Recruiting operations are mission-critical to enterprises searching for top talent, yet the majority of hiring teams continue working with legacy systems that fail to deliver ROI. 

Modern businesses are under continuous pressure to remain competitive in today’s economy, with an increasing focus on adopting technologies that enable agility and strategic thinking. In fact, digital transformation is a top priority for C-level executives, with 74% of enterprises already employing, or currently implementing, a digital transformation strategy. As businesses prepare to tackle future disruptions, such change is inevitable. Change, however, is scary.

As a result, many organizations stick with the status quo, betting on traditional processes and legacy systems to deliver successful future outcomes. Meanwhile, technology is evolving at an exponential rate, and organizations that embrace digital transformation know full well the role of technology in keeping businesses organized, productive, and communicative. 

SmartRecruiters recently surveyed Talent Acquisition (TA) professionals about their existing recruiting technologies, and found that the vast majority (89%) fail to see value in their legacy systems, particularly among enterprise companies. What’s more, when asked the likelihood of recommending their current ATS to a friend or colleague, survey respondents gave a -67 NPS score. 

Check out the complete survey results in the infographic below:

While some shy away from challenging the status quo, it’s clear that most enterprise companies are open to the possibility of change. Of course, with myriad options to choose from, how can one decide? Choosing a new ATS solution may appear challenging, but companies that switch to a modern, intuitive, and enterprise-ready ATS are seeing measurable ROI on hiring, particularly around budget optimization and candidate quality.

While technology adoption is only one element of implementing a digital transformation strategy, it is a crucial piece that cannot be overlooked. Contact SmartRecruiters today to find out why over 750 enterprise customers have already embraced our modern recruiting platform, and are experiencing immediate improvements to their talent acquisition processes.

Learn why 47 percent of employees claim to be shut out of tech adoption, and how companies can do better – including employee personality types and motivations.

Employees want the best tools for their jobs, but when companies adopt new tech they often feel out of the loop, and ‘put upon’. How many of you have received an email like ‘we are changing systems, please complete these 10 easy steps…’ and then just ignored it forever? You aren’t alone! …Or maybe you were the one who sent that email, and wondered ‘why is everyone complaining and dragging their feet?!’ Most of us have been there as well. The simple fact is, that getting buy-in for new tech is hard, especially when people don’t understand why.

In a recent survey, PwC found that while 90 percent of managers report the introduction of new technology is made with the workers’ needs in mind, only 53 percent of the employees agreed, and 73 percent of those employees say they know of systems that would help them turn out higher quality work than the ones they use now… uh oh.

Those numbers are bleak, especially when one takes into account that this isn’t a niche problem. The survey included 12,000 workers spanning c-suite to administrative roles, from eight countries, and through a wide range of industries including consumer markets, health industries, financial services, manufacturing, and technology and media.

It’s clear then that tech adoption is a widespread problem, and a pain point on both sides of the equation – the departments pushing digitization and the workers being bowled over by it. So, here are some things to consider before driving innovation!

What motivates employees? When it comes to motivations there are three distinct employee personality types with their own distinct set of motivations. Curiosity-driven, status-driven, and rewards-driven.

• • Curiosity-driven: 34 percent of employees are motivated by curiosity, efficiency, and teamwork. This group is the most open to new tech adoptions and will invest up to 20 hours of training per month. These are the folks who champion tech to the rest of the company!

• • Status-driven: 37 percent of employees are motivated by advancement in their careers, recognition, and status. They likely already feel overwhelmed by all the different tech being introduced into their working lives, and would prefer streamlined solutions. Don’t let the grumbling fool you, this segment will still spend around 17 hours on tech training every month.

• Rewards-driven: 29 percent of employees are motivated by individual achievement within a predictable environment. This group likes a routine and cares about the well being of their coworkers. They are the hardest to evangelize as they don’t prize efficiency or recognition as highly as the first two segments.

