Sarah Lally 00:00
I would really like to get things going and turn this over to our presenters today. Rebecca Warren, Director, Talent-center transformation at Eightfold AI, Michelle Fichtl, Director of Organizational Development at Foley Equipment, and Stacy Gramza, Talent Acquisition Manager at Foley Equipment.
Rebecca Warren 02:46
Thanks so much. Super excited to be here with my friends, Michelle and Stacy. Let’s get this show on the road. So welcome to “No more detours: How to streamline your hiring practices with talent intelligence.” If you’ve ever felt like your hiring process is stuck in traffic, bogged down by outdated workflows, hard to fill roles and roadblocks at every turn, you are not alone. Today, we’re going to talk about navigating with a modern skills-based hiring strategy powered by talent intelligence and how we can help you find the right people fill roles faster and keep your business running at full speed. No more bottlenecks, no more dead ends, just a smooth, effective hiring process that fuels your workforce. All right, so that was a little cheesy, but the idea was just to get us into this idea of working around the space that Foley is in. So before we get into the questions, I would love Michelle and Stacy, if you would just do a real quick introduction who you are and what your role is at Foley.
Stacy Gramza 03:56
Yeah, absolutely. So I’m Stacy Gramza. I’m the Talent Acquisition Manager here at Foley, we are a caterpillar dealer located in Kansas and northwest Missouri.
Michelle Fichtl 04:11
Thanks so much for inviting us to the conversation. I’m Michelle Fichtl, and same as Stacy here based in Kansas, and director of organizational development, I have been with Foley–this is actually going into my 14th year–so lots of great things here, and excited to talk to you about talent.
Rebecca Warren 04:30
All right, so let’s kick this off. This will be interactive, but there’s going to be some directed questions, because y’all have done the work. So I think we can start by talking about the landscape when you decided to move to something different. So talk to us about, and maybe Stacy will throw this you first, what hiring inefficiencies or roadblocks were slowing down your ability to find the right talent and to move your particular organization forward.
Stacy Gramza 05:08
So I think, as is common with a lot of teams, right? It wasn’t just the one thing, Oh, if we could just fix this one thing, we’re gonna be amazing, you know? So there’s obviously a few different things that we were really aware of and that we were focusing on, first and foremost was just the manual tasks, the administrative pieces of recruiting, right where it’s time consuming, it’s labor intensive. It’s super important, but it does take a lot of that time and effort away from my recruiters, so I wouldn’t call those high value add tasks that my recruiters do, but they are super important and necessary. So I knew while they needed to be done, I also wanted my team to be able to be free to do more proactive, smart, strategic recruiting. Um, so that was probably one of the big things. The other ones were, you know, we had a talent network so people that had already engaged with us and already knew about us, those are such great people to start with, but we didn’t really have an efficient way to engage with them and interact with them. So even to even leverage our talent network, was going to take a lot of additional time and labor, and again, just more manual tasks. So it was kind of unfortunately, this thing that always got pushed to the back burner that we couldn’t quite fit into the workload and the schedule, and then a couple more things, was just the lack of clear communication between our hiring managers and recruiters, right? So the hiring manager comes and they have this great idea of who their ideal candidate is, and for whatever reason, it’s a really challenging thing to clearly articulate that to a recruiter and for you both to be on the same page. So while the recruiter can think they understand it, and the hiring manager really thinks they explained it well, unfortunately, we’ve been in the position as I think a lot of recruiting teams have, where you’re three weeks into the requisition and you’re not finding any good fits, and you’re finding out, oh, wait, it’s because we’re actually really misaligned on what we’re looking for. And so, man, like, that’s just a constant struggle that we were facing and always troubleshooting and trying new tactics on how do we improve that process? And then I think just on the internal mobility piece, you know, internal mobility is really important to our organization, and while we were doing the best that we could, we probably were doing our current employees a little bit of a disservice, right, just by maybe not having more tools and resources, not having the transparency available to them to see what roles are available within the organization, and then how to best partner with us and partner with other managers to make sure that they’re prepared for that role change within the organization. So those were just some of the big key areas that we’re focusing on. Like I said, it wasn’t just one thing, obviously, it was several big things that we’re constantly aware of and trying to improve well.
Rebecca Warren 07:57
And what you’re talking about, Stacy, as you said, this isn’t unique to you as well. Right, my background in talent acquisition have seen this in many different organizations, either that I’ve worked at, or that I have friends who have worked at those places you know you talk about that that slow down in the process. Even if you had streamlined tech, you still have that disconnect sometimes with your hiring manager, I can’t tell you how many times that you’ve gone through that full round you put somebody in front of them, they’re like, We love them. And then you do the first round of interviews, and they’re come back and like, yeah, we’re scrapping that. I thought I wanted that, but I really want that, right? The worst thing ever, 100% gotta go back and manage that with the relationship. It’s not you, it’s us, right?
