chapter seven

Summary

Being a trailblazer is never easy—especially if your goal is to lead a company-wide change. Implementing new technology— and the new processes that come with it—might be one of the most challenging initiatives in your career, but also one of the most rewarding. If you partner with the right vendors and leverage the tools outlined in this chapter, you can avoid common pitfalls and charge forward unhindered. True transformation takes time and continuous effort—in the next chapter, we’ll discuss how you can continue to optimize your hiring strategy and processes.

Hiring Success in Action Increasing User Adoption via Education and Excitement

financial services iconFinancial Services
employees icon2,500+ Employees

A leading high-growth merchant services aggregator and mobile payment company with 2,500 employees aimed to drive user adoption with SmartRecruiters as soon as the implementation process started. From an early stage, their TA team allocated resources to educate users about the value of SmartRecruiters.

Months before launching, the TA team created videos that showcased a wide range of their soon-to-be system’s functionalities—for example how easy it is for hiring managers and executives to stay actively engaged throughout the hiring process thanks to SmartRecruiters’ mobile app. They focused on creating customized educational content to show a variety of stakeholders how the new ATS would benefit their roles, respectively. To strengthen positive association with the soon-to-be adopted product, they even placed a miniature plush doll of SmartRecruiters’ mascot, Winston, on the desks of their colleagues. And the results have been impressive: 70% of the company’s users are active on SmartRecruiters every month and 30k imessages were sent internally within the first three months of adoption.

10 Key Takeways

  1. Internal stakeholder alignment is critical to project success, and communicating the outcomes and benefits for each will help build TA’s credibility in the eyes of those involved.
  2. A detailed project plan helps define desired actions and outcomes from all parties and keeps all action times and target dates in scope.
  3. Technology without the right people and processes in place cannot solve all the challenges your organization hopes to address.
  4. Change management is not a one-time activity; rather, it is an ongoing process that requires constant engagement with your audience.
  5. To achieve a smooth and timely deployment, prioritize third-party integrations that are mission-critical to your business.
  6. Consistent adoption and engagement ensures that your team has the right tools to achieve Hiring Success and enable measurable business outcomes.
  7. The steps to a successful implementation follow: evaluate your current state, plan for future state, build a deployment strategy, create a project timeline, execute, and plan for post go-live support.
  8. If budget constraints are an issue, it’s recommended to pull back on technology add-ons and premium features instead of limiting resources for proper implementation.
  9. To drive adoption and engagement, find your champions—super users outside the project team who will inspire others.
  10. Experts recommend that at least 25% of your project budget should be allocated to user training.