How much time are they willing to invest? Turns out, most employees are willing to invest upwards of two days per month in upskilling, but only 50 percent are satisfied with the available resources, and 46 percent say their company doesn’t value tech-savvy workers. This data signifies an opportunity for leaders to define avenues for their teams to learn, and be rewarded for their learning. Sooner, rather than later, would be ideal as The World Economic Forum projects that by 2022, 54 percent of employees will need a substantial amount of training, with 35 percent of those in need, requiring at least six months of instruction.

Does the human touch still matter? Yes, when asked employees would still prefer, by in large, to have face to face interactions when it comes to talking with colleagues, providing feedback, getting help with difficult questions, and receiving HR assistance.

… but the digital assist still has its place. Some processes can be both human and digital. For example, initial tech evangelization can happen through in-person meetings, and product demos while extended training on features and nudge reminders can happen digitally over slack or via the product directly.

Things employees would prefer to do via tech: schedule vacation time, update personal info, get IT help, review benefits, enroll in benefits, and look for new employment.

Confer with mixed-level tech committees: Consider conferring with “informal leaders”, people who may not hold a leadership title per se, but who can give you an idea of what the company looks like on the ground level. Don’t discount the value of this view!

***

At the end of the day, employees want to feel like the leadership is driving tech-innovation to enable workers, not replace them. When asked if the rise of AI would make the world a better place, 88 percent of the C-suite respondents said yes, while only 48 percent of the staff surveyed agreed. This disconnect is emblematic of why the tech adoption can be so tricky; workers fear that digitization isn’t to support them, but to edge them out. The best thing any organization can do to encourage innovation is to involve employees in the decision, and illustrate the value proposition clearly!

Hiring is all about predicting the future—is your applicant tracking system doing the same? Here’s a look at five features that aren’t just trends, but must haves for the new year.

Better Buys previously identified the top trends for the ATS solutions market as social media integration, greater emphasis on interviewing and assessment tools (i.e. video interviewing), and predictive analytics. In the two years since that report, recruiters and hiring managers have encountered challenges with reactive hiring, thinning talent pipelines, and a greater need for automated processes—all while fighting to secure great talent.

Looking ahead at 2019, these new demands are driving the future direction of applicant tracking systems across the industry. As companies continue to build out their ATS platforms to be more feature-rich and provide better solutions, here are some of the trends we can look forward to in the coming year.

1. Candidate Relationship Management

With job openings at a record high and unemployment at record low numbers, the competition for great talent is even more fierce. Companies are struggling to hire quality applicants, and many qualified potential candidates are not actively seeking work. Finding the right person for a role will require more robust sourcing tools, and Candidate Relationship Management (CRM) solutions will provide recruiters with stronger talent pools ahead of demand. CRM solutions will ultimately change the recruiting function from reactive to proactive, enhancing talent pipelines before companies post their open jobs.

2. AI

“Gut feeling” prediction of whether a candidate is a good fit for a role isn’t going to cut it in 2019. For example, candidates with impressive diplomas or certifications do not necessarily make great employees, and assessment tools struggle to test for traits like work ethic, a positive attitude, dependability, and working well under pressure.

Recruiters need to know which candidate is most likely to accept a job offer and stay with the team long enough to make an impact. Native AI solutions like SmartAssistant will offer recruiters measurable insights into a candidate’s skills, cultural fit, the likelihood of accepting an offer, and probable retention with greater efficiency, and less bias. AI will also help recruiters make better decisions with candidates who are moving between fields with comparable skills and promote more internal mobility within their organization.

3. Automation

Recruiters are constantly being pressured to fill more roles with the best talent at a faster, more cost-efficient rate, and this means that automation will continue to be a top priority among the best Applicant Tracking Systems. Automation will help optimize repetitive tasks like interview scheduling and applicant pre-screening, but ATS automation in 2019 will include targeted email campaigns and recruitment marketing platforms, allowing recruiters to deliver specific messaging to nurtured talent communities.