Michelle Fichtl 08:40
That’s awkward. We’re confused.
Rebecca Warren 08:44
We don’t know what we’re doing right, and you can’t say it that way. So lots of ways that your recruiters were probably wasting time and and you trying to figure out what the right direction is, while having some of the other challenges with different texts and and different communication strategies, absolutely All right, so we are going to throw a poll out to our friends in the audience, and we are going to ask about their thoughts on the relationship currently with their TA and their TM teams, and I am trying to get my slides to advance. Not smart. There we go. Okay, so our poll that we’re asking, so take a look at the the app there, right? So what best describes the relationship between your talent acquisition and your talent management teams? So are you locked in and moving as one, friendly but independent? Are you awkward acquaintances, that one always makes me laugh, or are you completely separated, like, Are you one different planets, right? And I think that also drives some of the things that we’re talking about. When you have different stages in how you’re connecting in the organization, it absolutely affects how you are communicating inside of your organization and how you’re able to get stuff done. Oh, there’s coworkers nodding in the hallway.
Michelle Fichtl 10:05
Can I just say, Rebecca, I love your naming conventions for these. I giggled.
Rebecca Warren 10:12
Thank you. ChatCPT, just to be honest. All right, so it looks like we clearly see that friendly but independent is the biggest bucket, but locked in and moving is one starting to kick up, completely separated. Yeah, we were just talking about that earlier today on a different call that we had internally about organizations that have very clear silo. Now, some are for good reason, and some are just, we’re just so busy getting the work done that we’re not thinking about what’s happening in that department over there, or things that are are moving around. So all right, we’re seeing things continue to slide, but i
Stacy Gramza 11:07
Seems like we’re solidly landing that half of our audience is friendly but independent in terms of relationship between TA and tf, so kudos to the people that claimed the awkward acquaintance. We feel you. They hear you.
Rebecca Warren 11:13
We rarely interact. We know that you’re open. Okay, all right, so I think that gives us an understanding that, again, you’re not alone in the challenges that you were facing Stacy, and that’s some of the things that you were trying to solve for. So let’s talk a little bit more about that internal talent piece. So what were some of the barriers, and maybe this goes to Michelle, what were some of the barriers that existed in considering internal candidates?
Michelle Fichtl 11:49
Yeah, great question. So if we look at the challenge overall, and not just within our organization, but I think across most industries and organizations, you’ve historically seen this issue where internal employees are often overlooked, and this is not because necessarily this lack of ability on their part, but truly due to lack of visibility. So we might see hiring managers that are going to default to external candidates because they don’t have a clear, objective way to assess internal talent, and without that structured way to do that, maybe hiring decisions they get more influenced by personal networks, or maybe manager familiarity, who they’re comfortable with, who they have more access to because they’re known entities. And though there’s a comfort that might come in with that this data driven insights really helps us make better decisions and ensure that we are not overlooking those so the theme that I see as it relates to our organization and some of those just big barriers, if I boiled it down to one thing, it’s really the lack of transparency, and that showed up in a couple different big ways for us, where internal candidates, they might have received big feedback, for example, when they had applied for a role. And, you know, we go with a different candidate, and they hear something like, You did a great job. We think you have a lot of potential. They just were a better fit at this time. What do you do with that when you’re in that position can be extremely frustrating, and it leaves them without a clear understanding of what skills or experiences that they’re needing to develop right now. And you know, this is how the other way that that transparency shows up is this lack of career path awareness, so employees don’t always know what opportunities exist beyond their immediate roles so that could lead to disengagement or even turnover. We’re a fairly small size organization, about 1500 employees, and so you know, if you work for a company that has 10s of 1000s of roles, it’s a very different experience than if you’re in a department of four people, and you say, Well, gosh, if I can only move to this next role, and I don’t see them leaving anytime soon, what else is there? So really, ultimately, everything we’re doing, we just want to make a better experience, right? We want it to be across the board, better for our recruiters. To Stacy’s point, do they have a clear, easier way that’s data backed so that they can present internal talent to those hiring managers, better for those hiring managers, so that they have a way to consider internal employees who might not be in their immediate line of sight, but could be a really great fit, and oftentimes fill that talent much quicker than going external, and then ultimately a better experience for our employees, and that’s always our goal, make it easy for them to be able to achieve their talent a fair, more transparent process that’s going to help them grow, even if they aren’t selected. Today, we want to make sure that it’s an easy use system where they can absolutely engage in these transparent conversations, understand any skill gaps that exist, and then really empower each individual, regardless of where they are on their journey, with clear actions like, what can I do today? Right? What do I need to be doing so that I can advance my career, versus that gross feeling of vagueness and indifference and feeling stuck right? Or perhaps in a lot of cases, oh gosh, the only thing I can do is I have to look outside the organization to move on, right?
