Client
Elinext is an international software development company that delivers top-notch custom solutions. We make software for our customers; sometimes, our products are handy for internal use. Elinext Talents is one of 20+ software solutions now being used in everyday activities within the company.
As we offer custom software development services for such systems to our clients as well, the system may be used as a base for such a product.
Project Description
Our company needed an integrated talent management system. So the team started to work on the project back in 2019. Elinext Talent is a talent management system designed to help our company, Elinext carry out its talent management processes.
Those processes include but are not limited to: workforce planning, performance appraisal, competency management, career development, and upskilling.
Key functionalities of the system after the implementation of the current version (Release 6.7) are the following:
Centralized Database: A single repository for storing all relevant information about employees, projects, their availability, and positions.
Role-Based Access: Different access levels for Admins, Resource Managers, Project Managers, and Employees, ensuring data security and relevant access.
Employee Profiles: Detailed records of employee notes, skills, experience, documents, reminders, CVs, and current/previous project assignments.
CV Editor: A simple tool for creating CVs in PDF and DOCX format, with the ability to anonymize project names.
CV Sharing Tool: A feature that allows to sharing of CVs between employees within the company.
Resource Allocation: Tools for Resource Managers and Project Managers to efficiently allocate and monitor the utilization of human resources.
All of these Talent Management System (TMS) features were adjusted or added based on company needs at a certain time and are now included in the current version of the product.
Challenges
As our tech company, Elinext was actively expanding, and the number of employees already exceeded several hundred, it was necessary to ensure effective employee management. It is essential to have a tool that consolidates all important information about each employee.
Talents is a comprehensive solution designed for both employees and managers. It offers a centralized platform for managing data on employees and projects within the company, serving as a superior alternative to the traditional use of Excel spreadsheets.
Taking into account the company's focus on custom software development, it is essential to swiftly assign employees to the new projects as they appear.
The process of finding suitable candidates, however, can often be tedious and time-consuming. Talent Management System (TMS) Talents streamlines this process, significantly reducing the time spent searching for employees with the necessary skill sets.
The business objectives of implementing a talent management system include:
BO1: Provide Elinext managers with complete information about their employees in one place, including skill sets, availability, notes, project experiences, and CVs.
BO2: Minimize the time and effort required by Elinext Managers to efficiently allocate resources to new projects.
BO3: Ensure that the workforce is strategically aligned with the organization's short-term and long-term business objectives by providing insights into the current skills and capabilities of employees, identifying future talent needs, and developing succession plans.
BO4: Increase employee awareness of the company by accessing the Organisational Chart.
BO5: Increase employee satisfaction and engagement by offering career development opportunities, recognizing and rewarding high performance, and providing a clear path for career advancement.
Process
The team has chosen the Agile hybrid model (Kanban, Scrum, XP, Lean) to complete the project on time because the development team has a third-party workload on other commercial projects.
The chosen strategy and methodology led to the completion of the project stages within the established time frame.
The team aims for one release per month. However, due to the workload of our specialists on commercial projects, this rule did not apply to the last two releases.
Here is the timeline of the project that includes our Angular software development services:
MVP- Release 6.5.0 - (2019 – 05.08.2024)
Release 6.6.0 - (06.08.2024 -08.10.2024)
Release 6.7.0 - (09.10.2024 - 30.11.2024)
Release 6.8.0 - (01.12.2024 - now)
Solution
Talents is a comprehensive web-based talent management system designed to replace traditional Excel spreadsheets. We utilized our own web application development services for the project. It centralizes all employee and project data within the company.
The current version of the solution is 6.7. In its 6.7th release, Talents users gain access to essential functionalities, facilitating seamless and effective management of employee data and project assignments within the company.
But before diving into updates, let’s get into details about every module the software holds.The web system consists of 15 such modules.
Module 1: Profile Management
With the help of this module, user authorization is enabled: log in and log out, SSO, managing the avatar, and user position management is enabled here ( one can update the position, direction, and level of each employee).