According to Rebecca Carr, VP of Product at SmartRecruiters, automating these processes will make “it faster and easier for businesses to build and convert their talent pipeline within one system.” Ultimately, automation and native AI solutions will work together to “challenge the old way of “tracking” candidates through a workflow.”

4. Collaboration and Communication

The future of recruiting is all about “the team” effort, where recruiters, interviewers, and hiring managers work in tandem to source, attract, and hire the best talent for their organization. But there’s often a disconnect. If not everyone involved in the hiring process is using the ATS, then time is wasted relaying information and collecting feedback. An ATS should be intuitive and allow for greater communication between all team members, which directly affects an organization’s time to hire and overall candidate experience.

Features like different access levels within an ATS to ensure each person sees the right amount of information and more comprehensive dashboards that give candidates an overview of where they are in the hiring process will be highly valuable in the coming year.

5. Integration

Enterprises are no longer the sole entities in need of end-to-end recruiting solutions. Startups are just as eager to hire great talent for their teams, and are often much faster adopters of new technology. For these organizations, an ATS that offers open APIs and a large marketplace of third-party vendor integrations is highly attractive.

Martin Snyder, President of Main Sequence Technology Inc., argues that, “key drivers of market share changes for 2019 are not likely to be technically revolutionary, but rather more operational efficiency.” Meaning, an ATS that offers features like streamlined integration with email, calendar, and Slack—systems that teams are already using—along with “easier solutions to teach and learn, easier ways to get data in and out, and lower pricing” will become the top choices for enterprises and startups in 2019.

Excited about the potential of blockchain recruiting? You should be. But now let’s get down to brass tacks and harsh truths.

Blockchain—the decentralized ledger technology behind Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies—is positioned to flip the recruiting industry on its head.

For the uninitiated, blockchain technology promises a new reality where companies can confirm the authenticity of a job applicant’s credentials without having to contact former employers or pay for background checks.

Candidate information stored on a blockchain is both verified by the peer-to-peer network and immune to tampering—a game-changer in a world where up to 85 percent of job applicant resumes contain false information.

In other words, blockchain recruiting promises a lot. The question now is: When will it deliver?

Not anytime soon, if Gartner research is any indication. According to “Predicts 2018: Top Predictions in Blockchain Business” (available to Gartner clients), only 10 percent of enterprise businesses will achieve radical transformation with the use of blockchain technologies through 2022.

In fact, blockchain recruiting will not become a small and midsize business tool until at least 2025, due to factors such as limited resources and a lag in technology awareness compared to their larger brethren.

These predictions aren’t meant to rain on the blockchain parade, and they’re not meant to dissuade you from acting. On the contrary, recruiters that stand idly by and wait for this disruptive technology to reach their doorstep will not be ready to adopt when it’s time.

Here are three key obstacles recruiters should pay attention to before implementing blockchain recruiting in their business, along with tips on how to prepare today for this disruptive technology.

Obstacle #1: Government Entities and Academic Institutions Are Lagging

Think of each ‘link’ in a person’s blockchain-powered job application as a single event in that person’s career. When a person gets a promotion, it’s verified by their employer and added to their blockchain. Performance review? Add it to their blockchain.

That’s the beauty of this technology for recruiters: It’s a single source for verified candidate information. The problem is that there are significant chunks of important candidate information that don’t come from employers.

Take a candidate’s college degree(s) for example. Forward-thinkers like Australian University and MIT are currently experimenting with offering graduates digital diplomas powered by blockchain, but it will be a while before the rest of academia catches up:

Then there’s the government. From criminal records to social security numbers, recruiters still rely on government entities for background checks.

And, while the current administration is beginning to consider blockchain in the wake of the Equifax data leak, there are still more than a few regulatory roadblocks, between getting legislation passed and figuring out how to transfer old paper records, before identifiers such as birth certificates start going digital. Sadly, the United States isn’t as agile or forward-thinking as countries such as Estonia, which started adopting blockchain-powered ID cards for its citizens in 2002.

