Typically, there are a variety of forms to read, fill in, and return when employees undergo the process of retirement. To streamline this process, the United States Postal Service Office of Inspector General contracted Dynamic Digital Advertising’s services for a central databank of all forms related to retirement. The challenge was to keep all of this information organized and turn traditional printed copies into downloadable PDFs that can be made more accessible on a CD-ROM the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General would supply to retiring employees.
One of the primary objectives set forth for the retirement CD was to organize forms by employee type, so users would know exactly what forms required their completion and submittal versus what forms were optional or strictly informative. The goal was that users would not be presented with forms that were irrelevant to them, so as not to waste their time with unnecessary paperwork. Many questions can arise relating to terms regarding benefits and other insurance. Therefore, another objective for the CD-ROM was to provide users with clear contact information for the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General staff who could answer questions or facilitate form submittal.
DDA designed and implemented an intuitive and user-friendly graphical user interface, so employees can easily select the forms and information they wish to view. Through custom programming by DDA, users are prompted to answer a brief series of questions to ascertain their employee type. Forms that do not pertain to a particular employee are removed from the interface that user sees, so the user is only presented with the forms relevant to him or her. DDA also created a user-friendly flash menu to help make sense of all materials and where applicants should start the process. The provided checklist makes it easy for any employee to make sure all required information is complete, so that they can start to enjoy their retirement.
When it comes time for retirement, there’s just as much paperwork to sift through as when starting a new job. After the retirement CD proved successful in providing employees easy accessibility to important human resource documents and in streamlining the form completion process, U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General asked DDA to develop a similar tool for new or transferring employees. Based on the retirement interface, DDA created an orientation tool complete with I-9 and W-4 forms, as well as a plethora of additional information from health and life insurance to direct deposit and workplace guidelines. DDA designed the orientation tool not as a CD, but as an online tool, which further enhances accessibility and cuts out CD replication costs. Many of the forms incorporated into the orientation tool are input-enabled, meaning instead of downloading, printing, completing, and mailing forms for submission, all a user needs to do is click on the form, enter their information and click “Submit.” It doesn’t get much easier than that. Now, whether employees at U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General are just starting their employment journey or concluding their service for retirement, the tools DDA developed make the transition easy and hassle-free.