a digital signature to be binding, it needs to meet certain legal requirements, such as being unique to the signer and attached to the document in such a way that it can’t be detached without altering the document.
In order to attain top-notch security measures, a digital signature should meet the following requirements:
- The digital or electronic signature must be a valid one.
- The certificate should be current and not outdated.
- The company or enterprise must be trustworthy.
- The signing certificate should be obtained from a well-established certificate authority.
Digital signatures are becoming increasingly common as more businesses move towards doing everything electronically. They offer a number of advantages over traditional paper-based signatures, including:
- They’re more secure
A digital signature is much harder to forge than a traditional signature. This makes it more difficult for someone to fraudulently sign a document on your behalf. For example, if you’re sending a contract to someone for them to sign using PandaDoc, you can be sure that the signature is genuine.
- They’re more efficient
With a digital signature, you can sign a document without having to print it out and sign it in person. This saves time and makes the process more convenient. For example, if you’re signing a contract with someone who is in another country, you can do it electronically with a tool like DocuSign without having to mail the document back and forth.
- They’re more environmentally friendly
By eliminating the need to print documents, digital signatures can help reduce your company’s carbon footprint. Suppose you’re signing a contract that’s 100 pages long. If you were to print out the document and sign it, you would use up a lot of paper. However, if you sign it electronically with Adobe Sign, for example, you can save all that paper.
- They’re easy to use across industries and countries
Unlike traditional signatures, which can be difficult to verify if you’re doing business internationally, digital signatures created using Proposify can be easily verified regardless of where you are in the world. For example, if you’re signing a contract with someone in the United States, you can be sure that the signature will be valid in Australia.
- They offer a way better experience for clients and employees alike
In the past, getting a document signed could often be a frustrating experience. With digital signatures, the process is much smoother and can be completed in just a few clicks. Suppose you’re signing a contract with someone. In the past, you would have had to print out the document, sign it, and then scan it back into your computer. With digital signature tools like Formstack Sign, you can simply open the document, click “sign,” and be done from anywhere and with any device.
- They enhance collaboration
With digital signatures, multiple parties can sign a document simultaneously. This makes it easier to get everyone’s signature on a document in a timely manner. For example, if you’re signing a contract with three other people, you can all sign it at the same time using Eversign without having to wait for each person to sign and return the document.
- They offer centralized document storage
With digital signatures, all of your documents can be stored in one central location. This makes it easy to find and track documents and ensures that you always have a copy on hand. Suppose you’re looking for a contract that you signed with someone. In the past, you would have had to search through your paper files to find them. With digital signature tools like HelloSign, you can simply pull it up on your computer.
- They allow for workflow tracking
With digital signatures, you can track the progress of a document through the signing process. This makes it easy to see who has signed a document and when and helps ensure that all documents are signed promptly. For example, if you’re waiting for a contract to be signed by three other people, you can easily see who has signed and who hasn’t with tools like signNow airSlate.
- Get paid faster
With digital signature tools like SignRequest, you can ensure to get paid faster by signing documents electronically. This means that you don’t have to wait for a check to come in the mail or for someone to physically sign a document. Suppose you’re selling a product to someone. In the past, you would have had to wait for them to sign a contract and then mail it back to you. With digital signatures, you can simply send them the contract electronically, and they can sign it and return it to you immediately.
- Authenticity
With the help of e-signatures or digital signatures, you will be able to attain top-notch authenticity in no time. It proves that your signature is a verified one and can be used in any court of law. Certain features such as time stamping and archiving documents tend to simplify and improve audit and compliance.
- Business Reputation
If your business deals with digitally signed documents, it will automatically make all the individuals feel absolutely safe and secure. As a result, you can now enjoy the boosted market value followed by the reputation of the organization.
- Excellent Alternative Option
Handwritten signatures often change their patterns under several events such as paralysis, hand injuries, aging, etc. This is where digital signatures can act as a major boon for life. It is an excellent alternative that can help you get rid of all the hassles and hindrances of using your hand gestures.
Digital signatures offer many advantages over traditional paper-based signatures. If you’re looking for a way to streamline your hiring process, e-signature software can make things streamlined. This software can help you speed up the process by allowing you to sign documents electronically.
At SaleSGenius we have reviewed some of the top e-signature software out there to help the process simple for you. Go through them and ensure you make an informed decision.
