Atlassian products are made for project and development teams. However, it would be a mistake to think that its usability stops here. As the META-INF team has successfully proven, it can be perfectly adapted to the data management of an animal shelter too. So, why do not we use within the HR as well?

HR supporting software is quite expensive. Sometimes the company can not afford to buy larger systems due to its size or simply the budget. Atlassian software is not free of course, but with one license it can be used in several areas.

Here are some thoughtful tips how I would use Jira and Confluence within HR at a startup, small or even a big company.

Intranet information management and more with Confluence

Confluence gives more freedom and easy to use for everyone. It can be used as an intranet site and departments can share all kinds of information with each other, even sensitive information by applying page restrictions, but there is more. By adding extra apps (even for free) that comes with new macros, like form and survey creator, diagram and orgchart creator, etc and also with a small hint of creativity the range of possibilities are quite wide.

Next to the transparent information sharing Confluence can be used as a new paper free green choice to follow for example the onboarding and the attendances during the process by using tasks.

A form/survey creator can be handy not just for example to create satisfaction survey, but also for handling mandatory declarations, or collecting any other data from your colleagues - like application for events.

Lets dig a bit deeper to the three main areas of HR.

Recruitment

One of the first phase within the HR lifecycle is to define the headcount needs, the exact positions and hire the perfect fit. Report towards the recruitment team the hiring needs, implement approvals to the workflow and track the hiring process can be done in Jira. As a useful sidetool, Confluence is a perfect choice to define the requirements of the positions and catalog those in one accessible place.

After a successful hiring process, the next step is to register the new employee and start to prepare every work material which is needed. Jira is capable to connect issues between departments therefore, with a well-defined workflow after the approval of the offer the new employee request with necessary details is created at the Labor Jira board.

Labor department

Continuing the process, the new employee registration request is seen, the Labor team can start to register the employee, send the necessary information to other departments.

As an other kinds of issue types within the Labor team are the employee movement and termination.

Learning and Development

If the company does not have any training management system, or it is not serving the needs, Jira and Confluence are handy tools to use.

As a first step, it is nice to present a transparent and informative training catalog in Confluence and also to create a private restricted space for each units within the company. In the latter, a calculation can be done in every month to follow the budget and expenses. Instead of using word documents, Confluence is also subservient to follow personnel development plans by creating a private page between the employee and manager where Jira can be linked.

Like in previous examples, with a well-defined Jira workflow many cases can be tracked from internal lectures through language trainings until external high volume trainings, by starting with a specified - training - request, applying states and approval path, involve other people or even departments and finally successfully organize the training. Cherry on top, that Jira issues can be exported into an excel document, therefore creating yearly training report is easier and punctual.

In conclusion, let your imagination run wild, since Confluence and Jira offers a wealth of options to serve your needs.