All that to say, it won’t matter how quickly the private sector jumps on the blockchain recruiting bandwagon if other important players in the hiring process lag behind. Until you can get the whole picture of a candidate through blockchain, you should wait to embrace this technology.

Obstacle #2: Legal and Security Concerns Still Exist

In theory, blockchain is an impenetrable record of data. Not only are all transactions on blockchain immutable and irreversible, but to be recorded in the first place, every computing device (or node) on a specific blockchain must agree to the transaction. Short of a nigh-impossible ’51 percent attack’ (where one party controls a majority of the nodes on a specific blockchain), any job candidate information on blockchain is hack-proof.

In practice, however, a number of costly incidents have proven that blockchain isn’t foolproof yet:

• In July 2017, a hacker exploited a flaw in the Ethereum blockchain network and made off with $31 million.
• In January 2018, the largest crypto hack in history on the Japanese cryptocurrency exchange, Coincheck, resulted in a loss of $534 million.
• That nigh-impossible 51 percent attack? It already happened.

Compounding these security concerns are legal ones. What if candidate data logged on a blockchain is incorrect or infringes on someone’s rights? The irreversible nature of blockchain means courts can’t just go in and change the record. Giving legal bodies a skeleton key would also negate one of the key benefits of blockchain: decentralization.

Questions over who has jurisdiction in international transactions are also largely unanswered. If a network in Spain approves a blockchain transaction in the U.S., is it subject to GDPR, the new E.U. data privacy law? Most experts agree blockchain technology and the new law are at odds.

With highly sensitive applicant data on the line, these issues should be addressed before you consider switching recruiting processes over to blockchain.

Obstacle #3: Blockchain Technology Is Expensive

One of the primary reasons businesses are excited about blockchain is the possibility of greatly reducing or even eliminating transaction costs. That’s the main sell for how blockchain recruiting will achieve a positive ROI in the long run: Instead of paying $20 to $30 per candidate for a third-party background check provider, recruiters pay a fraction of that amount to gain access to a candidate’s data themselves.

In order for the numbers with blockchain recruiting to work out positively though, initial costs need to come down. It doesn’t matter if it’s an application purchased through an outside vendor or a proprietary tool built in-house. Simply put, SMBs don’t have the budget for blockchain implementations in their current state, when you consider these three sources of high cost:

3 High Costs Associated With Blockchain Applications

• Finding blockchain talent. Blockchain application developers are rare and expensive, demanding at least $150,000 a year.
• Powering blockchain transactions. Blockchain transactions require a ton of computational power to take place. Cryptocurrency miners currently face high costs largely because of this need.
• Storing blockchain data. Remember, blockchain transactions don’t disappear. As more and more candidate data is added onto a blockchain—even one with a ton of nodes that share the burden of storage—costs will soar.

As a result, 80 percent of blockchain applications done at the enterprise level through 2020 in an attempt to save money will fail to do so, according to Gartner’s Predicts 2018. In order for blockchain recruiting to become feasible for everyone, costs related to the creation and maintenance of these platforms need to fall dramatically.

How You Can Prepare for Blockchain Recruiting Today

Yes, it’ll be a while before blockchain recruiting becomes a tangible reality for your average business. That being said, here are steps you can take right now to prepare for blockchain recruiting:

• Learn more about what blockchain is, and what it isn’t. When companies can simply add the word “blockchain” to their name and see their stock price skyrocket, it’s safe to say there will be more than a handful of software vendors that claim to leverage the technology, but really don’t. Seek out resources and learn more about blockchain to avoid being duped: Gartner is a great source on this topic; so is MIT Technology Review.
• Find alternative solutions in the interim. Here’s an interesting stat: According to Gartner’s “Blockchain Primer for 2018” (available to Gartner clients), 85 percent of projects this year that have “blockchain” in their title will deliver business value without actually using a blockchain. These projects jump-started by the desire to implement blockchain will ultimately arrive at alternative solutions. Instead of waiting around for blockchain to come to fruition, consider a different approach to improve recruiting processes (e.g., switching background check providers).
• Talk to software vendors about their plans for blockchain. Talk with your recruiting software vendor to learn about their plans for blockchain implementations or partnering with other blockchain applications. Oh, and if you don’t have recruiting software, fix that. It’ll improve your organization today and suitably prepare it for the tech of tomorrow.

