PERSONNEL HIRING PROCESS AUDIT

Exit Conference Date: July 26, 2017

Release Date: October 12, 2017
Report No. 18-01

City of Orlando
Office of Audit Services and Management Support

George J. McGowan, CPA

Director

Perez Goree, CPA

Audit Program Manager

Joanne Cambridge, CIA

Senior Auditor
TABLE OF CONTENTS

MEMORANDUM OF TRANSMITTAL........................................................................................................................ 3

ISSUES, RECOMMENDATIONS AND MANAGEMENT ACTIONS ................................................................................ 8

ISSUES AND RECOMMENDATIONS..........................................................................................................................10

Reiterate the importance of fully documenting the I-9 process. .............................................. 10

Review and re-affirm the hiring process for Recreation seasonal and temporary positions ... 12

Review performance and staffing of Recruitment and Records sections ................................. 14

Increase monitoring of positions which remain open for a lengthy period. ............................ 15

Ensure policies and procedures provide clear and consistent directives.................................. 17

MEMORANDUM OF TRANSMITTAL

To: Ana Palenzuela, Human Resources Director

From: George J. McGowan, CPA

Director, Office of Audit Services and Management Support
Dates: Exit Conference: July 26, 2017
Release: October 12, 2017

Subject: Personnel Hiring Process (Report No. 18-01)

The Office of Audit Services and Management Support performed an audit of the processes and
controls over the hiring process of the City’s Human Resources Division. The audit objectives
were to ensure that controls over hiring were adequate and operating effectively. The Human
Resources Division manages and enforces hiring practices for City employees
and conducts background checks for volunteers.
We conducted this performance audit in accordance with generally accepted government
auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain
sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions
based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis
for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.

We found no significant exceptions. The following report contains the issues identified during the
audit, recommendations for improvement and management’s replies regarding actions
taken/planned to be taken with respect to the identified issues.
We appreciate the cooperation and courtesies extended by the staff of the Human Resources
Division during the course of this audit.

GJM/PG

c:
Lisa Early, Families Parks and Recreation Director
Deborah Girard, Deputy Chief Administrative Officer
Deonda Scott, Employment/Testing/Training Manager
Rodney Williams, Recreation Division Manager
SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS, MANAGEMENT RESPONSES AND ACTION PLAN
# RECOMMENDATIONS
1. Human Resources should reiterate with its
employees the importance of thorough
documentation for the issues identified with
the Employment Eligibility Verification
process.
MANAGEMENT RESPONSE & ACTION PLAN
PARTIALLY CONCUR
DO NOT CONCUR
TARGET
CONCUR
ACTION PLAN DATE
X Management concurs with the recommendation. HR N/A
management will meet with Records and Employment
staff to reinforce the importance of thoroughly
documenting the I-9 process and of maintaining all
relevant records. In addition, HR management will
reiterate to staff that any name changes that occur
from when an applicant is offered a job and the time
that employee is on-boarded must be
documented/noted on the file.
Page 4

