Written by For every election, the Election Operations Center hires over 1,000 temporary employees to help with election functions. Both processes have a combined total of 30 steps that a new hire must complete, and this is all for a 1-3 days assignment.
Meghan Taylor is a Senior Clerk at LA County’s Election Operations Center (EOC), and the primary focus of her role has become Lean Six Sigma Consulting. After 73% of her election new hires didn’t show up for training, she knew her new project would be improving the Hiring Process.
After mapping these processes, there were numerous opportunities identified. It looked like the entire process needed to be redone, but Meghan’s team was able to brainstorm and implement all their solutions in under 4 months!
The team started by changing the position title of their most common role from “Swamper” to Check-In Center Loading Assistant to better align with the position’s responsibilities. Next, the size of the application was reduced to just one page. They utilized the state’s minimum hiring requirements to increase the number of completed applications and reduce the number of hires being turned down for forgetting the usual hiring paperwork. The team also checked-in with their hires more frequently—3 times prior to election day versus just once. Lastly, they changed their payment structure to a stipend model.
The results were numerous:
- They met their recruitment goal in 4 weeks vs. 4 months
- Employee turn-out on Election Night was 83% vs. 56% for the previous election
- Application processing time reduced from 10 days to just minutes
- Total process reduced from 30 to 22 steps
- Payroll processing reduced from 5 days to 1 day
- Employees earning overtime reduced from 40 people to just 11 people
Election Day ran smoother than ever and everyone on the team enjoyed a simpler, easier hiring process.
Listen to the entire podcast or read the transcript at https://goleansixsigma.com/project-presentation-webinar-improving-hiring-process-la-county-meghan-taylor/