Jira for Agile HR Processes

Jira is ideal for tracking processes through to completion. Therefore, it’s no surprise that Atlassian has created templates and guidance for using Jira to manage HR processes. Likewise, you’ll find various apps in the Atlassian Marketplace intended for HR teams. There’s a heavy focus on recruitment and onboarding, but Jira’s potential for HR goes beyond that. Why not use Jira to manage employee attendance, discipline and professional development?

Jira, and especially Jira Service Desk, excels at tracking requests, (requests to open a new position, requests for time off, etc.). The trick is to get all of the process-specific data you need. Lumping everything into the description field isn’t a reliable method. Customers placing requests can forget to include important information unless they are prompted. You need fields for the required data, but add too many custom fields and you’ll have a negative impact on Jira’s performance. This is where ProForma comes in.

ProForma makes it possible to add all of the fields you need to an issue, without requiring IT assistance or impacting your Jira application. You can create forms that embed in Jira issues, making it easy to collect and see all of the information needed for a particular process. Every field that’s on a form is a field that doesn’t need to be added to the issue.

Jira in Lieu of an HR System

Consider what a good HR system needs to be:

• Traceable – with comprehensive audit tracking to comply with HR’s many overseers;
• Accessible – to allow anxious employees to check the status of their requests without interrupting your  HR professionals;
• Reportable – So HR can easily manage tasks, predict demand and allocate time and resources accordingly;
• Flexible – to accommodate any number of processes, including those we cannot yet foresee.

Notice anything? Those are the signature characteristics of Jira.  Why not make HR agile by using a system that was built to be agile to manage your HR. Like Jira issues, employees progress, and at times regress, through various statuses (new hire ready to onboard, on probation, probation completed, etc.) until they are done serving your organization.

You can create an issue for each employee and use ProForma forms to capture all of the field-level detail you need.  This is an easy way for small or medium-sized organizations to track all of their HR processes. 

ProForma Templates for HR Teams

Getting started using ProForma is easy using the template library. Hundred of forms and Jira Service Desk process templates (which include a portal form, request type, workflow and any needed secondary forms) have been created for HR teams. These templates were purpose-built in consultation with HR experts and can be easily modified to conform with your organization’s processes.

How your organization manages people is how your organization manages. Jira and ProForma could be the missing piece to making everyone more agile.