In July 2022, we hosted an Employee Module webinar and were joined by two fantastic OpenAsset clients: RJC Engineers and Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG). During our chat, we touched on many facets of the Employee Module – ranging from its integrations with 3rd party systems, to how it fosters workplace culture, and everything in between.
We highly recommend checking out the full webinar, but if you’re short on time, this blog captures some of the key quotes, directly from our clients. To give context, we’ve prefaced each quote with the challenge or benefit that is discussed. Let’s dig in.
Subscribing to OpenAsset and the Employee Module has shaped how many of our clients approach the proposal creation process. Learn the different ways it has benefitted the team at RJC:
“Being this national firm, working on a wide variety of projects, and bringing in expertise from various offices, it’s been a great tool for collaborating – and it really starts with that searchability that we have within OpenAsset… For our employees, [we can search] what engineers are within this city, have these credentials, have worked on these office towers [for example],… Then we can really customize that resume and have it automatically generated in InDesign… Previously we would have had a resume for someone’s office tower experience and their recreation center experience, and we’d be trying to maintain their credentials and education in two places, but now we can do that in one place… and then we also use that InDesign plugin not just for resume creation but also to create proposals – so bringing in imagery, project descriptions, etc.”
And hear how the resume creation process allows BIG to create specialized bios while standardizing the rest of the process:
“For particular sectors, we’re pursuing more and more, maybe several of our associates need to have both their general bio as well as a more specialized one, so we talked about creating this additional biofield that could populate that [specialized] resume…. And then OpenAsset can generate template, upon a template, upon the template that is consistent in every other way [aside from the new bio] – with no typos, no text boxes moving around [that would happen if you were copying and pasting]”
The task of inputting Employee / Project data and keeping it up to date can be daunting, but it doesn’t need to land on the shoulders of just one person. Learn how the team at BIG shares this responsibility:
“We have a hybrid system. We rely on Project leaders to compile their best images and update their Project information directly into OpenAsset… We also utilize other team members in different offices who we’ve trained to add those BIGsters [BIG employees] into the system and upload their photos… Our Communications team is responsible for uploading information such as press releases and press clippings… We also have a dedicated team of two, who go through and normalize that data and ensure everything is entered consistently. We are in multiple countries, so we have to do things such as turning S’s into Z’s [and other language changes]. Then we insert additional tagging that contributes to the structural organization of our Projects and the connection to those BIGsters associated with those Projects.”
Many firms have duplicate data scattered across a range of platforms, from their CRMs to their intranets to their public-facing websites. This is often especially true for employee information. Read how RJC is using OpenAsset to streamline this data usage:
“[Integrations] have been one of the greatest advantages that we didn’t realize we would even have before starting with OpenAsset… We recently launched a new website and we wanted to make it a lot more dynamic and ensure it stayed current. Previously, if an employee had received a new credential, we would have to update their bio, and their resumes, and remember also to do it on the website. Now, we’ve integrated OpenAsset with our website and it populates all the imagery, videos, bios, contact information, and projects. Our next steps will be to integrate OpenAsset with our CRM system to minimize how much time we spend doing that initial data entry”.
… And on the ease of setting up integrations:
“We weren’t aware of how easy it was to integrate… but now after working with this group for four years, we know how flexible and adaptable it is and how easy it is to integrate with other systems and we get the support from OpenAsset to do that.”
While the Employee Module has a number of ‘primary’ use cases, some of which have been outlined in this blog already, it can also offer some more unexpected or atypical benefits. Both RJC and BIG touched on some of these workflows
RJC: “It helps our corporate programs team too – they’re responsible for a lot of our risk management and security clearances, and this keeps things out of a static Excel sheet and into something that’s more suitable and used firm-wide”
BIG: “When our People Team are going through a visa renewal process, they’re looking through [someone who needs a visa’s] project list to justify that visa, as well as the dates of their employment… And this is where the system can be a little more user-friendly than an HR platform”
Whatsmore, both companies told us how the Employee module contributes to collaboration and culture
BIG: “It can be used to find who’s the best team member [for a specific project], or what other projects someone worked on, just finding out who that person is from a particular office [that they may have worked with but don’t know much about]… so it serves as kind of an internal Facebook”
RJC: “It shows our People and our Projects, but it also shows how we give back to the Community… so we capture invites [to community events], we capture all the assets, images, videos from building bridges in Bolivia, or planting trees, or riding to raise funds for cancer… and all of that is captured in our OpenAsset system, front, and center, and helps populate our website”
View the Full Webinar
This blog has only touched on a small portion of what was covered in the webinar. So, if this has intrigued you and you’re keen to learn more, watch the full webinar on demand. Alternatively, if you’re interested in learning more about the core benefits of the Employee Module, we discuss these in this blog.
If you’re ready to chat with one of our team to learn more about how the Employee Module could work for your firm, feel free to set up some time, here.
