Safety National Responsibly Brings Employees Back to the Office with Docusign

Like most businesses, Safety National could not predict the COVID-19 pandemic or its effects on the workplace and modern business world. But as a specialty insurance and reinsurance provider, the company is an essential business and had to adapt quickly. The company’s offices stayed open to allow critical employees to continue coming into the office, which presented Safety National with a challenge: They had to continue their high level of service and coverage for clients while simultaneously protecting the health and well-being of their employees. 

Prior to the pandemic, Safety National had been using Docusign to manage core business processes. The company uses Docusign eSignature and PowerForms integrated with Guidewire, a system that stores Safety National’s policy information, to automate contract transactions, approvals and workflows across the company’s numerous locations and departments. With the Docusign integration, employees can easily find the correct forms, fill them out and send them to fellow employees, agents or customers for signature and approval in a faster, more accurate and compliant fashion.

The company has also been using Docusign’s Bulk Send feature to implement their vendor management process and maintain a full audit trail for every interaction the company has with third-party vendors. This helps them maintain compliance with different regulations, like the California Consumer Privacy Act and NYDFS Cybersecurity Regulation.

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Docusign became even more critical to the company’s operations. With the help of PowerForms, eSignature and Docusign APIs, Safety National was able to develop new digital solutions that helped employees safely return to offices and continue serving their customers—even amid a global pandemic.

An easy form to stay compliant

 The pandemic shut down most Safety National offices in March of this year, requiring employees to work remotely, with a few exceptions. “We didn’t have to shut down completely, and there was a skeleton crew,” explained Jennifer Isaac, the manager of legal department operations at Safety National. “But almost immediately we pulled together a task force that developed a plan of action for the company. 

The company put phase one of this crisis management plan into motion in early May. About 100 employees were allowed into the offices, but they had to sign a self-certification form upon  entering the building everyday. “By signing it, our employees are confirming that they don’t have any symptoms of the virus and have not been around someone who has tested positive for it,” said Isaac. 

The company used Docusign PowerForms to create the form and then added it to their intranet. Upon entering the office, employees could immediately access the document on their computers and sign it with Docusign eSignature.

However, when the company initiated phase two and three of the plan and more employees started reentering the office, additional challenges arose. “People were forgetting to complete the form, which endangered compliance and the health and safety of our workforce,” explained Isaac. In response to this growing issue, Safety National’s CIO and VP of HR gathered a task force, which included Isaac and other team members from the information systems department and help desk, to develop a technical solution for this new problem.

Making safety simple with badge swipes

 Every morning, even before COVID-19, employees used an access badge that allowed entry to the office. During the pandemic, the team decided to build a solution based on this existing infrastructure. Isaac and the rest of the phase three task force team developed a solution that integrated Docusign’s APIs into Safety National’s employee badge system. 

When an employee swipes into one of the company’s 10 different office locations, a custom application accesses Safety National’s employee badge database, gathers the individual’s email and name and then, via Docusign API, sends them a personalized self-certification form. The custom application is designed to send this document once a day—for instance, the form is not resent if the employee steps out to grab lunch or take a walk. “With the employee badge system, employees did not have to remember to go to the company’s intranet and fill out the self-certification form,” Isaac said. “It was sent directly to their email inbox, so it was in front of their face the moment they stepped into the office.”

The team upgraded the Docusign badge integration for better visibility into who had not signed forms. Previously, this was a tedious manual task in which members of the HR team had to download two separate reports and compare them line-by-line to determine who had swiped into the office, but had not filled out a self-certification form. 

Powered by the Docusign API, Safety National’s HR team could simply run a report on self-certification forms at the end of each day to reveal which employees had or had not completed one. This cut in half the time required for the HR team to track down noncompliant employees and acquire a signature from them. 

This new solution was added in mid-July of this year, just a month after the task force for this phase three solution was created. In fact, it only took two days to implement. After a successful user testing session on July 11, the solution was implemented across all of Safety National’s offices on July 13. Of the 600+ employees who have returned to an office during the pandemic, all of them have been successfully using this integrated Docusign solution.

Preparing for the future

According to Isaac, Safety National’s Docusign adoption has skyrocketed since the pandemic began, and pending use cases have been pushed along. “We have a lot more employees willing to learn how to use the system. At this point, our executive and senior management teams are requesting that we use [Docusign] for most documents.”

For example, the company has plans to start using Docusign to automate forms in other departments—like documents in the HR department and the corporate compliance department’s coverage applications for uninsured and underinsured motorists. Safety National also plans to support third-party administrators and insureds via Docusign with solutions like the Guidewire Claims Center for Requests for Reimbursements, which will automate reimbursement forms.

With the help of Docusign, Safety National has the flexibility to adapt and keep business running during this pandemic—and even as business conditions continue to change in the future.

Explore the Docusign Agreement Cloud for HR to see how other customers are succeeding with Docusign.