UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — On Thursday, April 18, Penn State Human Resources will begin rolling out five new features that will help users more easily manage their submitted inquiries to WorkLion. These enhancements will benefit employees who submit a high volume of questions to HR Services or for managers and their proxies who submit a high volume of employment or appointment forms.
The following five enhancements were direct results from feedback provided during focus groups conducted between Nov. 14 and Dec. 5, 2018. The focus groups consisted of 60 individuals from approximately 30 work units across the University. A common challenge expressed by the participants was difficulty in searching for inquiries they had submitted, especially those who had a high volume of Manager Form submissions. While this was one of many suggestions provided by focus group participants, inquiry management was prioritized as having the biggest impact in user experience.
The updates are designed to help users more easily search inquiries they’ve submitted to WorkLion, as well as other tweaks to enhance user friendliness.
First Enhancement: Addition of a Subject Field
The new “Subject (key word/tag)” will allow an employee to add a word or phrase that is meaningful to them. For example, if an employee submitted a question about their dental benefit, they could add the Subject “Dental Benefit,” to the inquiry as a reminder of what the question was regarding. That employee could then sort all their submitted inquiries by subject to easily differentiate.
This field will be included in both the general inquiry and in the Manager Forms.
Second Enhancement: Separation of Inquiry Types
The second enhancement users will notice is the “General Requests” tab in the “My Inquiries” section.
For managers and their proxies, this will allow them to separate information related to hiring forms they’ve submitted from their own personal inquiries.
Third Enhancement: Clearer Response History
The third enhancement users will notice is a change to “Author” whenever a response is from Human Resources. Responses from HR to an employee will now show as “Penn State HR.” This will help differentiate an employee’s comments from HR’s.
Fourth Enhancement: Visual Consistency
To help create a consistent experience, the naming of the sortable fields will be the same in each inquiry status; In Progress, Manager Forms, To Do’s, and Closed. This will allow for more inquiry sorting options and a consistent user experience throughout.
Fifth Enhancement: Easy Access to Manager Form Instructions
The last enhancement managers and their proxies will notice is a direct link to form instructions within each Manager Form (Request to Post, Initiate Hire, Appoint Grad, etc.). This will allow users to display the form’s instructions in a new tab without navigating away from the form itself.
Further enhancements are planned in the coming months. Human Resources will continue to gather feedback to improve the WorkLion experience for our employees.
The above updates will begin at 8 a.m. on Thursday, April 18, and will be completed by 8 a.m. on Friday, April 19. Due to the volume and visibility, some of these changes may be noticeable beginning on Thursday, April 18, however, the changes will not affect anyone submitting a form or inquiry.
To see a preview of what these changes will look like, visit hr.psu.edu.
For questions, contact HR Services at 814-865-1473.