Nlets Customer Story | Improve Recruiting and Onboarding

Building a Connected Workforce for Secure Information Sharing

When a driver with a criminal history crosses state lines, it is not guaranteed that their data is along for the ride. When law enforcement cannot access another state’s information about an individual, they are exposed to even more risk than is already intrinsic to the job.

Nlets, the International Justice & Public Safety Network, is a private, nonprofit organization that leverages its partnerships and platform to securely exchange data and share criminal justice information. To keep police officers safe, Nlets strives to get the right information to the people who need it as quickly as possible, and they do so with an average roadside query response time of 1.5 seconds.

Today, Nlets uses isolved People Cloud™ to employ, enable, and empower their staff and to ensure Nlets employees can be as productive as possible for the law enforcement agencies they serve. But that wasn't always the case. Nlets came to isolved with a similar challenge to the one their public safety partners face—the need to integrate data and systems for a single source of information.

At the time, Nlets was struggling with disconnected HR systems that required manual data transfers between payroll and timekeeping software, adding unnecessary administrative work for the HR team. Employee benefits updates and data changes also had to be processed manually, further increasing inefficiencies. A major motivator for adopting a single-source HCM platform was to empower employees with self-service tools, reducing HR’s workload while improving employee satisfaction.

One of the most significant efficiency gains that came with implementing isolved came from automating recruiting and onboarding—before, applicant tracking was handled through spreadsheets, and new-hire paperwork required manual processing. With isolved’s applicant tracking and onboarding features, HR and hiring managers now save considerable time, allowing them to focus on engaging employees rather than administrative tasks. “Instead of spending an afternoon looking up salary comps, I can have a one-on-one with a new employee,” says HR Manager Suzanne Church.

— Laura Carter, former Chief Human Resource Officer

“The impact of the transition to isolved was immense: it integrated our HR functions into a single system, which made management of our human resources functions much easier and more efficient,” said Laura Carter, Chief Human Resource Officer at the time. “The continual addition of features to the platform have supported our needs for human capital management (HCM). Since our original implementation in 2014, our staff numbers have increased by almost 25 percent, and we have continued to add resources to our isolved human resource information system (HRIS).”

“For example, we transitioned from the TimeForce system to isolved’s Time & Labor Management system and moved our external FSA plan to isolved fringe benefit services. More recently, we have added the applicant tracking system, learning management system (LMS) and new-hire onboarding. It seems that each time we have a new HR functionality we want to offer our employees, isolved is ready to meet our needs.”

Looking to the Future

In fact, the timing for adding on new functionality can, at times, be uncanny.

“Each year, our C-Suite comes together and brainstorms what we want the future of Nlets to look like,” said Carter. “One year we came up with needing to add an LMS, and, of course, isolved already had that capability. Then, this year, at the chiefs’ meeting, we discussed adding the capability for employees to make charitable contributions and for us to be able to match it. Boom! There was isolved, saying, 'We can do that with a recent acquisition.'”

As with isolved Giving & Volunteering and everything before it, we are excited each time that new features are released because we know isolved is on the cutting edge of what employees expect today from their employers.”

What attracted Nlets to new isolved solutions versus others in the market was the ability to intelligently connect all HR functions in a single solution.

“When a request for a new HR function arises, we research what platforms are out there,” said Carter. “Time after time, we’ve concluded that we would much rather manage our initiatives in a single system that is intelligently connected to each part of the employee journey than many separate solutions. We also know what kind of service we’ll get with isolved versus other vendors.”

“Any time I call, the response is quick and efficient. Our initial implementation was fast and easy and everything we’ve added since that time has been the same. isolved makes it very easy, and their customer support is very good.”

As a small company with roughly 50 employees, the HR department of one works to improve the employee experience beyond payroll (which they also manage with isolved)—from paying 100% of dependent benefits to differential pay—but ultimately it adds complexity. The platform is a big help with keeping up with the laws and compliance changes in each state: this primary benefit saves them the continuous education hours, compliance mistakes and potential fees.

Another big benefit has been the new-hire experience.

“Recruiting and onboarding were very time-consuming before we started using isolved. We used to have applicants in a spreadsheet and then manually work through the new-hire paperwork. The applicant tracking system now stores everything for us and saves a considerable amount of time for both HR and the hiring managers. By adding in onboarding, the lifecycle of an employee is now all within isolved.”

Supporting HR Growth Through Leadership Changes

When Laura Carter — Nlets’ long-tenured CHRO — retired after 33 years, the organization faced a significant knowledge gap and big shoes to fill. Suzanne Church, who had been an administrative assistant, was promoted to HR manager and had to quickly navigate the complexities of her new role. While external resources like SHRM and the Employers Council provided general guidance, they were not enough for the day-to-day challenges of managing a team of 50 employees.

To bridge this gap, Nlets turned to isolved HR Services, which provided expert guidance and compliance support without the high cost of hiring a direct replacement. “When our CHRO retired, we knew that the cost to replace her would be great," said Church, "By utilizing HR Services we were able to promote from within the organization but still have the needed expertise.”

Through a comprehensive HR gap analysis, isolved helped identify compliance risks, including a missing labor law posting for a remote employee, which could have resulted in penalties. “Having our dedicated HR Business Partner do the initial review showed where we had some deficiencies. Not correcting them could have resulted in negative impacts to our organization,” said Church.

With isolved’s ongoing support, she gained confidence in her role, ensuring that HR processes remained compliant and efficient.

While Nlets HR journey continues to evolve, isolved’s product development and investments ensures they have a futureproof platform for the organization to grow on and deliver on its mission to keep cops safe on the street.