Rebecca Warren 15:26
Yeah, and I think back to the time when I was in ta too, like I always felt like and I worked to develop programs and companies that I’m that I’ve worked for, is we owe that honest feedback to our our employees, right? They deserve to know in a kind way, right? Like, hey, here’s where the gap was. And they’d be like, Oh my gosh, I didn’t realize that, right? And I also think that it comes with some education to the hiring manager. And I think in smaller organizations or smaller teams, it’s really uncomfortable if you haven’t built that sense of transparency in your organization. So when feedback is delivered, why you didn’t get that position from the hiring manager? It doesn’t come across as there’s a deficit. It comes across as, hey, we want you to succeed. We think you have a future with us. You wouldn’t be in this role if we didn’t appreciate you. So training hiring managers how to deliver that feedback, it’s scary, and I’ll tell you, I’ve had in one organization, they’re like, Oh, so you helped to facilitate the internal process, even though I was on talent acquisition, I don’t feel comfortable delivering the feedback on why they didn’t get hired, or can you do it? And I was like, well, somebody has to. And if you’re absent and refusing, I will, but it needs to come from that hiring manager. In the spirit of, we’re all on the same team trying to get to the same place, right?
Michelle Fichtl 16:54
No, I love that. We are huge Brene Brown fans at Foley. In fact, 100% of our leaders go through dare to lead book studies together, and we get to share a lot of that. And one of the takeaways that I hear from all our leaders, they repeat time and time again. It aligns with our core values of open and direct communication, but we talk about this idea that clear is kind Yeah, and I love that. Without that transparency and that feedback, right? We absolutely need to deliver it in a respectful way, but it is doing a huge disservice to everyone in the organization, if we aren’t willing to step up and have those difficult conversations.
Rebecca Warren 17:29
That’s right. That’s right. Okay, so why did you think, or how did you determine that a skilled based hiring strategy was going to be the right fit for you, and potentially would change the way that you approached talent acquisition and internal mobility?
Michelle Fichtl 17:46
Yeah, absolutely. So Stacy spoke to this a little bit on the external candidate side and just the needs that we were having, again, geographically based, if you’ve heard us speak at any other events. We talk a lot about the fact that we have a limited population subset, and not a lot of people, disappointingly, are moving to Kansas at this time, or northwest Missouri. We think it’s great. Feel free to hit us up afterwards. Connect on LinkedIn. We’d love to have have you come and check out the great state. But we definitely that was one of the key drivers. Is, hey, how do we expand our talent pools and find ways that we have skill adjacencies, given that we have maybe a limited population, what are some things that we can build talent on, also to build on our last conversation here, we really wanted to expand those internal mobility opportunities, and a skills based approach really gives employees a clear, data driven view of where they stand for future roles. So instead of only seeing a job or a list of job openings, you can actually go in as an employee in any role within the organization and see which roles they’re already a strong fit for. And then maybe there’s some aspirational goals, right? And so we also can see what skills we still need to develop in order to advance. So this really helps our employees be more proactive in their own career goals growth, excuse me, and reduce the risk of of losing that talent, where they again feel like they maybe have to go outside. And just really, we think the skills based approach really allows us to have a more agile workforce. So understanding skills at that deeper level, we can redeploy internal talent, and we can look for different ways when business needs shift. So for example, if we’re going through a business restructure, we can identify quickly which of our employees are trans have those transferable skills, it could absolutely then transition into new roles, rather than, again, running the risk of losing that talent or having them disengage because they’re not sure where they fit, just being more adaptable and resilient in the face of change because of that is so, so key For us, and again, we just really view that as a win, win. So for employees, they get more transparency and control over their careers. They can see clear pathways because it’s skills. It’s not about a job title, it’s about what I can bring to the equation and how I can really help the business move forward the organization. We gain a stronger, more engaged workforce, because they do own that, and they can make career progression more accessible and inclusive, and it’s something that makes it that language that we’re going to speak to the same things, regardless of which department or area you’re in, we can talk about skills and what’s needed, right?