# RECOMMENDATIONS
2. Human Resources should initiate with the
Families Parks and Recreation Department a
re-evaluation of the current business
practices with regards to the hiring and on-
boarding of Recreation seasonal and
temporary employees.
3. Human Resources should analyze its
performance over a selected future period to
determine if it is necessary to request an
appropriate body to independently access
whether their current staffing levels are
appropriate to ensure that performance is
meeting expectations.
MANAGEMENT RESPONSE & ACTION PLAN
PARTIALLY CONCUR
DO NOT CONCUR
TARGET
CONCUR
ACTION PLAN DATE
X Management concurs with the recommendation. HR N/A
staff will meet with FPR Director and Recreation
Division Manager to discuss the recommendations
outlined in the audit since FPR is responsible for
temporary/seasonal recruiting and controls the
process.
X Management concurs with the recommendation. N/A
Staffing needs were evaluated by the HR Director. As
a result, an additional HR Analyst positon was
requested for FY17/18 to support Employment and
Civil Service Testing. The position was approved and
HR is currently recruiting for this position.
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# RECOMMENDATIONS
4. Human Resources should implement a
tracking/monitoring system for open position
requisitions that have been open for an
extended period of time.
5. Human Resources should ensure policies and
procedures regarding the responsibilities for
verifying prior employment and professional
references are clearly written, and consistent
with current business practices.
MANAGEMENT RESPONSE & ACTION PLAN
PARTIALLY CONCUR
DO NOT CONCUR
TARGET
CONCUR
ACTION PLAN DATE
X Management concurs with the recommendation. N/A
John Kinloch, Employment Supervisor will develop a
tracking system to monitor open requisitions and will
work with Division Managers and the Budget office to
close requisitions not formally being acted upon by
the Employment Section.
X Management concurs with the recommendation. N/A
John Kinloch, Employment Supervisor, will review all
hiring materials and current business practices to
ensure that it complies with City Policies and
Procedures, and where there are discrepancies, the
necessary changes will be made to ensure compliance.
Page 6
ISSUES, RECOMMENDATIONS
AND MANAGEMENT ACTIONS
ISSUES, RECOMMENDATIONS AND MANAGEMENT ACTIONS

BACKGROUND

The Office of Audit Services and Management Support performed an audit of the processes and
controls over the personnel hiring process of the City’s Human Resources Division. The audit
objectives were to ensure that controls over personnel hiring process were adequate and
operating effectively. The Human Resources Division contains several sections which share
responsibility for recruiting, referring applicants for City job vacancies and “on-boarding” new
hires. The Employment and Recruitment section recruited and on-boarded 675 employees in 2015
and 773 employees in 2016, excluding sworn OPD and OFD new hires, which were not included in
this review as they are handled through a separate process in collaboration with Police and Fire.

OBJECTIVES AND SCOPE

The audit objectives were to determine whether the Human Resources (HR) Division’s new hire
process is efficient and in compliance with Policies and Procedures; and whether the policies and
procedures are currently effective.
The scope of this audit focused on employees that were hired during calendar years 2015 and 2016,
with the exception of sworn OPD and OFD new hires as noted above.
In addition, we tested controls to determine that the Human Resources Division ensures that new
hires meet qualification requirements for employment with the City, and were properly screened
and/or tested as prescribed in the City Policies and Procedures, 808 series.
We also designed our review to determine whether the Human Resources Division is collecting and
properly storing the public documents and forms required to document each hire.
The audit objectives also included steps to review that HR staff is actively sourcing candidates to
fill job vacancies and that the employment section is adequately staffed to ensure job vacancies
are filled in a timely manner.

We also reviewed the efficiency and effectiveness of on-boarding processes, including that salary
rates are properly reviewed and/or approved by the appropriate party in compliance with City
Policies and Procedures.

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METHODOLOGY

We reviewed City Policies and Procedures to gain an understanding of processes, the associated
risks, and controls to mitigate these risks. Additionally, we determined the number of employees
that were hired during calendar years 2015 and 2016 to identify files for a detailed review; as
noted above the hires made by Police and Fire were excluded from this review. We also
interviewed various personnel to understand the HR Division’s processes for hiring and on-
boarding new employees.

For the new hires tested, we found no significant exceptions. The specific areas tested included,
but were not limited to:
 Employee Qualifications verification
 Employment/References verification
 Background Checks (criminal)
 Medical and Drug screening
 Executive Manager hiring approval
 Staffing level
 New Hire salary rate approval
 Employee files (documentation and personal information safeguards)

While there were no significant exceptions identified in this review, we have identified
opportunities to improve the recruitment and records operations of the Human Resources
Division.

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IISSUES AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Reiterate the importance The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA) requires
of fully documenting the employers to verify that all newly hired employees present
I-9 process. "facially valid" documentation verifying the employee's identity
and legal authorization to accept employment in the United
States. This is performed by the completion and retention of Form
I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification, for every person hired for
employment. There were two instances in our review where we
believe there was lack of proper documentation provided with the
Form I-9 and which indicate that Human Resources should
address through changes to its on-boarding process. We should
note that these two issues are isolated and not indicative of any
major control weakness.

