Hiring Tips: How Service Companies Win With HR Tech

This article about how service companies can win with HR tech is by Jennifer Seitz, a writer for TechnologyAdvice.com.

Human Resources is no longer a quiet department that resides separately of the day-to-day operations of the business. Especially in service-oriented businesses. HR must have a front and center seat at the strategic table to help these people-dependent companies succeed.

Some companies are renaming HR — executives now call themselves “People” or “Talent” Officers. But one thing has not changed: acquiring the best talent and retaining them is still a primary concern.

Amping up HR efforts to achieve success is mission-critical for service-oriented businesses. The good news is that technology is on your side. HR tech tools to optimize your human resources efforts are abundant, especially in the areas of recruiting, hiring and retaining top talent. Let’s drill down on the What, Why and How!

What can HR Tech do for Service Companies?

A service-oriented business relies on its reputation to create a strong brand, an online and offline reputation, and a strong referral business. Creating these elements often hinges on the strength of the team you hire to create, represent and reinforce that brand on a daily basis.

Achieving this service greatness mandates that recruiting, hiring and retaining talent be top business objectives. HR tech tools can help you streamline the process, make solid hiring decisions, and use data to continually improve upon your efforts.

HR tech tools optimize hiring efforts for service-oriented companies in a variety of ways:

Talent Acquisition

Service-oriented businesses often compete for top talent in their area, which means they need to get creative to find prospective employees who aren’t actively seeking a new job. Recruiting software can use algorithms to scrape online profiles and portfolios to help your business locate passive candidates.

Talent Screening

Applicant tracking systems (ATS) streamline job postings, create databases of applicants, as well as synchronizing with background and drug screening apps.

Interviewing

HR tech tools can streamline and optimize your screening process. Using AI tools automates the process of researching experience and skills your prospective candidates must have for the role. Automation, in the form of chatbots, can also streamline redundant and time-consuming tasks like interview scheduling and online screening interviews.

Why does all this matter?

The job market is tighter than ever before. Job seekers have the power and the competition for top talent grows tougher and tougher. At the same time, companies across all industries are finding effective recruiting efforts harder to master. While companies in some industries can get by with a subpar workforce, service companies have a much larger stake in the success of hiring.

Look at some statistics that amplify this point:

• The U.S. labor force employment rate is hovering around a 38-year low.
• A 2018 ManpowerGroup study notes that 45 percent of executives say they’re unable to fill jobs, and 41 percent say it has reduced their competitiveness and productivity.
• According to a study by Deloitte, 44 percent of millennials say they want to leave their current firm within the next two years.

How to Choose the Right HR Tech Tool Your Business

While the market for HR tech tools is vibrant and vast, the path to the right solution for service companies’ unique needs (and budgets) is not always clear. As you explore your HR tech options, there are a few rules of thumb:

MVP

If you are on a budget (like most service companies), it might make sense to start small. Avoid paying for bells and whistles you don’t need as well as avoid long-term commitments.

Scalability

Make sure your technology can grow with your company.

Integration

The last thing you want it is to bog your HR team down with the redundancies and errors that non-integrated technology tools can create. As you research HR solutions, project management system integration should be a key factor in your decision-making process.

Support

Assess how much support you need from your software vendors. Do you have an in-house IT team that can support the implementation, training, and troubleshooting of your new HR tech tool? Or do you need to lean on the vendor for that? Be sure to understand what kind of customer support you’ll receive with your new tool before you commit.

Service-oriented businesses rely on their team to represent them in their respective marketplaces. It has become increasingly important for them to take their human resources practice to the next level. The pursuit of compiling a top team of talent has moved to the forefront of business objectives. HR tech tools are a secret to achieving success in this area.

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