Rebecca Warren 20:40
All right, so great explanation. Love the way that y’all are thinking that’s that’s amazing. So I’m curious to know we’re going to switch to another poll. I’d love to know from the folks who are joining us, how often does your organization successfully fill roles? From internal talent chat, GPT, again, helped me come up with some fun little ways to think about this right? Like, do you have a well oiled internal mobility machine? That’s a mouthful. Do you have an occasional opportunity to connect stars and hiring managers? Is it rare, or is it never? Which just hurts my people focused hard, saying We act like our employees aren’t visible when hiring. But let’s be honest, sometimes it happens. So all right, we’ve got stars and hiring managers aligning. Ooh, some folks have a well oiled internal mobility machine. I love that feeling pretty good that nobody’s picked the never so far. But if you need to be honest, right? Let’s this is, this is the circle of trust here. What happens here? Stays here, kind of like Vegas. So got some rarely up. Things are shifting a little bit. Looks like there’s an occasional that’s where we’re landing. Good group of folks are around that occasionally. And let’s just, let’s just say this, honestly, it’s not always the easiest thing to do if you don’t understand what people skills are, if you don’t understand what they want to do, right? Like I say this, I think every time I talk to folks, my resume is a list of things I never want to do again. I’ve already done them. I’m moving on, right? I want to do something different. And so if you’re only looking at what I can do based on what I started at the company with, we’re missing out on that great connection of things that I might want to do that’s different, or things that you might need me to do that I could be up skilled or re skilled towards. So I think that is it’s not easy, but I think understanding where people are at and what they want to do is really important. We’ve got we’ve got someone who is totally transparent. Thanks for sharing that you’re all in the never bucket. Hopefully this will inspire you to maybe shift incrementally, at least going towards focusing on your folks. Okay, so we’ve landed solidly in that middle space, so which I think is fair, right? I mean, I think a lot of organizations are in that space. So let’s talk a little bit about moving then to that skills based alignment. So talk to me about where you anticipated that alignment, and we probably have already covered some of it, so this might be a short answer, but where did you anticipate that alignment between talent acquisition, talent management to help facilitate that movement and that transparency so that not just hire managers, but also employees would have the understanding of what they bring to the table and maybe where they could go.
Michelle Fichtl 23:48
Yeah, so I feel super fortunate. I think the phrase you used earlier in your poll was power duo. Yeah, I’m gonna, you know, try and attach myself to that and say, I love that. I get to work with Stacy and her team and our teams really have to work so in sync, that alignment is really what I would consider a critical factor for helping our employees move into these roles, rather than getting stuck in that cycle of applying and not having progress. So just in general, I would say that the recruiting team or talent acquisition team would see a lot of employees eager for those shifts, but they would lack traction because they weren’t necessarily aware of the skill gaps and how to bridge them. So working together and having that alignment that’s really allowed us on the TM and org development side to step in and partner with TA and using our talent intelligence platforms. With the help of tools like eight fold, we can go in, we can pinpoint our specific skill gaps. We connect the employees with the right training, the mentorship projects. We can go in and have those conversations and really facilitate a process that’s getting us closer to the all the time. We’ve got this well oiled machine that you talked about on your pole, I would say it’s definitely a journey. We still find ourselves in the maybe occasionally when the stars align category, but our result, we’re definitely moving towards that more proactive, strategic approach to internal mobility, where employees are definitely set up for success, instead of left guessing about what am I supposed to do? Where do I go?
Rebecca Warren 25:25
Yeah, well, and so Stacy, this is probably for you, when we think about your tech stack, then realizing that you might not have the tools that you needed in order to facilitate those conversations, relationships, moving to that space. So what were you hoping to achieve when you when you thought about switching up your tech stack?
Stacy Gramza 25:45
Yeah, so I mean, look, at the end of the day, the recruiting team’s goals, my department’s goals have to align with the organization’s goals, right? They have to be in sync. We’re here to be a good partner for the organization. So first and foremost, we’ve got to streamline the process and fill critical roles more quickly with high quality talent. So you have to have both. You can’t just have fast, you can’t just have good you got to have them both truly be ideal, right? That’s the dream. And so that was going to be the overall goal, and then additionally, right, just improving the recruiter efficiency and their value contribution, right? Again, a lot of our process was really manual, and so that was taking up a lot of time. And so the goal was really, hey, is there a tool out there that could help help us with some of those things, reduce a little bit of that friction, free up a little bit of that time, so that my recruiters are actually available to do something more impactful, which is the engaging with candidates and the building relationships piece that really is the heart and core of recruiting. And then additionally, right? We can’t just go and get all the feel good and do all the great things. We have to also have that data and analytics right, which I love, so it excites me a lot. But, you know, we want to have those data driven collaborative decisions so that we can say yes, here’s what we did, here’s why we thought that was the best path forward. Here were the results of that, and then we can continually tweak and improve that entire process. So those were the things we were really wanting, just to overall improve the recruiting department performance for talent acquisition.