What Types of Documents Can the HR Sign Electronically?
Take a look at the types of documents that can be signed using an electronic signature:
- Offer letter
- Job descriptions
- Employment contracts
- Retention bonus agreements
- Restrictive covenants
- Business terms of services
- Employment handbook
- Company pension agreements
- Non-disclosure agreements
- Equality and diversity questionnaire
- Health insurance
- Employee personal data such as contact details
- Data protection and privacy policy
- General HR procedures and policies
- Casual worker agreements
- Communication and IT policies
- Zero hours contract
- PTO forms or leave of absence
- Intellectual property policy
- Grievance policy
- Promotion agreements
- Health and safety policy
- Roles and responsibilities updates
- Goal agreement forms
- Appraisal forms
- Training certificate
- Manage guide agreements
- Bonus agreements
- Incident report forms
- Timesheets
- Exit interview attestation
- Temporary layoff
- End of contract agreement
Signing all these documents individually for each of the employees might be extremely time-consuming. But, shifting to digital signatures can remove your workload seamlessly. With just a few clicks, you can now sign all the documentation whenever required.
What Are Some of the Types of Electronic Signatures?
Check out the most common types of electronic signatures stated below in this article:
- A name is written at the bottom or end of an email
- A photo or a scanned copy of a handwritten signature
- A signature that is written on a screen with the help of a stylus
- A signature that is designed using a well-reputed e-signature platform such as DocuSign.
Are e-Signatures Legal?
It is normal to be cautious when it comes to signing documents electronically. After all, you want to make sure that your signature will be legally binding. Fortunately, electronic signatures are perfectly legal and are actually becoming increasingly common in the business world. In fact, the US government has been using electronic signatures for over 15 years.
There are a number of laws that govern electronic signatures, including the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA) and the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (ESIGN).
These laws establish the legal equivalence of electronic signatures and traditional paper-based signatures. This means that an electronically signed document is just as legally binding as a document that has been physically signed with a pen and paper.
If you’re doing business internationally, it’s important to note that electronic signatures are also governed by the Hague Convention on the Law of Treaties. This convention, which was ratified by the US in 2001, establishes the legal validity of electronic signatures for international agreements.
So, if you’re looking for a way to make your hiring process more efficient, e-signature software is a great option. Not only is it perfectly legal, but it can also help you save time and money.
How Should You Opt for the Right Digital Signature for Your Organization?
While looking for the perfect electronic signature, there are certain points that you must keep in your mind:
- The signature should be legally binding.
- It must consider offering guarantees of compliance with laws and regulations.
- It should enable workflow in order to expedite the document’s approval by various signatories.
- It must come with the option of bulk signatures so that you can automate the signature process for thousands of documents.
By remembering these crucial tips, you can now take a step toward choosing an electronic signature.
The Need for e-Signature Software in HR Processes
The slow and expensive recruitment process has been a burden on the HR department for years. The process often requires printing, scanning, and faxing documents, which can be time-consuming and costly.
With the advent of e-signature software, the recruitment process has become much easier and more efficient. This software allows you to sign documents electronically, which means that you don’t have to print them out or scan them in.
Hiring is a rat race. The first company to sign a candidate usually gets the employee. This gives you an advantage over companies that are still using paper-based signatures. As an HR, you are responsible for:
- Sending out dozens of offer letters each day
- Managing the benefits of employees in different departments
- Connecting to hundreds of potential candidates on social media, like LinkedIn
- Dealing with employee issues within your organization
There is a lot of time spent on administrative tasks, like sending offer letters and managing benefits. This time could be better spent on other tasks, like finding new candidates or dealing with employee issues.
E-signature software can help you save time by automating the process of sending offer letters. With this software, you can create templates for your offer letters and send them out with just a few clicks.
Not only does this save you time, but it also allows you to track the progress of each document. You can see when a document has been signed and who has signed it. This helps to ensure that all documents are signed promptly and that there are no delays in the hiring process.
Signing the hiring documents the old-fashioned way has a few flaws. The manual process of printing, signing, and scanning documents can lead to errors and may result in:
- Loss of employee productivity
- Inability to track everyone’s role in the hiring process (who has the hiring document, who has signed it, who it was sent to, who is aware of the signature, and more)
- Painfully slow hiring speeds
This can have a direct impact on your organizational productivity. When employees are busy doing administrative tasks, they’re not able to focus on their core job responsibilities.
