ATS v2.0 is more than just changing the name to TMS

ATS v2.0 is more than just changing the name to TMS

Segment(s) of the TSC Impacted: All of segment two with the exception of Universal Variables

I remember the days when there were only really two ATS systems, Resumix and Res Track and how I was amazed that something could search through thousands of resumes and deliver ones with keywords you input in a matter of minutes.

That was before the internet and long before Google allowed us to search billions of sites to find information that we need, no matter how obscure.

Since those early days of the ATS we have seen it change somewhat, but perhaps not as much as one would have expected given that my experience was more than 15 years ago.

Many argue that the ATS really serves as an electronic file cabinet and that it hasn’t changed significantly.  Since their inception, the only substantial change has been that it “integrates” with other products like background checking systems, HRIS, etc. and is much simpler to configure by a user.

I believe that “integration” is merely a fancy way of saying “file transfer” or electronic paper shuffling.   As we all know, administrative tasks are far from the most important thing about recruiting… it’s about the relationship, the brand, the marketing plan and so many other things before merely retrieving information and sending it off somewhere else.

We are already seeing headhunters starting to move away from the ATS/TMS in favor of a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool because with some modification they can handle the electronic paper shuffling, but are far more effective at helping manage a relationship with a candidate, which is vital to a good headhunter.

I believe that we are not far from seeing small corporate environments make the shift to CRM if some haven’t already done so and quite probably a CRM vendor making a serious run at the ATS/TMS market.

But a CRM is only part of the solution.

So ATS/TMS vendors, here are my thoughts on what I think v2.0 of your space should be:

Use your current product as a baseline to launch into entirely new areas

While I do think that information retrieval and integration is far from meeting all our needs, it remains an important base component, so continue to develop and refine this.

Create real CRM capability so we can engage candidates over the long term

I know an ATS/TMS cannot include all the elements that a sales CRM can; but there are many elements that it could.  Some ATS vendors say their product can be used for CRM but I am willing to bet at best it allows someone to do some mass e-mails to semi targeted groups, enables people to be notified about jobs and track notes of conversations that a Recruiter inputs.  It may even integrate with Outlook to let a Recruiter create tasks and calendar items, but that is clunky and not enough.  But systems need to support Recrutments shift from being about how quickly one can fill the job most cheaply to building relationships with strong candidates over a period of months to perhaps years.   We need to be able to engage candidates using a variety of tools that works seamlessly by helping us set up an engagement plan ahead of time for each critical candidate group and executing the plan with little manual effort.

Help Recruiters create and execute maketing plans for each specific position

I would like to see an ATS allow a Recruiter or Recruiting leadership to sit down and think about how to promote a position ahead of time and with some input and guidance have the system execute that plan with only conformational input from the Recruiter.  For example, A Recruiter is about to open a tough to fill position.  They input some information and not only does the system present back some recommendations of where to promote the position (some systems do this already) but will allow the Recruiter to either follow a predefined plan that Recruiting leadership has input or create a new plan to be approved by leadership.  Thirty days after the position has opened, the system will prompt the Recruiter to post the position to a particular Twitter feed or send a message out to specific employees to solicit employee referrals, pushes the position out to company alumni that fit a relevant set of criteria and sends the information out to specific user groups.

Real integration with social media

I have seen systems that allow people to share information off the careers site and may support a Twitter and Facebook feed, which is a great first step, but I would like to see a system that not only integrates with multiple Twitter feeds, but helps manage a marketing plan that includes social media, and also searches social media sites for potential candidates by matching requirements of critical jobs with profiles on social media platforms.  Some systems do some of this, but it is not a robust and reliable as it should be. In addition, a system that would allow a Recruiter to manage conversations with multiple people across multiple platforms is also critical. Conversations with leads generated via social media interactions would have to be kept separate from notes about interactions with candidates, but many systems already allow leads and candidates to be kept separately.

A mobile site

There are some great vendors out there with very good modestly priced mobile website products, but I why can’t an ATS that can power a corporate career site also provide a mobile site that facilitates a seamless experience for the candidate.

Robust real time metrics and analytics

This is perhaps the thing that has disappointed all of us most about the ATS. There are some that are more successful than others, but even the best ones seem to fall a little short at times.  So I cannot write this entry without asking for something more about metrics.  We need more than marginally reliable sourcing information.  I need to see website analytics that I can slice and dice information by source, by time, region, yield ratio, etc.  I need to be able to take any two variables and associate them to see if there is a relationship.  At the most basic level, I need to be able to measure not just the pedestrian measurements of cost per hire and time to fill, but more important things like quality of hire throughout an employee’s tenure and the Recruiter Efficiency Ratio developed by Dr. John Sullivan and Staffing.org, etc.

Conclusion

So I have shared my thoughts, but what are yours? Feel free to let us know what you would like to see in an ATS/TMS.