Want to learn more about how software and technology can improve recruiting processes and hiring outcomes? Check out more helpful articles on Software Advice.

Seeking to answer the question “What’s next?” Talent Tech Labs assembles more than a dozen industry innovators to solve today’s challenges using tomorrow’s technology.

Most early-stage tech companies lack enough gravitas to effectively promote through industry channels, often relegating themselves to intermittent tweets and blog posts. Where social media fails to gain traction, Talent Tech Labs (TTL) steps in with support, mentorship, and most importantly, market intelligence for new organizations. TTL builds communities of startup and mid-level tech companies to investigate, promote, and accelerate new technologies that improve recruitment processes, from sourcing to interviewing and hiring.

Talent Tech Labs continually asks: What’s next in Talent Acquisition? They know the answer, but want industry professionals to see and, more importantly, decide for themselves. Which is why TTL is showcasing 13 innovative technologies from promising TA companies at the Talent Tech NEXT event in New York City this spring.

With the Manhattan skyline in full view from the stylish rooftop terrace of NYC’s 230 Fifth, companies will take the stage to demo their cutting edge, fully-vetted technologies ready to implement directly into modern recruiting stacks. The 13 competitors of the NEXT startup expo will present to an expert panel of executives as well as audience attendees. Previous NEXT guests included execs from Amazon, Fidelity, Microsoft, E*Trade, Samsung, Nike, PwC, KPMG, Intuit, and many more.

This isn’t a cleverly disguised sales pitch, but a unique opportunity to engage with future recruitment technologies and the brilliant teams who create them. The competitors represent several different market sectors, from accounting and finance to chatbot platforms and hourly hiring, but are unified in their mission to produce innovative products that make recruitment a futures industry.

TTL began as an R&D lab located in bustling Manhattan before it evolved into a startup incubator, technology scout, and sector leader in the TA tech space. Backed by Mercer, Allegis Group, and Mitchell Martin, TTL leverages its substantial knowledge of product marketing to foster relationships between companies and industry leaders. But its true recognition stems from its ability to make these connections at scale. They have evaluated, demoed, and cataloged information on over 1,500 TA tech startups since 2012, and will soon add more company names to their roster of successful partners, to be decided by event attendees.

In the preliminary round of interactive presentations, demo spectators will act as pseudo-investors, using TTL’s own faux cryptocurrency NEXTbucks, to “fund” competitor products. Of the 13 original competitors, the two who collect the most funds and impress the expert panel will return for a second round of deep-dive presentations at the end of the day’s program.

In addition to the NEXT startup expo, keynote speaker Matt Hoffman, VP of People at DigitalOcean, will share insights on how he implemented a high-velocity TA strategy to scale up from 70 employees to 410 during his three-year tenure. His talk also promises to enlighten attendees on how to build a unique and compelling employer brand that prioritizes candidate experience. Even with a plethora of cutting-edge technology at recruiters’ fingertips, HR remains a people business.

Register for Talent Tech NEXT online and mark your calendars for May 3, 2018.

After paying their debts to society, thousands of Americans with criminal records struggle to land a job, in large part due to recruiter bias.

Shelley Winner’s dad first got her drunk when she was 11. At 13, she started smoking pot. By 34 she was using and trafficking methamphetamine, heroin, and prescription pills. After a short-lived stint smuggling drugs across state lines, she was arrested, and received a four-year sentence at FCI Dublin, a low-security prison for female inmates, 98 miles from her hometown of Carmichael, California. With her father having been in and out of jail for most of her life to that point, Shelley joined 70 percent of children with incarcerated parents who follow them into the prison system.