Rebecca Warren 27:20
Okay, that makes sense. And we’ve talked about this before that one of the goals that you were trying to achieve, too, wasn’t just lift and shift and put in something that was incrementally faster, right? You had to kind of blow it up a little bit, right? Like we need to look at it differently. And so looking at systems of intelligence that use AI and automation and some of those things that scare some folks, let’s be honest, right? Like, I think when, you know, eight fold, we were around, starting in 2016 and folks were like, Skynet and like, you know, AI is going to eat our faces off and all this kind of stuff, right? Like, so how, how how were you thinking about AI and automation while still preserving that human experience, right? That’s really critical, is keeping that human in the loop. So talk to me a little bit about how you were deciding what tech to go to, and how you were thinking about using AI in that as well.
Stacy Gramza 28:18
So I remember when Michelle and I were first really talking about this, and, you know, we’re at this HR conference, and you go into the expo hall and everything is, AI this, and AI that, and skills, and then a couple of sessions, sprinkle some stuff in, and you’re like, Wow, this is a lot. And then you dig in and you’re like, is it, though? Like, I don’t know if there’s, you know, really any meat behind it, but regardless, right? Just watching the news, watching where all companies across all industries were still somehow experimenting with AI. They were embracing it to some level, right? So we knew that no matter what this is, where society is going, we know this is going to be a tool. So how can we best leverage this? So again, yes, you can either be really terrified of it, or you can just be cautious about it, and strategic and thoughtful. And I’m so grateful right, for Michelle and the other leaders at our organization that were willing to do that. And so we were very cautious and aware that our goal was to find that balance, to leverage the best of the best of the AI, while keeping the best of the best and most important factors of that human centric opinions right? We need the humans to make the final decision, to build the relationships and really ensure that the right cultural fit was found. Additionally, there’s the entire idea of the competitive landscape, right? So even in recruiting and other support functions, you know, I’m a strong believer that if you’re not paying attention to what your competitors are doing in your space, then you’re really going to probably start losing out in your competitive edge and ways to make the company more agile and profitable in the long run. So it’s really important that, hey, I know it’s kind of scary and maybe we’re a little unsure, but if we’re not moving forward on this technology, chances are someone else is and so we can either be left behind, or we can be part of the thought leaders and the innovators in the space, learn the lessons early, get stronger and deeper understanding faster, and that way we’ll be just that much further ahead of our competitors. So I think all of that was really important, right? That you have to come to that, that fork in the road at some point that you’re either going to engage or you’re going to hang back. And so again, just a big shout out to all the wonderful, supportive people here, the leadership team that wanted to be on that forefront of the more innovative technology to see, hey, how can we make this better for us? And again, using it in a very responsible, very ethical, very like strategic, thoughtful way, where I’m not looking to just come and say, okay, recruiting team, you’ve been replaced by this robot, and we love them. Like, no, like, that’s not the goal at all. It was, hey, actually, AI can help us. And, yeah, do a lot of things for us while we then upskill my actual recruiting team to do those more very important, human required, proactive recruiting strategies and techniques that I think is really where their value lies. So I’m that’s what I was most excited about.
Rebecca Warren 31:09
Yeah, I think that totally makes sense, right where we are, and y’all were starting on this journey when a lot of folks were still asking questions. So we know in the tech space, for HR for or recruiting talent acquisition. It’s not if, but it’s how right it is coming. It is here. It is embedded in so many things that we already do. So kudos to you all for seeing like hey. We don’t want to be left behind. We need to make sure that we’re thinking through this cautiously. Let’s figure out how we want to use it. And I love what you’re talking about, right thinking about, how do we automate processes? How do we think about things from a lens of, what is the value added work? Like work still needs to get done, but what is a value add and where does it belong, with whom? So that is all, I think, spot on, all right? So flipping it back to our friends in the audience, let’s ask you, how do you view AI’s role in hiring at your organization? Is it a game changer? Are you AI superheroes? Are you dipping your toes in? Kind of cautious, right? Like, curious about it, interested, but we want AI, but we’re only focused on that human touch or Nope, we are just keeping it out of all the things, which, honestly, and that’s why I have for now in there, I don’t know that that’s even an option down the road, like there is going to come a point where there is no option just to say no, right? There are so many pieces of our work that is using AI, or it’s either embedded, or we’re using it, like I said, chat, GPT being able to just throw up some things where maybe my brain isn’t working as creatively as I want it to be. So I think that the the way that we’re thinking about AI is certainly shifting almost daily in the in the space, all right, we’ve got a we’ve got a little bit hanging out at the top, at the game changing level, got some folks that are rocking the old school approach. Folks are landing in that AI, but with a human touch. And let me say this quickly, and we’ve talked about it a little bit, I believe that that is the way that we should be thinking about using AI in our HR space, right? We never want to take the human out of the loop. So while there are some amazing things that AI can do, some connections, the inferences, the way that it can process data, help us make those not just, not just analytics, but insights. I always believe, and I will always say this, that we need to make sure that we keep the people in the process right. So whether it’s verifying that this conclusion that our system has come to is correct, or continuing to add input to adjust, to change that human in the loop, I think is critical to make sure that we are maintaining the things that we in HR are most focused on, which is our people.
