Managing International HR Processes

USA Sport Group (USG) works with more than 500 U.S. organizations each year to offer classes, clinics, and camps for individual sports—such as soccer, basketball, tennis, and lacrosse—as well as flagship multi-sport camps.

To accommodate the 50,000+ registrants USG sees each year, the organization is continuously hiring coaches to help run its classes and clinics. In order to supplement the talent pool of coaches, Director of Recruitment and HR Mark Wilson is responsible for hiring more than 100 coaches from overseas each year, as well as managing human resources needs for roughly 60 U.S.-based coaches and 50 employees who work out of the organization's New Jersey headquarters.

To keep USG's complex, international HR operation running smoothly, Wilson taps into the power of Formstack. As part of the recruiting process, Wilson uses Formstack to streamline and organize job applications and candidate documents. Then, once a coach or employee is hired, he uses Formstack to build and maintain paperless employee files.

"We use forms heavily during the recruitment stage and also after people are hired," Wilson said. "Formstack really helps us organize individuals as applicants, candidates, and employees."

Challenge

A few years ago, USA Sport Group leaders were using Google docs and spreadsheets to collect and track data across the business. As the USG websites grew, they discovered a need for a more standardized data capture solution for gathering and managing inquiries, feedback, and employment applications. To meet this need, USG's media and IT department suggested Formstack.

"We immediately saw that Formstack was a much simpler way to capture the submissions we needed," Wilson said.

The organization quickly adopted Formstack as a platform for its human resources needs, starting with a simple job application form. According to Wilson, this made the applicant information they collected a lot more manageable and freed up time for his team.

"Ultimately, Formstack streamlined everything," Wilson said. "The information we were asking for became more streamlined, and the submissions we received were much more organized and easier to filter."

Solution

USA Sport Group's HR processes are more complex than those of a typical company because the recruiting is continuous and involves international relations. The organization is always looking for coaches to run programs for upcoming seasons, and many specialized coaches are brought in from other nations, including Ireland and the United Kingdom.

To streamline its international recruiting, USG uses Formstack to centralize applicant information and keep it organized, secure, and paperless. The organization has an application form for all available position types, and the forms are each loaded with features and functionality that create efficiency:

• File Upload Fields – Formstack's File Upload field allows USA Sport Group to collect resumes and videos as part of the application process. This field also allows overseas candidates to submit necessary documentation, such as copies of their passport, driver's license, and background information.
• Conditional Logic – USG uses Conditional Logic to condense certain application forms for returning coaches. If someone has been hired as a coach in a previous season, form logic will allow that person to skip over portions of the application that don't need to be filled out again.
• Theme Editor – USG is an umbrella company that combines United Soccer Academy and US Sports Institute, so Formstack's Theme Editor allows the company to brand each application form according to its applicable company. The group uses the Theme Editor to upload appropriate logos on each form.
• Form Publishing – To share application forms on the USG websites and external job boards, USA Sport Group uses Formstack's easy form publishing tools, such as the publish URL.

"Formstack really works for us when it comes to collecting necessary documentation during the recruitment stage," Wilson said. "It allows candidates to easily send us the information we need and for us to keep that information well organized."

USA Sport Group also uses Formstack to automate its job applicant tracking. According to Wilson, the organization treats job applicants similar to sales leads, with the goal of converting candidates into hires. As part of this system, Formstack application submissions are linked to a CRM system through notification emails, which automatically push submission information into the CRM for easy tracking. This is an important system for USG due to the large volume of hires the HR team must make each year to keep the business running.

"If we don't hire the coaches, we can't run the classes and the programs that we want to run, and we have to turn the kids away," Wilson said.

Outcome

Beyond recruiting, USA Sport Group has adopted Formstack into its human resources toolset as a paperless HR solution. Upon hire, employees have access to several Formstack forms that help with automation of HR processes. These forms allow USG's HR team to digitally collect and organize the following:

• Tax information
• Emergency contact information
• PTO requests
• Coach evaluations
• Client and parent feedback
• Pay discrepancies
• Maintenance requests (related to housing and transportation USG provides to coaches from overseas)

According to Wilson, the company tries to be paperless with all employee files to further streamline processes and save as much time as possible when it comes to working with international coaches.

"It's quite a long process to get overseas hires from the point of submitting an application to actually being in the United States and orientated and ready to work," Wilson said. "So our recruitment and HR processes are definitely more detailed than the typical company, and Formstack really helps with streamlining them for both the HR team and the employees."

Results