Each time someone from your workspace goes to the printing room to get documents signed, takes time out of their day to deal with messy paperwork or stops to look for a file, it’s a potential opportunity cost. In other words, your company is losing its valuable productivity in bogus busy work, and it’s all because you’re still using paper-based signatures.
E-signature software can help you eliminate these errors and inefficiencies. With this software, you can create and send documents in a blink of an eye and track the progress of each document. This allows you to focus on your core job responsibilities and save time in the hiring process.
How Can Digital Signatures Help with Process Optimization?
All the companies perform a lot of employee-related tasks on a regular basis; most of the jobs include signing documents. This is where an electronic signature can be extremely beneficial. You will be able to optimize all the tasks in an effortless manner.
From the beginning to the end of an employee’s journey, these digital signatures will help you save a lot of time. Check out the points mentioned below right away:
- Onboarding and Recruitment
Every enterprise comes with an HR department whose sole purpose revolves around hiring new employees in their organization. However, the lengthy administrative process might persuade the candidates to change their decisions. But, a digital signature can effectively speed up the entire process and cut off management times. It also helps with occupational risk prevention.
- After Hiring an Employee
Several tasks such as teleworking agreements, salaries, holiday agreements, contract extensions, severance payment, leave of absence, and termination documents come with the need for signatures on them. You can now ensure peace of mind by implementing electronic signatures as soon as possible.
How to Use e-Signature Software for the Recruitment Process?
Electronic signatures track, authenticate and store the signer information along with the signatures at each and every stage of the contract lifecycle. These e-signatures are unique to each signer, just like the handwritten ones.
E-signature software can be used for a variety of HR processes, like onboarding, offer letters, and benefits management.
For example, you can use e-signature software to send out offer letters. With this software, you can create templates for your offer letters and send them out with just a few clicks. This saves you time and allows you to track the progress of each document.
You can also use e-signature software to manage the benefits of employees in different departments. With this software, you can keep track of all the documents that need to be signed and who has signed them. This helps to ensure that all documents are signed promptly and that there are no delays in the hiring process.
To use e-signature software for the recruitment process, you first need to create an account and then upload the documents that need to be signed. Once the documents are uploaded, you can send them out to the employees who need to sign them.
The employees will receive an email with a link to the document. They can then click on the link and sign the document electronically. Once the document is signed, it will be emailed back to you.
You can also use e-signature software to track the progress of each document. This helps to ensure that all documents are signed promptly and that there are no delays in the hiring process.
What Makes the Best e-Signature Software for Hiring Process?
While hiring employees in an organization, the HR department relies on the process of signing employment forms in order to gain better knowledge about their employees.
However, signing on traditional paperwork might be incredibly hectic for the candidate. Since the human resource department solely focuses on secure, timely, and lawfully binding processes, the utmost requirement for a digitized way of electronically signing documents would ensure a faster and more secure way of getting access to legal documents like termination letters, and offer letters, etc. It leads to tamper-proof and forgery-free documents in no time.
There are a few things that you should look for when choosing e-signature software for your hiring process.
- First, you want to make sure that the software is easy to use. You don’t want to spend hours trying to figure out how to use the software. The best e-signature software is user-friendly and can be used by anyone, regardless of their technical skills.
- Second, you want to make sure that the software is secure. You don’t want to have to worry about your documents being hacked or stolen. The best e-signature software uses top-of-the-line security measures to protect your documents.
- Third, you want to make sure that the software is affordable. You don’t want to spend a fortune on software that you’re only going to use for a few months. The best e-signature software is affordable and offers a variety of pricing options to fit your budget.
- Fourth, you want to make sure that the software integrates with your existing HR systems. You don’t want to have to worry about manually transferring data from one system to another. The best e-signature software seamlessly integrates with your existing HR systems, so you can focus on more important things.
- Fifth, you want to make sure that the customer support is top-notch. You don’t want to have to wait days or weeks for a response when you have a question or issue. The best e-signature software has responsive customer support that can help you with any problems you have.
- Finally, make sure that the e-signature software can add digital signatures to any document. This will save you time and ensure that all your documents are legally binding. Most importantly, ensure that it supports small-to-mid-sized businesses.