Michelle Fichtl 34:26
Yeah, to Stacy’s point, really, what this has done for us is allowing them. It’s not replacing the work they do. It’s allowing them to spend the time on the tasks that are critical so our talent acquisition team can engage in those value added behaviors, doesn’t replace anything for us. In fact, on this poll, I was like, I don’t know how we’d answer it, a little bit of three of those answers, extremely commonly, not
Rebecca Warren 34:53
fair. It’s a not fair question because we’re asking you to silo yourself in a way that’s probably not realistic.
Michelle Fichtl 34:59
So I’d probably be in the third option too, right? Like human first, even though we’re here and we’re talking about how we’re going full steam ahead, and we love it, and it’s because what it’s doing is shifting where they’re having to spend time and attention by automating processes that aren’t really value added for them, where they can invest more in those human relationships and do a better job, across the board, removing things like bias and helping our hiring managers have the best talent pool, and all these things that we still do, it very cautiously, ethically, all the things that Stacy said.
Rebecca Warren 35:35
Okay, so now let’s chat about where you’ve landed, right? So let’s talk about some of the changes that you’ve seen after implementing a system of intelligence that we were talking about. So first of all, let’s talk about, let’s talk about the candidate experience. So thinking about talent acquisition, what has changed in the candidate experience? And this is probably going to use Stacey, yeah, so I think it’s really improved significantly.
Stacy Gramza 36:09
The biggest needle, I think that moved, was just being able to re engage our current Talent Network, right? So I spoke a little bit about that early on, how it was kind of it was just really manual and really hard to do, so it just didn’t get done. This system has made it incredibly easier to bring forth the right talent, the right person for the right job at the right time for us, so we can easily reach out to them, connect and re engage them. So that’s been really exciting. We are still building out more on that, so I’m excited for the future on that. More to come of how do we really routinely, kind of nurture those leads, right? I very much view it as a sales type of a role, right? So sales people all the time. They’re keeping their leads warm. They’re nurturing them, doing all the things, doing the outreaches, my recruiters are expected to do the same. So we want to make sure that those people that have that genuine interest in our company, that we’re making sure that we stay connected with them. And then additionally, just, I mean, on the simple, easy ones, right? It’s just a better candidate experience. As far as simpler application, easier to track, easier to figure out where you are in the process. We have the Self Scheduling, so that’s been a huge win for everyone involved. My recruiters time playing phone tag as well as just we’ve had really positive response from candidates. They love just being able to go in schedule interviews at a time that’s convenient for them. They’re not on the phone trying to quickly look up three calendars with the pressure of having someone else on the phone they’re talking to, like, hang on. No, I think that day works. Let me check like it just like everyone can kind of just take a breath, right? And so that’s been a huge win and a huge benefit for us. And so just overall, it’s really just expediting the entire process faster turnaround times those kinds of things as well.
Rebecca Warren 38:02
And so let me throw another one at you. So now we’ve talked about the candidate experience. Talk to me about the recruiter experience. What has changed in your hiring processes internally for your recruiter?
