The HR and recruitment world is constantly becoming more automated, but despite that inescapable fact, convincing CFOs and organization leaders to invest in recruiting technology can be surprisingly difficult. And even when new technology does make its way into hiring teams’ hands, it isn’t always used to its full potential.
To help organizations and HR professionals understand the ins and outs of HR tech ROI, Talenya held a webinar: Evaluating & Improving Recruitment Tech Implementation for Maximum ROI. Panelists were Sandra Myers, SVP, HR Business Partner at Raymond James ; Trevor White, who oversees advisory services at Nucleus Research (which focuses on tech ROI); and Evelyn McMullen, a Research Manager also at Nucleus Research who started on their HR tech research team.
If you missed the webinar, you can check out the whole recording here, or read the main takeaways below!
Make Sure Leaders Understand That HR is a Business Necessity
Far too often, HR and recruiting are overlooked as a worthwhile business investment by higher-ups. But a company is only as good as its people, and HR is responsible for those people. As recruiters, we understand the money and time lost on long search and engagement processes, but CFOs will want to have those numbers laid out. So it’s important to be able to justify each project from a business case perspective.
That means both laying out a case for hard ROI—in the case of recruiting technology like Talenya, the countless paid hours saved by recruiters add up to quite a bit of money saved as well—especially when focused on the long-term. In addition, the top-quality talent brought in by the tech will add value to the company, and it will lower time-to-fill for each position which also lose a business money.
Focus on KPIs and Requirements
Another important aspect of any pitch is whether a tool will help with compliance and meeting concrete goals. For example, many companies now have diversity hiring requirements which are deeply important both for creating greater equity and in some cases, getting investors. There are plenty of qualified underrepresented candidates in the workforce, but it can be difficult to find them without the right technology. Laying out how a recruitment AI can help meet diversity KPIs and add value and possibly money to the business can help business leaders come around to new tech.
Similarly, there’s a big focus on compliance for budgeters because noncompliance can result in super-expensive lawsuits. So laying out how a software can help the organization stay compliant with legislation is another important angle to take.
Organized Change Management is Key
When it comes to rolling out a new tool, it’s unfortunately common to see ROI lower than it should be due to both lack of adoption and disorganization. One of the most important ways to ensure a tool is rolled out successfully is to first focus on the business process it’s there for. When there’s no actual effort to change a bad business process, a new tool is like wallpaper over a leaky ceiling: it might look nicer, but it won’t address the real problem.
Instead, the business process must be evaluated end-to-end for inefficiencies, and a plan for change should be made and disseminated to every relevant party. Once the need and the purpose of the technology is clear to everyone involved, hiring teams will be more capable of using it to its full potential in the way their own organization will most benefit.
Make it Easy for the End-Users
At the end of the day, the most important aspect of ROI is whether a tool is actually adopted by the people who are supposed to use it. And for a variety of reasons, this doesn’t always happen.
For one thing, the job market is quite volatile right now, and increasing automation might look like the nearing obsolescence of human TA specialists. But in reality, automation cannot replace human intuition or connection; what it can do is save time and increase search results through automatic searches and initial engagement.
Another common pitfall is pitching only to leaders and implementing tools without involving end-users in the decision. This is important because it’s really the hiring teams themselves who will tell you whether a software will integrate with existing systems, whether it will actually make their job easier, and how much effort and time training on it will take.
Recruiting automation tech such as Talenya has the potential to bring incredibly high returns on investment, but it must be implemented properly and adopted across the board. To ensure high ROI on your HR technology, make sure to plan solid change management, be clear on what KPIs it will meet and how, and to keep end-users involved throughout the implementation process.