“What if…” asks Shelley, now 40, “…you were known for only one thing, and it was the worst thing you’ve ever done?”

The United States represents roughly 4.4 percent of the world’s population, but holds approximately 22 percent of the world’s prisoners, and has one of the highest incarceration rates per-capita worldwide, with 693 inmates for every 100,000 people. After becoming one of the 600,000 released from American prisons each year, Shelley experienced reluctance to hire ex-prisoners firsthand, at a multinational tech firm. A job offer was rescinded once the company discovered she had served time.

“That was a very hard moment,” says Shelley. “It would have made a lot of people just give up. But I didn’t.”

Arizona State University polled 50 employers about hypothetical job applicants, including men and women with criminal records, and found that 57 percent of men with a prison record would have been considered for a job interview, but only 30 percent of women with the same prison record would have received a call.

“We need to get rid of these stigmas,” says Shelley, “and give people a fair, second chance to get their lives back in order.”

Contrary to popular perception, not hiring ex-offenders is bad for business. Approximately one in three American adults have criminal records – that’s 70 million people – and excluding them from the workforce reduces Gross National Product between $78 and $87 billion annually. This is on par with the cost of the proposed merger between Time Warner and AT&T, two of the largest telecommunications companies in the world.

Employers can also reap substantial tax credits for hiring ex-offenders, as well as earn fidelity bonds that cover the first six months of employment for “hard to place” candidates. But even with such incentives, nearly 75 percent of formerly incarcerated people are still unemployed a year after their release. With few prospects to cover basic expenses, many ex-offenders return to illicit activities. Unable to make ends meet, 89 percent of ex-offenders are unemployed at the time of their re-arrest. The odds of Shelley starting a legitimate career while staying out of prison were slim, but she was determined to reform after discovering, two weeks after her arrest, that she was going to have a baby.

A judge removed Shelley from jail and placed her in a halfway house, allowing to carry her pregnancy to term before serving her time. There, Shelley enrolled in the faith-based recovery program, Adult & Teen Challenge USA, which, after successful completion, knocked a year off her original four-year sentence.

“It was the most pivotal moment of my life,” she says. “There was no way I was going to be a drug-addicted mom who was in and out of prison. I couldn’t put my child through what I went through.”

Two months after giving birth to a son, Shelley stepped into FCI Dublin, where she found another chance to transform her street hustle into a force for personal change. She gained entrepreneurial and leadership training through Defy Ventures, a nonprofit organization that works with prisons and correctional facilities in cities across the country, offering currently and formerly incarcerated “Entrepreneurs-in-Training” entry into the business world. For Shelley, “it was an amazing, life-changing program.”

The Defy Ventures program at FCI Dublin falls under the jurisdiction of Veronica Ensign, Bay Area executive director. “We focus on this one piece of the system so we can make a greater impact,” says Ensign. “And if we break these cycles we will have forever changed the system.”

Ensign worked with directly with Shelley while she served her sentence and the two speak together at conferences, both to share Shelley’s story, and bring attention to ex-offenders with similar backgrounds who haven’t been as successful reintegrating.

“The odds have been stacked against them before their incarceration,” Ensign says, “and then we make it even harder once they get out.”

Shelley worked with Defy Ventures’ coaching team for 18 months while in prison, culminating in a “Shark Tank”-style investor meeting with CEOs and venture capitalists, where she pitched her strategy for a computer-repair business.
Shelley lived up to her name and won the competition.

The next step was to find a mentor who could help her navigate the tech industry on the outside. Enter DeeDee Towery, CEO at ProActive Business Solutions and one of the Bay Area’s most influential female business figures. She acted as a guide during Shelley’s 10-month stint in a halfway home, spent seeking career opportunities in tech, a field that long held the interest of the self-described “computer geek.” Shelley then enrolled in Code Tenderloin, an intensive program of job readiness, interview techniques, and coding. It was Code Tenderloin that brought Shelley to a major tech company’s Mountain View office, where after a day of introductions, she was encouraged to apply for an open position.

