Access Services makes 200 hires in nine months – at lower cost

Since 1976, Access Services has been serving communities in Eastern Pennsylvania by coming alongside their community. It’s their mission to empower and serve individuals and families in need of support through innovative services that improve their ability to live fulfilling lives in the community. Their services include resources and support for behavioral health, children & family, and intellectual disability and autism.

With a strong commitment to their community, Access Services recognizes the critical importance of maintaining a talented and dedicated workforce to continue their mission of service and support.

In our interview with Andelyn Robb, Brianna Amantia, and Terri Dewey, they shed light on the challenges they faced in ensuring the right people are hired efficiently and how Workable played a pivotal role in revolutionizing their recruitment program.

Challenges

• Manual processes: All job applications and hiring activities were handled manually, leading to inefficiencies and a lack of standardization.
• Disparate processes: Without a standardized practice at an agency level, hiring managers were left on their own, causing a lack of consistency and coordination in recruitment efforts.
• Outdated systems: The organization’s recruiting tools were outdated and not user-friendly, making it difficult to manage and organize candidate information.
• High volume of hiring: Access Services had multiple programs and service lines, each with numerous hiring managers, making it increasingly challenging to manage a large volume of applicants and job openings.

Solutions

• Automation and standardization: Workable offered robust automation and standardized procedures, eliminating the need for excessively manual handling of job applications and creating consistency in recruitment processes.
• User-friendly interface: Workable’s intuitive and easy-to-use interface was a significant advantage, ensuring that not only recruiters but also hiring managers found it accessible and practical.
• Cost-effective: Workable provided a balanced cost structure, making it a cost-effective choice for Access Services, especially when compared to other, more complex software options.
• Speed of implementation: Workable’s swift implementation process allowed Access Services to get their hiring managers up and running on the platform within six weeks, a significantly shorter timeframe than other software options with months-long turnarounds.
• Streamlined reporting: Workable’s reporting features enabled Access Services to gain insights into their recruitment efforts, including source effectiveness, improving decision-making and budget allocation.
• Enhanced mobile experience: Workable’s mobile-friendly features made it easier for candidates to apply and complete initial onboarding tasks, increasing the number of applicants and improving the candidate experience.

Results

• 230 hires made in 9 months
• 160 hours of work saved a week
• Implemented in 6 weeks
• Provided senior leaders with easy access to recruiting data
• Successfully transitioned from a clunky, manual process to a streamlined, automated recruitment system with Workable

Organizing recruitment at scale

In the early months of 2022, Access Services found themselves at a critical juncture. With a vital mission to serve Eastern Pennsylvania by providing support to individuals and families, they were tasked with managing recruitment for an extensive network of 26 programs.

Andelyn Robb describes the challenge:

“It’s the first time our company has had an applicant tracking system,” Andelyn says. “So we came in all brand new to this world in the beginning of 2022. I took over recruitment in February of that year and everything had been done manually previously, every single job application was handled manually and each hiring manager followed their own process. We knew that there was no way we could support an organization of our size with that.”

“[E]verything had been done manually previously, every single job application was handled manually and each hiring manager followed their own process. We knew that there was no way we could support an organization of our size with that.”

Both recruiters and hiring managers were feeling the strain. Brianna Amantia adds:

“We have 26 different programs, three different service lines. We have a lot of hiring managers and in the original process, every resume had to be manually sent to the hiring managers, with notes kept in spreadsheets. You can imagine with an org this size that was a lot to manage. So, we just really outgrew that model.”

The challenge was daunting, but Access Services was acutely aware that they needed a transformation. They needed a solution to bring order to their recruitment efforts, standardize their processes, and embrace the efficiency necessary to serve their community effectively.

The quest for that solution led them to Workable, a decision that would revitalize their entire recruitment program.

Choosing Workable

In searching for software that could help, Brianna recalls:

“One of the things that we had to talk about when we were looking for ATS software was that we have so many hiring managers. So having real ease of use for the average person, not the recruiter, was big for us,” says Brianna. “The intuitiveness of Workable was something that we knew was really important.”

This intuitiveness would help get hiring managers on board with the new, structured hiring processes that would be implemented.

In fact, everyone noticed and valued how easy to use Workable is compared to other software.

