Hiring and Retention – How eProcurement Can Help!

During the recent CAPPO conference, the challenge of hiring and retaining employees was a hot topic.  With the silver tsunami of retirements and eligible candidates in short supply, the need to review the workplace to attract new hires has become a high priority.

Mission Square Research Institute, which researches state and local government workforce issues to help governments be an employer of choice, partnered with Lead for America, a national service program building the next generation of public service leaders, to survey members to gauge their interest in public service. While leave, traditional benefits such as health care, and flexible hours were the top motivators for selecting an employer, 43% responded that teleworking was very important.

Procurement departments should heed these types of surveys and their responses, and government agencies and educational institutions should consider the systems needed to support an environment where teleworking is an option.

Even prior to the Coronavirus pandemic, having an eProcurement system was often a top requested resource by public procurement teams as paper intensive manual processes proved to be problematic. Golden State Water Company found success with PlanetBids: “The rapid implementation of the PlanetBids’ bidding platform has streamlined our bidding process and reduced cycle time by 50%. PlanetBids has made their bidding portal easy for any users to understand. Our Procurement Administrators had a seamless transition from paper to electronic bidding process.”
Regardless of the environment, when procurement managers are out in the field or attending a procurement conference, an eProcurement system allows work to continue, as evaluators, suppliers, and other team members can move the process forward digitally.

Whether a work environment is from the office, home, or emergency operations center, here are 5 key ways that eProcurement supports a telework environment:

1. Increase Transparency

   When information is on a cloud-based platform, transparency is increased. From the date and time, the solicitation was posted, to the list of vendors who have viewed and downloaded, and eventually through the evaluation process with math calculations and final rankings, supervisors can easily track a project and determine next steps. Board members and other internal stakeholders can be updated and view bid progress in real time.

2. Expand Vendor Outreach

   Having an easy-to-use system is the surest way to increase vendor registrations, resulting in greater outreach to MBE/WBE/SBE businesses.  Finding vendors for those projects where the pool is limited can be done in a simple click vs hour of tracking down vendors. Keeping those vendors engaged in your projects is simple with easy access to bid documents, instant notification of addenda and networking capabilities.  Suppliers enjoy the convenience of not driving to the post office or government office to deliver their proposals.  Bid openings can move to the virtual environment, where rooms don’t have to be reserved, with contractors sitting around waiting for bid results. On-line notifications are becoming the preferred method of communication for the supplier community. 

3. Eliminate Paper-Consuming Manual Processes

   On the front end of the process, an eProcurement system saves on the cost of paper. It conserves employee time as there is no need to print, mail, store and shred bid-related documents.  Automating prequalification, bid and insurance processes gives procurement staff members the time to strategize and increases productivity and stay in compliance! 

4. Assist with Onboarding Process

   The system stores information for quick access when staff turnover occurs.  The bid specification library can help new employees review how bids were handled in the past, or view the latest scope used by other agencies, providing a learning resource for them with contact information to reach out and make those connections.  Agency departments can be granted access to help them quickly see available contracts and their status. 

5. Enhance your Reputation

Procurement teams have other duties besides issuing solicitations.  Whether they are in the field, attending meetings with customers, or traveling to a procurement conference, when issues arise, staff can quickly handle remotely.  For example, users at the recent CAPPO conference could handle bid questions and RFP evaluations without having to provide additional instructions to other team members, or travel with mountains of paperwork to read and score.

Finding Purpose in Work is becoming a higher priority for the evolving workforce. Moving the mundane, but important, parts of the procurement process toward automation allows procurement teams to spend their efforts and resources in activities that have greater value or impact.  No one ever wants to be known for “pushing paper.” Bringing an eProcurement system into the workplace helps streamline that aspect of the job.

PlanetBids offers an easy-to-use, fully integrated cloud-based system that automates all aspects of procurement to online processes. PlanetBids’ proven PB System™,  developed, hosted and serviced in California, serves the public, private, educationaland nonprofit sectorsacross the United States.