Until next month…

© 2010 Michael K. Peterson, All Rights Reserved

Recruiting metrics by the dashboard light

Recruiting metrics by the dashboard light

Segment(s) of the TSC Impacted: Directly- Your Organizations Ability to Source Candidates.

Being an active networker I get the opportunity to talk to other recruiting leaders from a variety of industries and parts of the country.

Invariably, the conversation turns to organizational performance and how well we are doing and how well they are doing.  This isn’t a surprise, but what is a surprise to me is how many people still use old, pedestrian metrics to measure their performance.

Today I wanted to share my thoughts on recruitment metrics and see what your thoughts are.

My view of metrics

To me metrics generally fall into 3 categories.  To make this somewhat simpler, I will use driving a car as a metaphor.

“GPS Metrics”

The first category is what you may call “GPS metrics.”  These metrics allow you to see where you are going to, what your objective is, etc.  Just like a GPS system in your car, they indicate where you are going, what progress you have made and some of the potential obstacles you may run into (traffic, accidents, etc.).

So, what are these metrics in Recruiting?  They are driven by your strategic initiatives.  So a common measure may be top of mind awareness by candidates, which would be a measure of the effect of nearly all your advertising efforts.  If you are moving into Social Media, it may be the number of fans, friends, followers or connections that you have, or the number of referrals that you are getting or the message traffic among community members.

Just like your destination is not always the same when you drive, with some being more difficult to reach or being further away, these metrics change depending on where you are going as an organization.

“Speedometer/Windshield Metrics”

These metrics allow you to see a snapshot of what you are doing at the moment.  For example, in a car, no matter where you are heading to, your speed is your speed.  It does have some impact on when you will get to where you are going, but going faster or slower does not change the destination.  Fortunately that also means that this set of metrics is less dynamic than the ones I described earlier.  The items measured on the dashboard of your car remain the same over time.  There is a speedometer, maybe a gauge that indicates your engines RPMs, and perhaps some other gauges.  While the readings may change, the items you are monitoring remain the same.

So what are these measures in Recruiting?  Two critical ones that come to mind are Quality of Hire and the Recruiter Efficiency Ratio that is supported by Dr. John Sullivan.  Just like the dashboard in your car provides you with information about the immediate impact of your inputs on the vehicle, these measures do something similar within your recruiting organization.

“Warning Light Metrics”

These metrics can be critical (like the red check engine light) or simply a warning (like the yellow low fuel light).  So if a red warning light comes on while you are driving, that means that a critical system is experiencing a problem and you should pull over immediately, and if a yellow light comes on, that means you should address the issue soon, but it’s OK to keep driving the car.

Oddly, these are the metrics that I am most often asked about.  Measures like cost per hire, time to fill, time to start, new candidates received and to some degree the Source of Applicants are all common metrics that I am asked about.  If this is something beyond a casual conversation (say during an interview), it really makes me wonder about the organizations operations.

Am I saying they shouldn’t be monitored at all?  Absolutely not, there are times that they come in handy.  For example, we recently moved away from one of our job boards.  Potential negative impacts of this change could be seen in cost per hire, time to fill and new candidates received.

Conclusion

We all know that if someone decided to drive their car by only staying focused on the warning lights of our dashboard, we would crash very quickly.  Being focused on the speedometer and looking out the windshield is certainly better, and may be OK for basic “around the town” driving.  But if you really want to take your organization someplace new, you have to start measuring something that gives you the bigger view!

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to send them my way!

© 2010 Michael K. Peterson, All Rights Reserved

Six Sigma in Recruiting- Part II

Six Sigma in Recruiting- Part II

Segment(s) of the TSC Impacted: Nearly all of segment two except the universal variables

This article continues and completes our look at the Six Sigma Recruitment project we completed.

Why Variability is the Enemy

Very often we focus on what we perceive is broken, not on how stable a process is.  Process steps become black and white.  We all know that things aren’t that simple.

So why should we care about variability?  Because variability is the one thing you cannot plan for very effectively.  Stop and think about it… we all have things that we need to do that we know are almost always inefficient and we plan and anticipate accordingly.

For example, if you always knew that you could get in and back out of a certain store in less than 10 minutes, you can figure out easily if you have time to stop by that store before your next appointment.  Even if you knew that you could never get out of that store in less than an hour (although you also know that it shouldn’t take that long) again, you could easily figure out whether or not you have enough time to stop by before your next appointment.

So, what if the visit to the store took 5 minutes 40% of the time, 10 minutes 5% of the time, 30 minutes 30% of the time and 60 minutes 25% of the time?  There would be no way you could figure out if you could stop by before an upcoming appointment…  At best you would be hoping to be lucky!  This is why variability is the enemy.  People cannot plan and cannot rely on the process.