Not all e-signature software is created equal, and not all of them will fit the needs of your business. Do your research and choose the best e-signature software for your hiring process.
What Are the Differences Between Handwritten Signatures and Digital Signatures?
Now, let’s dig deeper to understand some of the differences between digital signatures and handwritten signatures:
- A digital signature is a protection that is afforded by a signer of an organization. On the other hand, a handwritten signature is connected to a specific individual biologically.
- Several ‘bad guys’ have practiced forgery of handwritten signatures. However, virtual forgery of digital signatures is next to impossible. The mechanisms behind both the handwritten and digital signs differ from one another to a whole new level.
- While handwritten signatures can be directly controlled by human beings, digital signatures include the involvement of computers.
- The services related to data integration offered by digital signatures are way stronger and more robust than that of handwritten signatures.
- Digital signatures can be notarized, whereas handwritten signatures can be witnessed.
- Digital signatures come with more security measures when compared to handwritten ones.
- The handwritten signatures are easy to understand and extremely simple. On the other hand, designing a digital signature can be a little bit complicated and complex. It consists of several theories, communication protocols, workings of computer operating systems, certificate policies, etc. You can get in touch with a digital signature firm in order to generate a unique sign for yourself.
What Are the Other Uses of Digital Signatures?
Almost all the business industries have shifted to electronic signatures now! Be it a large enterprise or a small firm, relying on these digital signatures has helped them streamline their daily activities. Check out the pointers stated below, and you will be able to uncover the sectors where digital signatures are used:
- Healthcare
Doctors, insurers, and patients can benefit from these digital signatures to a great extent. It allows them to save a lot of time and focus on several other aspects that require their attention. As a result, it improves overall productivity and workflow in the best possible manner. Without these e-signatures, achieving several goals might seem like a real task.
- Small to Medium Enterprise
To be honest, competing with the whales in this competitive market might take a toll on the medium or small firms. However, these electronic signatures can make their life a little bit easier. It can speed up the entire process, thus resulting in product iteration, faster sales cycle, more responsive customer service, etc. These digital signatures allow the business owners to sign the contracts the moment after they are drafted.
- Industrial Relations
If you choose to switch to these electronic signatures, you can get the scope to work in a more organized manner. It helps you to obtain all the essential information related to an employee. Apart from that, e-signatures link better with the social networks, thus helping to spread the union’s reach. It gives them the opportunity to organize privately and with impact and higher participation.
- Government
The government bodies are required to sign millions of documents per month. Dealing with so many papers and putting a sign on them might take forever. But, these electronic signatures have evolved as a real blessing in this specific sector. Signing the important documents is similar to a smooth cakewalk now.
- Disability Services
Several individuals tend to manage their own organizations while suffering from certain kinds of disabilities. However, desktop computers and handheld devices come with the option of enlarging the font size in order to gain a better understanding. It allows an individual to go through the documents without facing any types of hassles and hindrances.
- Finance
In this finance sector, people tend to use electronic signatures for various purposes. Loans and credit forms come with the option of digital signatures.
- Manufacturing
Various manufacturing sectors use electronic signatures as an approach to pace up the overall process in their organization. The plethora of procedures might include quality assurance or QA, product design, marketing, and sales and manufacturing enhancements. The implementation of electronic signatures in this manufacturing industry is governed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), National Institute of Standard and Technology (NIST), and Digital Manufacturing Certificate (DMC).
- Cryptocurrencies
You can use digital signatures in cryptocurrencies and bitcoin in order to authenticate the blockchain. Apart from that, electronic signatures can also be used to take care of transaction data associated with cryptocurrency. It portrays the participation or ownership of the currency in a specific transaction.
- Military
The military is definitely one of the most sensitive sectors that have come across a lot of improvements after the implementation of digital signatures. Honestly, compartmentalization of security and information has improved tenfold.
Conclusion
This concludes our blog post on how to use e-signature software to enhance your hiring process. We hope you found this information helpful and that you will consider using e-signature software for your own HR processes.
E-signature software is a great way to improve your HR processes. It can save you time, money, and increase your organizational productivity. When choosing e-signature software, make sure to look for software that is easy to use, secure, affordable, and integrates with your existing HR systems. Also, make sure that the customer support is top-notch and that the software can add digital signatures to any document. With the right e-signature software, you can streamline your hiring process and improve your bottom line.