Stacy Gramza 38:14
Yeah. So again, we’ve been able now to automate several steps of the actual process. So it is, it’s the less clicks, the less remembering to do this, cutting out a lot of the phone tag and the back and forth between recruiters and hiring managers and candidates. You know, I think every recruiter can relate to the pain of you call a candidate, they don’t answer. They don’t have your number, so you leave them a voicemail, and then you’ve got to hop on a phone screen for 30 or 45 minutes, and then, of course, they call you back right then. And by the time you call them back, they’re in a meeting at work, and it’s a lot, right? So the scheduling is just an easy win. One of our other favorite things would be the feedback process with the hiring managers. So that’s an automated step now, so whereas before, for us, again, very manual, they had to pay attention. Oh, look, my hiring manager completed an interview. I need to either chat them, email them, call them, set up a meeting, and we’ll review the candidates and their feedback, whereas now we are actually doing those feedback from interviews and things in real time, so it’s just a lot faster. There’s very rarely any follow up questions or anything like that that my recruiters need to go and reach out right so they’re getting their stuff done faster. They’re getting the information they need to take the next step. And at the same time, I’m gonna go ahead and speak on behalf of my hiring managers that they’re not being bothered all day long by recruiters bothering them, saying, Give me this. Give me this, give me this. You owe me this feedback, what you think. And so I think it’s just kind of a nicer, a little bit of a nicer system for everybody. And then the big thing right that I talked about at the beginning of, you know, how do we convey and communicate that ideal candidate? And so by the recruiter and the hiring manager sitting down at the beginning of the requisition and going through the calibration in eight fold, going through and looking at all of those skills, leveraging the AI to understand, how is the system viewing this skill? What is it inferring? What is it suggesting? What are some of these ideal candidates that it’s pulling? Does this all make sense? So now the recruiter and the hiring manager are speaking the same language. They’re looking at the same list of skills. They’re understanding what those skills look like and how they would translate in the real world, and then they’re able to go and pull the appropriate candidates that would really be the best fit. And so now we’ve shifted from this checkbox, if they have to have this college degree at this school, with this experience, with this job title and this many years of experience, and the conversation naturally shifts to Hey, actually, if they have these skills, that’s really what’s going to differentiate them. Those are the people we want. And then the rest of it is still important. We can still plug that in, but it’s coming secondary, which really was part of our overall goal, right? We’re not just looking for someone with this school and this background. We actually want people from all backgrounds, but we want them to have these skills. And so that’s really been nice. And so just overall, my goal with my team is always and we’ve hit on it a lot, but where can they provide the most value? And so by doing all of those things, that’s what’s freeing them up to be those high value contributors to the organization.
Rebecca Warren 41:17
And that’s all of those things are amazing, right? And so how do we then we’ve gone from candidate experience to recruiter experience. Michelle, let’s talk about internal mobility. What has changed when you’re thinking about your internal mobility process now?
Michelle Fichtl 41:34
So obviously, none of this happens overnight. What we see is it is a journey. We’re talking about change and we’re talking about behavior change, and that awareness and desire first two steps of change management, if I’m using Prosci, add car model for change management. And what we heard loud and clear when we implemented our talent management solutions here using the eight fold platform, was that we have a desire for this. So I don’t want to sit here and say, oh my gosh, we turned it on and we’ve got it all figured out, because again, it takes humans to make that process work and continue. So it is an evolution. But what I do know for sure is we sent one email inviting our workforce to participate and create a profile. Go in and assess your skills, check out what’s in our marketplace, and within six weeks of implementing the program. So this would have been last year we had over 70% of our employees within six weeks go in and participate with no requirement, minimal follow up. I believe we’ve had one posting on our company internet to remind people that that email went out. And, you know, everybody just sits and reads emails and looks on the internet all day. So the fact that you had over 70% participate with really minimal promotion was not common.
Rebecca Warren 43:11
I just gonna say that that’s not common. That is a much higher number than we have seen from other organizations. So I love that your team was hungry for it. They want it. Absolutely
Michelle Fichtl 43:22
are. And so now that’s the real challenge for us as we move forward, is making sure that we’re good stewards of that, right? There’s they’re hungry for it, and there’s a trust that we’re going to do something with it, and so we can’t let them down. We’ve got to continue to build on that and make those opportunities available and visible.
Rebecca Warren 43:41
I love that. All right, I’m watching the time, and we’re coming towards the end of our of our chats here, so I am going to ask the two of you, and then I’m going to a question, and then I’m going to throw the last thing out to our audience to understand where they’re at. So what’s next on your radar for your team in 2025 and beyond? What kind of things are you thinking about or looking at?
Michelle Fichtl 44:09
Yeah, so in 2025 and beyond, we’re really focused on taking that skills based talent strategy to the next level. So it’s deepening our use of AI, enhancing the workforce planning and ensuring that employees really have clear, data driven career pathways. So we’re moving beyond simple head count metrics to capability based planning, so ensuring that we have the right skills in place to drive business success, whether that’s up skill and current employees, or redeploying that talent more effectively in other areas of the business, also, employees have to have more visibility into those career paths with clear, actionable development plans to help them prepare for the future roles. So this makes internal mobility more seamless and prevents the talent from that stuck feeling that I’ve talked about a couple times, right? And we talked about that balance of human piece, right?