“Code Tenderloin had me doing so many mock interviews,” she says. “I hated it at the time, but, when I went in for the real interview, I nailed it, and was hired right there on the spot.”

And that’s when Shelley’s conviction history raised concerns and her offer was rescinded. This setback crushed her morale, but she remained determined. “If there’s one thing Defy Ventures taught me,” she says, “it was to not give up when faced with fear, to keep pushing forward, and to silence self-limiting thoughts. It’s ok to be afraid, but instead of it being crippling, you embrace it.”

A 2017 survey sponsored by the National Association of Professional Background Screeners found that 86 percent of US employers surveyed conducted background screening checks after the job interview, but 97 percent conducted criminal background screening on candidates regardless of their status in the interview process. With easy access to online databases, employers feel justified in this, but Ensign argues that “most people running background checks are doing them illegally, and not in a comprehensive way.”

Accessing candidate information via social media or other online portals can lead to murky legal waters, where discrimination can affect hiring decisions. Nearly 30 states currently uphold fair chance hiring policies, some of which require private sector and government employers to “ban the box” indicating a candidate’s previous felony or misdemeanor convictions, as well as delay candidate background checks until later in the hiring process.

While Shelley made it all the way to the job offer stage, she easily could have been rejected at the outset, as California did not implement its Fair Chance Act until January 2018. Before then, California’s estimated seven million residents with conviction histories were systematically excluded from countless job opportunities because of this box.

Ensign emphasizes the importance of background checks that would eliminate certain people from the candidate pool — banks don’t want to hire embezzlers, trucking companies don’t want to hire drunk drivers, etc — but recruiters should “conduct their background checks in a way that considers the person holistically,” she says. “It’s important to do the empathy-building on the front-end of the application process.”

Even with crisp talking points and polished interview skills, no amount of charisma could erase the mark on Shelley’s record. But she decided to plead her case with the hiring manager over email. “I know you’re leery about hiring me,” she wrote. “But I assure you, you’re not going to regret it because I am gonna bust my ass.”

Shelley’s tenacity paid off, and the hiring manager reconsidered. Besides the financial mistake of excluding candidates with conviction histories, they are often branded “untrustworthy”, or “unreliable,” even though it’s been proved that individuals with conviction records maintain a much longer tenure, and are less likely to quit their jobs voluntarily than other workers, likely due to scarcity of opportunities. As for a “lack of social and professional skills”, Ensign stands by Defy Ventures candidates who complete the training program and leverage their skills for success.

“Competition is good,” she says, “and we know that our candidates can compete with others. If hiring managers are going to consider the millions of Americans with conviction histories as part of their TA strategy, they need to do some empathy-building work with their leadership and employees.”

Technology may be the current focus within the HR industry, but the human touch remains its essence. Shelley’s goal in telling her story is more than simply tugging at heartstrings, it’s about the need to give the ex-incarcerated a chance to prove themselves.

“Having empathy in the hiring process brings things down to a human level,” says Shelley. “We all need to look at each other as people instead of data.”

One company had a standard practice, whenever they hired a new management level employee, they would automatically give them a laptop and cell phone. No one even discussed if it was necessary for these employees to have the equipment. What should have happened was a job analysis, researching the essential job functions of each position regardless of title to determine if that employee needed the phone or laptop to perform their essential duties.

It became more of a status symbol then a necessity.  So much so that even when employees would move up via a promotion they felt entitled to a cellphone and laptop. The company had all these managers and executives with company paid devices. Here’s what happened, there was a site emergency, a fire, an after hours fire at that. The fire department was notified, managers, directors and VP’s were called. Just about anyone with a company cellphone was called, and guess how many actually answered? Two out of about 20. No one was available via the laptops or cellphones. After that incident a billing analysis was performed and then someone finally wondered aloud in a management meeting, “How much are our cellular bills? Why are we paying so much for our phone service if we can’t reach anyone when we need them?” Genius.

