City of Mesquite, Nevada Digitizes Personnel Actions Across 10 Departments

The City of Mesquite uses a personnel action form (PAF) for every employee change: hiring, separations, wage increases, and more. Each form passes through 10 departments and 11 stages, from the requester and department head through HR, Finance, and the City Manager, then out to the departments that set up equipment, fuel cards, and recreation center passes.

Until 2021, that form moved on paper. It sat on desks, waited out vacations, and sometimes reached IT weeks after a new employee had started. Wayne Rasmussen, then the city's system administrator and now its IT Director, helped rebuild the process as a digital workflow that every department follows the same way.

• Paper forms stalled on desks or while an approver was on vacation, so new hires sometimes worked for weeks before IT knew they existed
• Checking a form's status meant a phone call or an email, and an out-of-office approver might not answer for days
• Every department handled its step differently, from "just send us an email" to a paper copy in an inbox checked once a day at 1 p.m.
• Completed forms were scattered across file cabinets and email accounts, which slowed public records requests
• Every hour staff spent walking paper between offices was an hour taken from other work

• A digital personnel action form starts with the requester and department head, then routes through HR, Finance, the City Manager, and final HR approval
• Once a form is approved, a multi-stage notification step alerts every department that has work to do, including IT for email and equipment, Public Works for fuel cards, and the recreation center for passes ‍
• Approval steps route to position-based addresses such as "Finance Director" instead of named individuals, so staff turnover no longer requires workflow edits
• The city chose SimpliGov for the depth and control of its workflow engine, after a previous forms tool proved too limited for processes like the PAF and purchase orders
• City IT maintains the workflow in-house, with same-day responses from SimpliGov support when something needs attention

• HR staff log in each morning, see what's waiting, and act on it instead of hunting for paper or making phone calls
• Every personnel action follows the same path through every department, regardless of who holds each role
• The workflow has run without major changes for about two years, since IT and Finance refined it together in 2022
• Personnel records live in one place, making public records requests faster to fulfill
• With at least 10 people touching each form, the city estimates the workflow saves hundreds of staff hours per year
• Departments are asking for more: Finance has requested new forms after seeing the purchase order workflow, and Public Works is scoping an eSignature workflow to replace driving plan sets around town for signatures