In the first instance, the new hire job application, Interview Report
& Selection Authorization form and Employment Hiring Checklist
for Clearance listed the employee with one name and the
employee was on-boarded with another name. Based on
documentation in the employee file, we could not determine from
the evidence whether the employee was one and the same; as
there was no documentation/notation in the file indicating the
reason for the difference in name.

In the second instance, we could not verify that the Records

section reviewed the required documentation when they
conducted the I-9 verification process, as a copy of the employee

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 social security card was not in the file. When an employee uses
only a copy of the driver’s license as a form of evidence, a second
form of evidence (i.e., a social security card) is necessary under
the IRCA.

The procedures used by Employment and Records personnel to

control the I-9 process, most specifically those which would
resolve the above issues, should be reiterated by HR management
with its employees.

Recommendation 1 We recommend that Human Resources reiterate with its

employees the importance of thorough documentation for the
issues identified with the Employment Eligibility Verification
process.

Management Response Management concurs with the recommendation. HR

management will meet with Records and Employment staff to
reinforce the importance of thoroughly documenting the I-9
process and of maintaining all relevant records. In addition, HR
management will reiterate to staff that any name changes that
occur from when an applicant is offered a job and the time that
employee is on-boarded must be documented/noted on the file.

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Review and re-affirm the During the audit we noticed the following issues specific to the
hiring process for processes and procedures for hiring seasonal and temporary
Recreation seasonal and employees for the Recreation Division:
temporary positions
 A large number of FPR Seasonal/Temporary workers are
teenaged/young adults with limited work experience,
and as such their employment verification was either
incomplete or not evident in the employee file. There
are no guidelines specific to FPR Seasonal/Temporary
workers employment verification process in the policies
and procedures. Human Resources should consider
developing procedures specific to this group, such as,
requiring references from a school, teacher and/or
church in lieu of employment verification.

 ASMS could not opine on FPR Seasonal/Temporary new

hires qualifications, as their employee file does not
contain a job requisition or job posting, nor were the
employment requisitions entered in Workday.

The Employment Manager explained that job

requisitions are not developed for FPR
Seasonal/Temporary positions, and Human Resources
has limited involvement with the FPR
Seasonal/Temporary workers recruiting process, and as
such they are not privy to the job postings. Human
Resources is only responsible for background checks,
medical/drug screening, and the on-boarding process.
Each FPR Recreation Center is responsible for developing

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 job postings and recruiting candidates to fill
Seasonal/Temporary positions at their respective Center.

 An employee fired from one Recreation Center due to

suspected theft was rehired by another Recreation
Center, although the Recreation Division Manager
informed the affected District Manager that the
employee was not to be rehired and the proper
documentation was completed.

 Forms used to process new hires, i.e., Good Moral

Character form, were inconsistently completed.

 Backgrounds Checks not completed on some 2016 and

2017 volunteers.

Additionally, Human Resources policies and procedures do not

refer to hiring directives specific to FPR Seasonal/Temporary
employees as is done for OPD and OFD hiring processes.

Recommendation 2 We recommend that Human Resources initiate with the

Families Parks and Recreation Department a re-evaluation of
the current business practices with regards to the hiring and on-
boarding of Recreation seasonal and temporary employees.

Management Response Management concurs with the recommendation. HR staff will

meet with FPR Director and Recreation Division Manager to
discuss the recommendations outlined in the audit since FPR is
responsible for temporary/seasonal recruiting and controls the
process.

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Review performance and We were unable to determine Human Resources actual time-to-
staffing of Recruitment hire, as they have not developed or maintained performance
and Records sections metrics. Also, we attempted to determine the average time-to-
hire by using data analytics techniques on reports obtained
from Workday, however, our efforts were unsuccessful. Other
manual methods were considered as well, however, were
deemed too time consuming. Thus, a “guesstimate” of a time-
to-hire of 90 to120 days, provided by the Employment
Supervisor was utilized to assess Human Resources.

