Good help is hard to find — cliché, but truer than ever. Just how hard depends on the industry. In the c-store world, for instance, 95 percent of all employment applications take place within the store — but of all the applications handed out, only 20 percent ever get filled out and returned.

Self-service technology holds great promise for the human relations professional, but it appears to be underused. In a recent Self-Service World survey of 100 decision-makers and senior executives in a variety of industries, only three percent said their company was currently using self-service for HR — and only two percent planned to do so within the next 12 months.

(The full results of this survey are available in the next issue of Self-Service World magazine — click here for a free subscription.)

So what's the hold-up? Pete Clark, principal with consultancy The Wise Marketer, thinks the notion of personal touch — that employers shy away from automating the hiring process because they want hands-on involvement at all stages — plays a part. But a larger issue might be a perceived lack of monetary value.

"The HR director may think the implementation and maintenance is just a cost center, without considering the indirect benefits," he said, "possibly due to a lack of imagination about what could really be achieved."

Whatever is truly causing the delay in HR self-service adoption, it is certainly not a lack of success stories.

Richard Payson, corporate director of human resources for amusement park giant Six Flags, heads up an operation that hires 40,000 seasonal employees each year. He turned to Deploy Solutions to help streamline the hiring process and reduce turnover. "We were looking to improve the effectiveness of the HR department," Payson said in a filmed testimonial. "It was a very labor intensive process. There were a lot of people coming through our doors who weren't qualified."

Six Flags and Deploy Solutions developed a kiosk system that eliminated 16,000 unqualified applicants in one season — applications that would have cost one man-hour each to process. The time saved allowed managers to give the qualified applicants more attention. As a result, customer compliments rose and employee retention increased — benefits Payson attributes to the system developed by Deploy Solutions.

Christi Reddy, vice president of human resources for Century Theatres, credited Deploy Solutions with improving employee retention.

Working together, they developed a system that took into account specific skills and qualifications needed for success. "We were able to reduce turnover amongst our pilot locations by 50 percent versus our control group," Reddy said. "It made our recruiting process much more efficient and much more effective."

The kiosk approach to HR also eliminates that phenomenon of the lost application — the reams of paper given to walk-in would-be applicants, paper that is later lost or thrown away.

"What's nice about the kiosk is that they're not taking the application out," said Sham Sao, global vice president of marketing and business development for Deploy Solutions. "They're going to fill it out right there."

A typical Deploy Solutions kiosk process will begin with the applicant answering a few qualifying questions determined by the employer. If approved, the applicant supplies more information and completes any skills and personality assessments. Applications can also be made available via phone or the Internet, making it possible to apply from virtually anywhere. Simplifying the application process is designed to give the employer a much larger pool of prospective employees from which to choose.

Once the application is filed, it's graded and made immediately available to the employer, along with an interview guide that focuses on red-flag issues. Sao said Deploy Solutions uses a red, yellow, green method of grading. A green is someone who meets or exceeds all grading criteria. "A yellow could be somebody that just needs more probing," he said. "A red will be somebody that is not recommended. We set those thresholds based on (the client's) tolerances for certain skills and other requirements they have for the job."

Sao said that this process "doesn't take the human out of the equation, it makes the human more effective by highlighting valid issues that the questions brought up."

Human resources involves more than just hiring new people. It also involves taking care of those already on staff, keeping them informed and providing them with information on benefits, holidays, compensation and more.

Swift Transportation maintains a fleet of more than 16,000 trucks and uses kiosks to keep in touch with its drivers and technicians who are often alone in remote locations. The kiosks were developed and built by KIOSK Information Systems, and run on the Netkey software platform.

"Our main goal with the kiosk project was to have a self-service solution for our drivers and technicians (that allowed them) to check their pay history, take some mandatory training classes, change their benefits information, and send email to family members," said Tiffany Springan, director of employee development for Swift Transportation.

Swift implemented its kiosk system in September 2005, and it was an immediate hit.

"Our drivers are on the road for days at a time, so kiosks are ideal for accessing information that normally would be mailed home," Springan said. Functions were added that helped with things such as missing logs and status of equipment and permits.

The most popular site on the system is for driver pay inquiry, but drivers also use the kiosk to keep up with current events. Springan said that "when the hurricanes hit last year, the weather site on the kiosk spiked in usage."

As use of the kiosks continues to climb, Swift looks for new ways to add content and mitigate the unavoidable headaches of life on the road. Springan said Swift its their drivers and technicians "to be able to find the answers they need through the kiosk without having to wait on hold for a live person."