How Does Six Sigma Work in Recruitment

As you know, I look at Recruitment as a supply chain.  To apply Six Sigma to Recruitment is relatively easy in concept, but admittedly more difficult for some in practice.

Just as with any other process, Six Sigma will ask that you document your existing process, step by step, including how things inter-relate, how long each step should take place and what each step consists of.

If they don’t already exist, you will need to determine (or Define from DMAIC) guidelines for each step with the customers needs in mind.  Within Recruitment hiring managers are typically defined as the customer and candidates are typically defined as the product.  You will then compare how your actual process performs to how you think it needs to perform to meet everyone’s needs.

Sounds simple, but trust me, this can become very complicated.

Things to Know Before Taking on a Six Sigma Project

There are a few things that you need to know when you consider a Six Sigma Project.

The first is that Six Sigma is extremely data dependent.  If you do it right, simply sitting back and saying “I think we take two days to contact an applicant” is not good enough.  That way of thinking may be the reason why a Six Sigma project is needed!  You need to actually measure… many times, people are surprised by the disconnect between how they think the process works and how it actually works.

So your ATS either has to be able to give you numbers that you can rely on, or you need to be able to get them another way.

The next thing you need to know is that data is a double edged sword.  When the Six Sigma project was announced a handful of managers actually stood up and clapped.  They thought this would finally reveal that Recruitment was the cause of their inability to fill positions.

The funny thing is that those voices suddenly fell extremely silent when the process review finished with Recruitment and found mostly minor issues that were not accounting for the scope of variability…  Those same managers recognized if Recruitment’s taking 2 days in a 60-90 day process and HR is taking 5 days then I must be taking 53-83 days.

You can imagine how a vocal critic would suddenly wish the project would go away.

The final thing you need to know that I will share is that you need to be open to other peoples input and perceptions.  The process has a good way of getting information about processes out to people and breaking down perceptions that are false.  One may believe a process that takes 5 days is way too long, but when they look at it they realize that 5 days is actually very quick.  Conversely, we need to be open to hearing that there may be a difference between what we think the customer wants and what they actually want.  It is this openness that will determine if the project is successful or not.

Results

So you may be wondering how well we are doing with our project, when the project took place, what are our results.

We have made some significant improvements, but as I mentioned, we have things that we can still work on.  There are things I would like to see our ATS provide, that I am hoping will come when we complete our upgrade.  We can still make improvements to our website.  Of course there are always a host of other things we can do better!

The results I am sharing are the product or many things, including Six Sigma.  We are a large organization with lots of improvement initiatives going on at any given time.  We also must not forget about things like employment market conditions, etc. that have an impact on our performance.

Our project started in November 2005 and finished in the summer of 2006.

All the measurements listed below indicate the change as of June 2009 compared to March 2005 unless otherwise noted.

Open Positions

78% reduction

Time to Fill

32% reduction CY 2009 as of June compared to all of CY 2005

New Applicants

79.6% increase

Applicants per Posting

216% increse

Registry (short term interim staffing coverage for RN positions)

52.9% reduction in costs

54.6% reduction in hours worked

Traveler (long term interim staffing coverage for RN positions- 13 week assignments)

34.9% reduction in hours worked

Quality of Hire (as measured by changes average merit increase for those hired after the project started)

FY 2004 vs. FY 2005: 15.3% increase

FY 2004 vs. FY 2006:  23.1% increase

FY 2006 vs. FY 2007: 20.5% increase

FY 2007 vs. FY 2008: 23.1% increase

Conclusion

As funny as this may sound during a Six Sigma article, I think the non-measureable benefits are the most important ones.

These include things as simple as better relationships with the managers, including having the Recruiters receive more recognition from them and being able to provide our input to the managers with more confidence and more acceptance.

We also have a much more data driven justifiable approach to reviewing new media and other initiatives that make us more comfortable taking risks.

Another boost to our credibility is the awards that our team has won recognizing our efforts and our use of resources.

So I always highly recommend looking at your processes to try to improve and stay head of your competition.  Six Sigma is a great way to approach making changes, but it also is not for everyone.

I believe that there is greater benefit to trying Six Sigma and later finding it’s not the right approach than not doing anything.  Even getting just part way through the process will provide benefits for your organization!

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to send them my way!  All the best to you until next month!

© 2009 Michael K. Peterson, All Rights Reserved

Six Sigma in Recruitment- Part I

Six Sigma in Recruiting- Part I

Segment(s) of the TSC Impacted: Nearly all of segment two except the universal variables

Six Sigma seems to be a hot topic within Recruitment and there is certainly good reason for it.  This methodology has a proven track record that helps organizations improve processes in a sustainable manner based on data, not emotions or best guesses when correctly and fully deployed.

A lot of people within Recruitment have only a limited understanding of Six Sigma other than it is an approach to improving processes.

