Your Recruiters Want a New CRM – But Will They Use It?
Adopting new technology in any organization or even in your personal life is a challenge. There is huge risk in changing a technology platform which people are used to using every day at work or at home. Look at how much fanfare Facebook gets when they change their UI? Has your bank ever changed your bill pay platform you’ve been using for years and now you have no idea how to pay your mortgage? What if you woke up tomorrow and instead of getting your email and managing your calendar via Outlook there was some new service you had to use and you were completely unfamiliar with it?
Change in technology is scary for the users and very risky for the team in charge of selecting new technology.
Companies adopting new technology must face the reality that part of the Return on Investment (ROI), is driven by how quickly their employees will not only adopt it, but embrace it. Investing in new technology alone will not drive productivity. Happy people using good technology, implemented well, will drive productivity. But how do you get there?
Below is a list of considerations that may help you in selecting and “selling” a new recruiting CRM or applicant tracking system for your recruiters or agency.
Start with the overarching goals of the organization or department which will be using the new system
- These might be quantitative recruitment metrics such as: Increase applicant flow, increase 2nd interview conversions, increase hire ratios, decrease Average Days Open, etc.
- Or qualitative concerns such as making technology more enjoyable for the recruiters or creating a positive candidate experience for an integrated career portal.
As you define your list of features and functionality of the new CRM or ATS system, involve the users of the system and ask them how each major feature will help them achieve their goals
- A good example of this is the internal social networking features that many CRM’s are offering today…how exactly will that feature help you meet your goals? Will it ultimately be more of a distraction?
- I’m not suggesting that you work in a sterile environment where everything is done for a specific purpose, but, feature requirements should add value to the recruitment process in some meaningful way, whether objective or subjective in nature.
Agree upon a primary list of features and then a secondary, nice to have list of features.
- A litmus test here is if your selection committee can clearly articulate, we need the new feature X in order to help us achieve goal Y (quicker, better, cheaper).
- Depending on the company culture, a “cool” feature may be totally relevant. If the latest technology gets your recruiters out of bed in the morning then by all means, you need features that would be considered cool and cutting edge in order to get productivity out of your recruiters!
Will this technology work with our other types of technology and how accessible is this new system?
How does it meet our logistical environment, such as multiple locations and internationalization efforts?
Is it like any other technology that the recruiters already know?
Is it compatible with our mobile environment? Do we use corporate iPhones/iPads but the mobile apps are only available on Android?
- Questions about mobile recruiting technology must be answered because today people work at odd hours and from odd locations and that fact is not changing anytime soon. Think about how your employees worked 10 years ago and how they might work 10 years from now, will this technology or type of platform grow with us?
Once you’ve selected the new CRM system and are ready to implement it, think through the transition process and incentivize users to adopt the new CRM quickly and sunset the old platform
- Contests, bonuses, recognition, badges of honor and courage, whatever it is that motivates your people, use it now when you are on the brink of rocking their world!
- Make it fun, make it a game. Recruiters and staffing professionals tend to be competitive by nature, so why not throw in a little friendly competition when deploying a new system?
- Train, train, and train! Provide plenty of training sessions. Identify your early adopters within the department and use them to help with training their peers. This will foster a team environment and allow your employees to demonstrate their leadership skills
Measure and communicate results
- Set goals from the beginning and ensure that you measure the results as early as possible.
- Communicate the results within the department so that all the team members feel good about achieving something together.
- Communicate the results upward as well so that the next time you ask for funds to get something new your case is that much easier to win.
- Get your marketing department involved too, they may want to work with the vendor to provide a case study or press release which would give your team very public recognition—this not only makes people excited to work on the team, but solidifies their commitment to adopting the new technology!
New recruiting CRM and applicant tracking systems can be fun for recruiters and add a lot of new functionality, but messy software implementations and sloppy execution and training have also cost recruiting departments huge amounts of time and money. If you are looking at a new recruiting CRM or ATS, making the decision among vendors is just the first step – but don’t forget that the rest (and perhaps the most important part) is also up to you.