ASMS obtained performance data from HR industry leaders such

as SHRM, Indeed, DHI-DFH, and Bersin by Deloitte which
indicate that industry averages for time-to-hire ranges from 30
days to 52 days. While these averages are for all industry types
and may be shorter than what should be expected in more
complex process of hiring for government employees, we
believe that it is important to establish meaningful performance
measures in this area.

We also reviewed the HR staff-to-new hires ratio, another

common industry statistic. The City ratio is lower than HR
leaders’ statistics, which indicates that the average HR staff-to-
new hire ratio is 1.1 to 1.3 staff members for every 100 new
hires. We found that the ratios for record section and
recruitment section were .44 and .37 staff members per 100
new hires and .57 and .50 staff members per 100 new hires,
respectively, for the two years we analyzed.

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 Additionally, the upcoming retirement of a key staff member,
employed with the City of Orlando for 20 years, may further
impact staffing issues. This employee is one of the two
individuals primarily responsible for screening candidates for
open positions. We believe that an analysis of the performance
of the employment section is necessary to determine if the
current staffing level is appropriate for the workload of the
section.

Recommendation 3 We recommend that Human Resources analyze its performance

over a selected future period to determine if it is necessary to
request an appropriate body to independently access whether
their current staffing levels are appropriate to ensure that
performance is meeting expectations.

Management Response Management concurs with the recommendation. Staffing needs

were evaluated by the HR Director. As a result, an additional HR
Analyst positon was requested for FY17/18 to support
Employment and Civil Service Testing. The position was
approved and HR is currently recruiting for this position.

Increase monitoring of Human Resources does not have a process in place to track or
positions which remain monitor the length of time job vacancies have been open. As of
open for a lengthy 3/1/17 we identified a total of 77 open job requisitions in
period. Workday. Of these 77 requisitions, 16 were opened in Calendar
year 2015 and 61 in Calendar year 2016.

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 The Employment Supervisor explained that a position
requisition can only be closed in Workday if the position is filled
or the Division/Business Unit manager closes the requisition
without filling the position. He also stated that Human
Resources attempted to work with these managers to address
this issue, without success. Human Resources added that most
managers do not want to close requisitions without filling the
position since it impacts their budget and the viability of
keeping the position funded.

We believe that vacancies left open for lengthy periods can

result in lost talent, low morale due to overburdened
employees and/or disruption to business operations due to key
positions not being filled. We suggest that Human Resources
create an evaluation process for open requisitions which
includes affected managers and budget personnel so that
Workday only includes those open requisitions being formally
acted upon by the employment section.

Recommendation 4 We recommend that Human Resources implement a

tracking/monitoring system for open position requisitions that
have been open for an extended period of time.

Management Response Management concurs with the recommendation. John Kinloch,

Employment Supervisor will develop a tracking system to
monitor open requisitions and will work with Division Managers
and the Budget office to close requisitions not formally being
acted upon by the Employment Section.

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Ensure policies and We noticed that applicants’ employment history was verified by
procedures provide clear the hiring department and documented on the Employment
and consistent directives Verification form and/or on the Interview Report & Selection
Authorization form. However, City Policies and Procedures
808.2 addresses reference checks being performed and
documented on the reference check form provided in the hiring
package. In addition, during the recent hiring of the Senior
Auditor III, we were advised by Human Resources to obtain
three professional references from the employment applicant. It
was not clear whether reference checks referred to in the policy
and procedures spoke to professional relationships or prior
employment validation. Also, the hiring package does not
contain a reference check form; however, an employment
verification form is included.

Human Resources explained that the reference check noted in

the policy and procedures speaks to verification of the
applicant’s employment history, and should be documented on
the employment verification form.

Recommendation 5 We recommend that Human Resources ensure policies and

procedures regarding the responsibilities for verifying prior
employment and professional references are clearly written,
and consistent with current business practices.

Management Response Management concurs with the recommendation. John Kinloch,

Employment Supervisor, will review all hiring materials and
current business practices to ensure that it complies with City

Page 17
Policies and Procedures, and where there are discrepancies, the
necessary changes will be made to ensure compliance.

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