Module 2: Integrations
With the help of this offer, the software is synched with the Identity, a security tool (to ensure consistency, security, privacy, user permissions, and real-time updates) and with another product of Elinext: Eliboard - our data visualization solution.
Module 3: Notes Management
The notes management module enables users to create notes (Feedback, One-on-Ones, Goals, Other), mark notes as important, set up their visibility, view the list of all notes, search for one, filter, and sort the notes.
Module 4: Personal Info Management
This module allows managers to enter and view personal information. The data includes info about the date of birth, phone number, Skype, work start date, etc.
Module 5: Skills Management
Skills could be approved manually, or put via auto-approval by the manager. The users can add, edit, and delete a skill to ensure the accuracy and completeness of employee skill sets. The module enables viewing the skills' history, it’s current state. Search and filtering as well as sorting of skills is also possible.
Module 6: Projects Management
With the help of this module, the manager can initiate and organize new projects for tracking project details, including timelines and team members.
Module 7: Documents Management
CRUD actions, viewing, downloading, filtering, and sorting of documents based on set criteria are enabled here.
Module 8: Reminders Management
This module enables the addition of reminders. Functionally, it enhances task management and ensures that critical deadlines are met. The user can add, edit, and delete a reminder, as well as track its completion. Reminders here could be set as renewable ones.
Managers (as well as admins) can create reminders for the other users of the system - usually, those are made for the team members by a resource manager. As they create these reminders, they can choose notification recipients: users who would receive these reminder emails.
Module 9: CV Management
CRUD actions for CVs are enabled within this module. This module enhances the completeness of employee profiles by incorporating detailed qualifications. All of that ensures consistency, uniformity, and completeness by utilizing a standardized template.
Module 10: CV Sharing
This module facilitates the distribution of employee's CVs within the company. The manager can create a CV link, and share it, so CVs can be downloaded in convenient formats (.doc or .pdf).
Module 11: Notification Management
The notification management module allows managers to set up notifications to be received by him/her and the connected employees. These could be reminder notifications, skills review notifications, of shared CV link notifications.
Module 12: Organizational Chart
With the help of this module, one can have a clear and comprehensive overview of the organizational structure. Within the module, one could change the view of the org chart, expand or collapse it, find their own employee card, or search for an employee.
Module 13: Colleagues
This module enables viewing of all types of users access to a comprehensive list of colleagues, with positions, emails, resource managers, and locations. One can search for a colleague, filter their list, and sort based on certain criteria.
Module 14: Employees
With the help of this module, admins, resource managers, and project managers have access to a comprehensive list of their connected employees. Viewing the profiles, and archived cards is enabled. One can search for an employee, filter, and sort their lists. The info about the employees is formatted into 14 columns. It is possible to switch between them and change their placement in this module.
Module 15: Administration
Skills and role management are enabled with the help of the administration module.
The manual testing of the Talents app is being performed. These Quality Assurance software services included new feature testing, functional testing, regression testing, and smoke testing. New feature releases are frequent, and some new modules might be added in the near future.
Results
The management of employees is now carried out in our internal product - integrated talent management system Elinext Talents. All relevant information about employees is stored here. All Elinext employees are able to view and manage their profiles.
The next version of the product will be Release 6.8.0. The release will include software enhancement, such as the improvement of the current functionality, including CV Editor, CV Links, Documents, Notes, Skill Review process, and Permission Management.
The new Grades module is planned to be introduced. It will provide users with a structured view and selection of specific grades (within the company). The first stage of the module's implementation will facilitate role-based skill development by enabling users to select from predefined categories (Position, Direction, and Level) and view associated competencies and skills required for each.
Stage 2 of the Grades module implementation will include skills assessment. The system will analyze which skills an employee has and which skills he/she needs to acquire to receive the next grade.
The project has found very positive reviews from the employees and massively helps the company with its daily tasks. A user-friendly interface helps to showcase our UI/UX design services as well.