“I remember looking at other software and being like, this is too complicated for me to learn quickly,” says Terri Dewey. “I don’t want to turn around and try to hand this off to a hiring manager who doesn’t have the time. So, the intuitive factor was huge for us.”

“Workable had a clear and easy to understand user experience that just made it feel like we’ll be able to dive right in and use it effectively.”

The team wanted to be sure they chose a tool that would solve the challenges they faced, not add to them.

Andelyn adds: “When we were exploring other HR tools, we found you had to click six or eight times to get anything done. That was what we were trying to stay away from. Workable had a clear and easy to understand user experience that just made it feel like we’ll be able to dive right in and use it effectively.”

But their decision to get Workable wasn’t all about the user experience. Time and money factored in too.

“With other software like iCIMS or Greenhouse we were looking at several months to set up. We were able to get our hiring managers up and running in Workable in about six weeks.”

“Cost was also a huge factor,” Brianna adds. “We felt like the value of the features checked all the boxes and Workable offered a really balanced cost as well. And the speed of implementation that we were promised was a big factor too. With other software like iCIMS or Greenhouse we were looking at several months to set up. We were able to get our hiring managers up and running in Workable in about six weeks.”

Automating to get results

The team at Access Services found results quickly.

“Prior to Workable, multiple of our organizational programs had a crisis level situation,” says Terri. “All of the directors were acting as the people running the program, as well as trying to hire, as well as trying to navigate all of the things that had happened contractually. And while hiring still presents challenges, they’re out of crisis. From January 1st to September we have made 230 hires with Workable.”

The stress of hiring has been lifted from individual teams and from senior directors.

Terri says: “Our clinical services have now started actually expanding and growing and hiring new staff in areas that were impossible to hire in before that. We had multiple programs doing foundational, behavioral health services for adults. All of them were in crisis, but now all of them have closed their jobs in the last month simultaneously which has not happened in a very long time. It has been a huge relief and a burden off the shoulders of some of those leaders and senior directors.”

“Templates and automations across each reporting pipeline and self calendar scheduling have been huge for our hiring managers to get back some of their time.”

Terri attributes their success to key Workable features that have helped automate processes, while providing a much stronger candidate experience.

“Templates and automations across each reporting pipeline and self calendar scheduling have been huge for our hiring managers to get back some of their time. The experience on mobile has been fantastic too. Our candidates can sign our PDFs from their mobile phones and we’ve seen a significant increase in applicants when you track who’s mobile versus desktop,” Terri says.

“That’s been a big thing. And the ability to do the initial part of our onboarding, using automations and conditional offers has sped things up and made us more organized as well.”

Achieving a lower cost per hire

Reporting on recruiting costs has been made possible with Workable. From senior leaders to recruiters, everyone is better informed.

“Workable has helped us be more informed about cost per hire,” says Brianna. “Now that we have all those reporting features we can really see which sources bring the most candidates. We spend a lot of money on Indeed, it’s our biggest source of applicants, so the confirmation that we’re spending money in the right places is huge. It informs us on a monthly basis when we have budget conversations.

“When we can see that 30 of your 37 applicants are from Indeed Premium, we know we should probably keep spending money there and that’s thanks to Workable because doing reporting on it the other way around is a lot more time consuming.”

Looking back on their first year with Workable, Andelyn defines success for her team, saying:

“In our first year with Workable what I saw as success, and shared with our CEO and leadership, was that the efficiencies gained by having one system that can automate actions and reduce manual effort is success. Having it up and running, with programs actively engaging with it, creates a foundation for the development of metrics and growth.

“Our senior leaders can have all our recruiting data at their fingertips, which they haven’t been able to in the past.”

Leaders value the access they now have to reporting, Andelyn continues:

“The fact that everyone now has access to reporting is a huge piece. Our senior leaders can have all our recruiting data at their fingertips, which they haven’t been able to in the past. It just helps our senior leaders be able to know and have a pulse of what’s going on without getting into the weeds.”

“[W]e looked at how much time and effort Workable was saving for our programs. It was about the equivalent of four FTEs.”

And the cost savings have been easy to see. “Once we were fully up and running we looked at how much time and effort Workable was saving for our programs. It was about the equivalent of four FTEs,” Andelyn calculates.

“You could say around 160 hours a week and that’s a significant amount of time.”