Case Study: SilkRoad Technology Helps Streamline Recruiting
Editor’s Note: This post is sponsored by SilkRoad technology, a leading provider of talent management solutions. SilkRoad is a long-time friend of HR Bartender and after learning about the impact their product suite can have for businesses, I’m delighted to share with you this case study.
Replacing employees is expensive. In my Corporate past, it wasn’t unusual to have a cost-per-hire in the tens of thousands. And in other industries it could be significantly more. That’s why it’s essential to have an efficient recruiting and onboarding process. Getting new hires welcomed, trained and productive not only 
SilkRoad technology shared with me their partnership with McLeod Health, a South Carolina based healthcare organization with almost 5,000 employees. McLeod understood the importance of having a streamlined recruiting and onboarding process. The company averages over 1,000 requisitions annually and, through analysis, discovered it was taking nearly 268 minutes (4.5 hours – ouch!) to “touch” a new hire. Their existing system was a PITA and negatively impacting employee engagement and productivity.
Their needs were specific and not unreasonable: streamline the existing recruiting process, add an online onboarding component while at the same time maintaining compliance and integrating with the current HRMS (human resource management system). Sound familiar?
Enter SilkRoad technology and their OpenHire Applicant Tracking System and Career Portal. OpenHire provides candidates a comprehensive experience via the use of blogs, videos, events and interactive pages – all of these reinforcing the organization’s core message and brand. The portal gives candidates the information they‘re looking for in terms of benefits, company background, organizational culture, even a “day in the life” at the company.
The OpenHire portal allows companies to use Silkroad’s “Apply. Connect. Share” philosophy in the recruiting experience.
I’ve always found one of the keys to successful recruiting is making positions easy to find and easy to apply for. SilkRoad has partnered with several job search sites like JobFox, Indeed and Simply Hired to help their client companies distribute job openings via OpenHire. Having an open position distributed to over 1400 locations for free is a real value add for SilkRoad clients as it gets job openings in front of literally thousands of active and passive job seekers.
SilkRoad has also partnered with ResumePal, the industry’s first true universal profile, making it easy for candidates to apply using OpenHire. So the “Apply” aspect of “Apply. Connect. Share” is covered.
But what about those tough to fill positions? The ones where you’re looking for that proverbial needle in a haystack. Well, with OpenHire, recruiters can search and source candidates (i.e. “Connect”) from over 80 job boards at no additional charge. Once a candidate is identified, recruiters can import their information into OpenHire and let the communication process flow.
Similarly, candidates also have the ability to use the “Connect” feature of OpenHire. An integration with LinkedIn makes it easy for candidates to see if they share any contacts at the company they are applying to.
Lastly, the “Share” component allows candidates to forward via email or social media the details of an open position. So candidates are helping you find other candidates. How cool is that?!
For McLeod Health, adding OpenHire accomplished their goal of streamlining the recruiting process. Heather Grier at McLeod Health, says “It’s definitely saving us paper and it is definitely saving us time and since time is money and paper is money – it is saving us money.” Remember, before implementing OpenHire, it took McLeod 268 minutes to touch a new hire. After OpenHire, it takes 30 minutes. The cost savings was the equivalent of two full-time employees.
That’s not all. McLeod also selected SilkRoad’s RedCarpet product for their onboarding needs. RedCarpet allows companies to share company information (aka a CEO welcome) as well as initiate employee activities like new hire paperwork.
Utilizing RedCarpet with OpenHire allowed McLeod to reduce the number of times a new hire had to sign something on their first day of work from 33 to 0. Any time I can eliminate killing a bunch of trees, signing a pile of paper and then having to file all that stuff…worth it! Now employees are able to focus on getting up to speed on their jobs instead of signing a whole bunch of paperwork. McLeod was also able to reduce the amount of time spent in orientation by 20%. This not only gets employees to their departments sooner but it frees up the human resources team for other projects.
In looking specifically at McLeod’s candidate experience, SilkRoad shared with me that these results aren’t untypical. That means it could work for you too. If you want to learn more about the results McLeod Health realized, download the complete case study here.
Hearing the McLeod Health case study reminded me of what I always look for in a technology solution – efficiency and cost savings while improving the customer experience. And, while I was taking the system for a test drive, I was able to see how recruiters are using OpenHire’s dashboard to make the process even easier for themselves. With one-click on the dashboard, recruiters can not only see and interact with their jobs and candidates but the system made collaborating with managers and performing recruiting activities simple and intuitive. Nice!
To learn more about all the great products at SilkRoad technology and their “Apply. Connect. Share.” methodology, check out their website, blog or engage with them on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube.
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