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Recognizing the deep potential in modernization and automation, Los Angeles County personnel and human resources officials continue to collaborate on a series of initiatives that are reshaping their business processes and positively impacting the activities of other agencies.
Department of Human Resources (DHR) honorees Lisa Garrett, director of personnel; CIO Roozan Zarifian; and DHR Assistant Director Murtaza Masood have collaborated on transformational technology projects since at least 2015.
“We’re like a tripod. We’re not automating just for the sake of automation but to innovate, review all of our processes, clear out clutter that doesn’t need to be there and create efficiencies for our departments and the employees that rely on us,” Garrett said.
Recent projects include NeoGov, a cloud-based platform unifying recruitment, applications and testing. NeoGov aggregates data from four legacy systems, offers mobile access to applicants and enables real-time visibility throughout the hiring process. That’s a meaningful accomplishment for an agency that employs approximately 110,000 active staff, but also maintains files for around 33,000 inactive employees.
In June 2018, the agency launched Career Pathfinder, an online tool that helps employees plan future career choices up to 10 moves ahead. In December, DHR announced an online, digitized system that integrates legacy programs for sexual harassment and discrimination, which was anticipated to go live during the first quarter of 2019.
Also in December, officials from DHR, the Registrar-Recorder’s Office and Internal Services debuted an Electronic Personnel Records system, digitizing personnel files from eight county departments in the first of a three-phase process that will continue over the next year.
Zarifian praised Garrett for her commitment to innovation and for ensuring the CIO position is an executive team member. “Working for Lisa is really an honor,” she said, “because there are very few department heads that understand how technology can transform the business and if it wasn’t for that, for her vision and support, we wouldn’t even be here.”
