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While staffing firms across the globe are forced to re-examine the way they do business in light of the recent global events, we understand that you still have a commitment to your clients and candidates to be as effective as possible. With that in mind, here is a spotlight from our Global Changemakers series, highlighting those who have successfully navigated a technology change within their business.
A few weeks after joining Cpl, James recognized there was a need for change within the IT department in order to improve the overall responsiveness of the team and the effectiveness with which colleagues were using their systems including their recruitment software: Bullhorn Jobscience. To learn more, he went out into the business with his favorite tool—Post-It notes—and asked the entire office to write what worked and what they would change within the IT department.
Time to Make a Change
The good news: everyone thought the IT team was made up of great people. The bad news: there was a lack of transparency into the IT team’s processes. People didn’t know when their requests would be completed and didn’t understand why some work was not prioritized. This led to a lack of adoption of Jobscience, which meant that people had to work harder than they should have to provide a great experience to candidates and clients.
We had an IT team focused on operations but not necessarily on delivering change. The business often had a difficult relationship with IT. Whenever someone saw a bug, they didn’t get good answers as to what’s happening. We didn’t have good communication with our own IT team to understand the status of requests, why certain changes were happening, or why changes weren’t completed.
James Louttit Cpl Resources
Issues with the system which were raised by the business were dismissed because there wasn’t data to back them up. James had to gather more information on the frequency of the issues and dive into what his team could do about it. Cpl needed a better process to help prioritize IT requests and to ensure the business continued to grow and to maximize the use of Bullhorn Jobscience.
Roadblocks to Progress
Team members at Cpl had been used to requesting stuff from IT without having to explain why it was needed, which led to urgent asks being prioritized over important requests on a daily basis. This became the main roadblock for James: he had to shift the mindset of his colleagues and get them to make the business case for changes they needed, proving the value of the update before IT tackled it.
Originally, recruiters and others at Cpl were reluctant to make the business case because they didn’t know how to and they thought it would take a long time. In the past, they would submit Help Desk tickets and then grow frustrated when the tickets were delayed or dismissed. With an agile approach, changes are more inclusive, engaging, and the organization better values the IT team.
If the decision between the two options is close, it doesn’t matter which one you choose. It matters more that everybody gets behind the one you chose and moves forward with it together. It’s fundamental that everyone is on board. The important thing for me was actively communicating the changes to our colleagues outside of IT. Making sure people feel that they’ve been heard before the change and then can see the positive results is huge.
James Louttit Cpl Resources
James also held one-on-one meetings with the senior leadership team to understand their frustrations and led brainstorming sessions so that everyone had input and was on board with the changes.
Reaping the Benefits
Now the entire organization is bought-in and on-board with the agile development method, allowing them to use Bullhorn Jobscience much better. Members of the business write very short business cases for changes that they think will truly benefit Cpl and explain how, and why. The team holds regular prioritization meetings to ensure full transparency into the work they’re doing and how it helps the organization.
The bottom line will take care of itself if you do everything else right. Since making a change to agile software methods, we’ve had phenomenal results. Now, people want to tell me the IT team is doing a great job as opposed to how frustrated they are with the platform. The conversations now are more positive and we can all get on with serving our clients and candidates exceptionally well.
James Louttit Cpl Resources
The number of Help Desk tickets has declined, proving James’s method is working and that IT is successfully communicating their Bullhorn Jobscience updates to the business. Rather than being bombarded with frustrated colleagues, James’s team can focus on making changes that truly benefit the team and will help recruiters be more successful with Bullhorn Jobscience.
To read more stories about global recruitment professionals who have successfully navigated change within their business, visit our Global Changemakers series.
