The last few years of economic fluctuations have had a varying impact on recruiting, with some companies cutting back on hiring and others struggling to hire and retain employees. Year over year, talent acquisition leaders are expected to adapt their hiring practices and asked to ‘do more with less.’
As we unpacked a few weeks back, technology continues to play a vital role in the future of Human Resources. New technologies can help improve efficiencies and save money in the long run, but making the case for new HR tech investments can be difficult, lengthy, and time-consuming. In this post, we help early-career leaders not only craft a case for implementing new technology but how you can translate outcomes into cost savings.
Getting Started
To make the argument for investing in new technology or automation capabilities, it’s important to demonstrate how it will provide tangible benefits that will impact the HR team priorities – anchored by cost savings and value.
Aptitude Research’s latest report positions the following initiatives as top priorities for HR teams in 2023:
- Improving quality of hire
- Increase capacity of hiring teams (without adding additional resources)
- Improving employee experience
- Progressing to more advanced HR processes
Now, let’s dive into the ways you can start translating your outcomes into cost savings. This list is by no means comprehensive but should provide a starting point in identifying the priorities, values, and opportunities for your team.
Improved recruiter productivity means empowering your team to work smarter, not harder. Automating repetitive tasks (like manual emails, scheduling interviews, or event reminders), for example, can free up valuable time for more strategic activities, like building candidate relationships, and allowing recruiters to focus on what they do best. Automation capabilities can also help with data collection, tracking, and analysis, resulting in improved speed, scalability, and consistency. With the right insights at their fingertips, recruiters can make better, more data-informed decisions, faster. Automation + improved recruiter productivity can also save on labor costs.
Improving quality of hire and time to hire are 2023 priorities for many teams, so it’s not surprising it feeds into a cost-savings conversation. Both are important metrics for early-career teams because it helps quantify the effectiveness of their recruiting process and identify areas for improvement when considering your new employees and their performance. Quality hires result in higher employee retention, satisfaction, and engagement rates, reducing the need for any last-minute recruiting needs. Inefficient, slow hiring can result in lost opportunities and time to productivity, while poor decision-making costs the company bad hires.
We also make the argument that strong employer branding can impact cost savings. Companies that invest in employer branding strategies can reduce turnover by nearly 30%.
So let’s level set on what ties all of this together: effective data sharing and reporting is critical to eliminating hiring roadblocks, and improving process. Without good reporting and visibility, it’s nearly impossible to identify the issues that matter most (and where your gaps are). And, if there is any doubt about how early-career teams can save money or invest in additional resources, the data will show the way.
Let’s put it all together
We’ve identified 5 variables that can help drive cost-savings for your company: now, let’s put those against the steps and activities throughout your hiring funnel.
It’s helpful to know exactly what your goals are so you can outline your priorities and ensure any new solution provides what you need. To get started, identify which items (rows) on this list apply to your team’s goals or initiatives. Then, rank them in order of importance.
From there, use our matrix (below) to craft your story around how/why this particular area brings value to your team. Will it impact productivity? Quality of Hire? Reporting? All three? Understanding where your efforts come from is key in establishing value around making a change.
Conclusion
In the current economic landscape where every dollar counts, technology that doesn’t bring clear, measurable results to the challenges of HR teams will be on the chopping block. Investing in future-proofed technologies can provide numerous benefits for early-career teams, including improved productivity, increased quality of hire, and cost savings. And, by understanding how to craft a compelling case around investing in new technologies, leaders can play a critical role in driving their teams forward. Ultimately, a strategic, outcome-based approach to HR technology investments can lead to a more efficient and effective recruitment and retention strategy, enabling companies to attract, hire, and engage the best talent in a rapidly changing market.
Generate more conversations around outcome-based investments by talking to our team at Abode. We can take your early-career initiatives and help outline how different pieces of technology can help accelerate your team and program growth. Learn more here.