Recently I was asked to give two presentations on the topic because my organization completed a Six Sigma Recruitment project with significant results.  The first of these presentations was co presented by one of our Six Sigma Black Belts.  An archived copy of the presentation is available to members of the Human Capital Institute if you’d like to check it out.  Of course as an organization, we still have opportunities to improve, but the project set us on a new path which delivers value add well beyond the scope of the original project.

What is Six Sigma?

Six Sigma is a data driven methodology that strives to bring a process to levels of near perfection by reducing variability.

The term Six Sigma is actually a mathematical term that refers in this case to “defects per million.”  So something that is one sigma has 697,672 defects per million pieces or roughly 70% of your product is defective.  Something that is six sigma has 3.7 defects per million pieces or roughly .0003% of your product is defective.  So as you can see, there is a dramatic difference as we move up the sigma levels.  Most processes and organizations operate at approximately the 3-4 sigma level or .7% defective.

Translating these numbers into real world examples, comparing the classical view of being 99% reliable as good (or about 3.8 sigma) to six sigma means that the postal service would go from losing 20,000 articles of mail to 7.  The US would go from 5,000 incorrect surgical operations per week to 1.7.  We would go from 2 long or short runway landings at most major airports per day to 1 long or short runway landing at most major airports every five years.

Within Six Sigma there are also supporting approaches that enable to project to run more successfully.  They are DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control) and Lean.

DMAIC

So you probably already have an understanding of what DMAIC is just from what I mentioned above, but let me take you a little more into a couple of the pieces that I think people easily overlook, which is Define and Control.

Define- I cannot say how many times I have been involved in a project only to stop about half way through and ask “what does success look like on this?” with no good answers.  We are very good at focusing on task completion, or milestone achievement, but that is almost always just part of the story.  During this initial phase of the project, you have to find a way to really look at your objective.  It’s got to be SMART or specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time oriented.

For example, we are currently upgrading our ATS.  I could say the goal is simply that we upgrade to the new version by a certain date.  But is that the real measure of success?  Of course not!  We need to not only upgrade by a certain date, but we need to pick up certain tangible capabilities, we need to see measurable improvements to processes, we need to see measurable improvements to system reliability and staff productivity.

Control- This is where many projects fail.  Once we finish implementing many times we walk away thinking we’re done.  Nothing can be further from the truth… that is like saying that once you get married you no longer need to worry about your relationship.

So the key is to set up processes, measurements and structures that allow you to hold onto your gains.  Failure to do so is what has led to the cynicism that many of us have when a new initiative is unveiled.

Lean

At this point you may be wondering what Lean is.  Lean is what I would describe as a complimentary process to Six Sigma.  While Six Sigma focuses on reducing variability, Lean focuses on reducing waste with the idea of making the process efficient (or lean) and improving process velocity (right direction and speed).

So how does Lean work with Six Sigma?  There are two uses for Lean in Six Sigma that come to mind.  Lean is a good approach to improving smaller scale processes or one where you know which step(s) present challenges.  The second benefit is that it can be used to eliminate waste which is making it difficult to complete an accurate Six Sigma review.  Waste clouds the data that you are gathering as part of your review and makes it more difficult to identify true root causes.

A key part of a Lean process review simply asking why.  Look at a process, ask why are we doing this or why does that happen?  When you get the answer, ask why do we need that?

A great example that I saw during my training involved one of the monuments in Washington DC.  They had a problem with the statues rusting faster than they should have.  So here is how just asking why got them to a solution:

Why are the statues rusting faster than they should?

Because there are a lot of birds that congregate in the monument and they do what birds do (hint: they do the same thing to your car after you wash it).

Why are the birds congregating in the monument?

Because there is large population of spiders (mostly harmless) that resides within the monuments structure and the birds feed on the spiders.

Why is there a large population of spiders that reside within the monument structure?

Because there are a lot of insects in and around the monument which the spiders feed upon.

Why are there a lot of insects in and around the monument?

Because in the evening the monument is illuminated, this attracts insects.

The root cause of the statues rusting is the lighting.  I am willing to bet that no one would have guessed that.  The lighting attracts the insects which create an environment desirable to the spiders; which then attract the birds that then accelerate the process of rusting.

If we eliminate the insects the entire chain of events that lead to the problem is broken.  So what did they do?

They illuminated the monument later in the evening which apparently reduced the number of insects enough to break the chain of events.

Certainly if this was only one of many reasons that led to the problem, implementing this simple corrective measure would make it much easier to focus on other causes to address.

So next month we will complete our talk about Six Sigma in Recruitment by talking about why variability is the enemy, how Six Sigma works in Recruitment and of course, our results.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to send them my way!  All the best to you until next month!

© 2009 Michael K. Peterson, All Rights Reserved