Rebecca Warren 44:58
Yeah, yes. And what’s cool about the career pathing piece is that the system will suggest paths, but they also can say, I really want to go from finance to the field, right? There are opportunities for them to choose their own adventure, whether it is something that the system would say, hey, this feels like a logical stuff and you’re like, No, I’m I want to do something completely different, or maybe I’ve done it in the past, and I want to bring that back. So there’s opportunities for input as well. It’s not the system just driving saying, Here’s your next step, right? You have to do these six things, but it’s opportunity to build those mentorships and those communication pieces and and take new courses to help drive their career with the assistance of technology, which, to me, is one of the biggest things that is a game changer inside of organizations.
Michelle Fichtl 45:52
Yeah, it just, it really does help provide that framework, but it doesn’t replace the role of a leader to help develop or the talent management teams to support them in that journey. It really does, though, have again, that transparency of, hey, whether I think it’s far reaching or not, this is something that I want to do. And so what would that actually take? And now we can have a real, direct, clearest kind conversation about, what is that gap between where I am today and where I want to be, and what are we going to do to get there? So that personalization and flexibility so key when we’re trying to have a more agile, engaged and workforce that’s prepared for the future?
Rebecca Warren 46:36
Yeah, Stacy, what’s coming in your team in your group?
Stacy Gramza 46:42
Yeah. So again, we’re kind of writing that power duo. Piece of that, what applies to Michelle applies to my team externally as well. So yeah, I mean, we’re just gonna continue to doing the coaching, the learning for our hiring managers, for my team as well. That’s probably been the most fun part so far. So I’m excited to see that grow even more is when you have those hiring managers that you know are now posting a couple jobs repeatedly, right? So they’re coming back to us. So every time they do, you can just tell they’re learning more and more about the process, learning more and more about that strategic thought shift to skills and the AI help, and they’re getting that deeper understanding every single time they interact with the system. And so to me, that’s been the most fun and exciting. So we’re just very excited to continue to learn and to grow that to gain our deeper understanding of what all can we do here? What makes the most sense? Again, doing the data in the analytics, to do the checks and balances to make sure, hey, are we pulling the right levers? What other paths could we take? How will this impact all these other things down the stream? So that’s really where we’re at, right I’m excited to continue to improve that. And then, additionally to the whole thing, I’ve been kind of beating on this whole time, which is, hey, how can I then create more development opportunities for my team, really bring them back as the strategic partners for the organization, trusted talent advisors to the hiring managers, so that they know that, hey, if you’re going to work with my team, you’re going to get the best of the best, you’re going to get the best candidates. It’s going to be a painless process. All those things, right? Like my ideal world. We will always still be trying to get there, and I’m excited about the opportunities to get closer to that.
Rebecca Warren 48:25
Yeah, I think it’s unlocking things, right? It’s opening doors. It’s new opportunities, new ways to think about things. I love that in my role here at eight fold, I’ve been here about four years, I love that I am learning things daily that were just never on my radar before. Things are continuing to happen and change, and we’re growing as an organization, but also this space so different from where it was four years ago, so different from where it was when I started, which I will date myself and say that was, you know, pre ATS. So it was smile and dial and fax machines and all kinds of, you know, email your resume to me, kind of thing. So the changes that we’ve seen and the where and the places that we’re going is is phenomenal, and I would love to so we’re going to flip our last bowl. We’re going to ask you to throw in a word, what’s your biggest priority for talent strategy in 2025 we want to hear what the audience is doing and what they’re thinking about. So throw up your word for talent strategy in 2025, oh my gosh. I’m so excited about this. Adaptability skills, yes, hiring best in class, alignment, hiring in difficult areas. YouTube might know something about that, right?
Stacy Gramza 49:38
We have some experience.
Rebecca Warren 49:41
Yeah, adaptability, agility, all of those words are continuing to hit the forefront of the talent space, human. Yeah, absolutely. We want to ensure we’re keeping the human in the loop. Retention. Love it. Love it. All right, that’s it. Yeah, great. All right. Well, continuing to throw things in there, I see a couple more responses. Oh, pipeline development, internal equity, such good things. I want to be involved in all the things that y’all are doing. This is great case and skills. Look at skills showing up. Yes, that’s a timely, timely topic. Okay, well, this has been fabulous. I’m watching we’ve got two minutes left. So we’ve got, let’s, let’s let another couple of folks throw their words in there. But clearly, skills, alignment, equity, development, communication, retention, all of those pieces. I also look simplify, that’s super bright, right, diversity, all of these pieces are things that to keep on our radar for 2025. Let’s connect back in at the end of this year, and see where we all landed.