Needless to say, that was the end of the free cellphone and laptop perk unless deemed a business need.

The Lesson: when you supply cool technology, make sure it’s practical, and if you’re going to use cool technology as a recruiting tool, make sure it’s practical … What I’m saying is – if you haven’t figured it out – make sure your technology is practical! 

Such as this R2D2 garage:

But seriously, here’s another failure in technology and business acumen: there was this call center, and the executives were not happy with the service and production of the call center analyst. The execs decided to purchase screen capture software called NICE. NICE could be programmed to record thousands of calls per day and it would cost a couple of million dollars to implement.

This call center did not have the most efficient system for customer service, logging and tracking conversations, billing, trouble shooting and order placements. In fact they a different system for each of them. That does not include email and internet, at any one time an analyst would have 7-8 different systems open.

Regardless they went ahead and purchased NICE. This program was a monster, it had to be loaded on the servers and the workstations, and it utilized a huge about amount of space and speed.  We noticed that overall network performance suffered after the NICE program was installed. Seriously, every 10-15 minutes there was congestion and freezes. Another problem with the NICE was storage; initially the executives requested the system to record all analysts at all times. We were getting 30k call a week. Who’s going to look and listen to all those call for quality assurance and training purposes? Oh yeah you guessed it, this guy right here. It was horrible.

The good news was many analysts were doing their jobs properly. The bad news was several analysts who were not doing their jobs properly. They were playing games, sending personal emails and/or having instant message conversation instead of working. The other good news was I learned about every office affair in the building, whoa, all I can say is there was a lot of love in that place.

Ultimately the NICE system was shut-down because it caused too many network issues and it had recorded more data then was necessary.

The Lesson: business technology is not judged based on how fancy it is, it is judged by how it helps the end user’s productivity.

In business technology, there is a fine line between innovation and wasteful. In our first example the company bought new technology because it was trendy. In the second example, the company needed new technology, but they purchased the wrong type of technology. They bought something that caused delays and outages, thus reducing employee productivity. The employees would have been more efficient had they invested in a technology that caters to what employees need. My company needed technology that combined the separate billing, troubleshooting, tracking, and order placement systems into one system.

Organizations should use systems that not only make business sense, but also are cost effective, and easy to use. Employees will not use a system that is too cumbersome and/or not practical. New employees don’t want to learn complicated systems. Remember this, choose the technology that serves your organization to empower the employees, the product, and the customer experience.

About the Author: Chris Fields is an HR professional and leadership guy who blogs and dispenses great (not just good) advice at Cost of Work.  Connect with Chris on Twitter. Photo Credit WhattheHellz

The Wall Street Journal published an article (“Moneyball and the HR Department”**) discussing how HR departments are using big data as an analytics tool digging deeper into  HR analytics and measurement formulas, such as the cost of hire and performance value.  It’s HR use of technologies and data analysis like these  – coupled with their understanding of social media – that can finally measure HR’s worth.  HR can tangibly justify their value to an organization, showing what we have known all along, that managers and senior leaders use HR as a scapegoat for their own unproductivity.

This fact is what I believe will leave organization’s managers grumpy and ungrateful.  You see HR has long had a PR problem with companies not truly understanding the value of the department and the average employee believing that the scope of HR’s responsibility is merely hiring and firing.  Now, by understanding technology, big data, as well as social media, our HR teams can now define and substantiate our real value, and that has our leadership teams scared out of their minds.  While big data and new technologies in our space are needed to help compete in this increasingly competitive talent and customer marketplace, only time will tell how our management counterparts as well as our HR peers will react to the new social HR and technology landscape.

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a HR consultant, new media strategist, and author who writes at Blogging4Jobs. Jessica is the host of Job Search Secrets, an internet television show for job seekers. Photo Credit MichaelKeyesSite and SalesChallenger.

**Editor’s Note: “He gets on base a lot. Do I care if it’s a walk or a hit?”