HR & TA tech - How to pick and implement the right tool? (Part 1)

While People, Talent, and Talent Acquisition are inherently focused on human interactions, technology has become an increasingly fundamental part of these areas. Be it an applicant tracking system, a payroll platform, a sourcing tool, a talent intelligence software, or a whole human capital management suite with its various modules and functionalities. Technology is already here and we can’t imagine modern HR & TA functions without it. The latest arrival of generative AI brings another spin on the whole topic.    

In this article, we will explore, at a high level, some ideas on how to choose and implement HR technology in your organisation. In addition, in Part II, we will share some practical business cases that demonstrate how SocialTalent and GoodTime can be effectively implemented within an organisation. But before we delve into that, let's first examine the general framework. Important note: we have left out of this article the very first step of the whole process - the problem definition - assuming that your team has already completed this step and is now seeking the right solution. If you would like to hear more about the problem definition stage, please let us know in the comments!    

Where to start? 

First things first: As there are numerous HR & TA tools and platforms available, it is very easy to fall into the trap of opting for the ‘loudest and shiniest’ option. This is one of the most common mistakes, especially when there's time pressure to find the right tool. Such a scenario can be very costly and may backfire in the future when you realise that the chosen tool is not suitable for your needs. That's why one of the best ways to avoid this is to define your use cases and requirements in advance. This doesn't mean you have to list every single micro-level functionality of the tool and be overly strict about them. Instead, we recommend establishing a general framework that will assist you in making informed decisions during your search and selection process. Here are a few questions we recommend answering and including in that framework before you begin your search:

Define the core use cases that you would like the tool to cover     

One of the easiest ways to approach this is to define the top 3 use cases while marking the must-haves and nice-to-haves. It could look something like this:

1. (Strong must-have) Hiring - The tool should have great ATS functionalities, where you can easily create job requisitions, edit and publish job ads, review and process incoming applications, customize scorecards, and connect it to free-job boards. 
2. (Must-have) Employee Data Administration - The tool should store and admin Employee Data with a strong self-service option, where employees can submit, view and edit their data, as well as conduct basic actions, such as requesting vacations, submitting sick leaves, viewing their payslips. Nice-to-have: has an onboarding and payroll functionality. 
3. (Must-have) Performance Management - The tool should have a performance management functionality that supports quarterly-reviews where employees can create and store simple performance evaluations.   
4. (Nice-to-have) Internal Communication - The tool should have a functionality where employees can digitally socialise, share information, chat with each other, create groups,communities and similar.       

Estimate the size and the growth projections of the user base 

This part indicates the scale and complexity that the tool needs to handle and will ultimately help you decide the most suitable tool for your long-term purposes. This section could look something like this:

• Current users and scale - The tool will be used primarily by the People, Culture & TA team, which consists of one Head, one Generalist and one Recruiter, to manage and process the data. Additionally, as secondary users, we have the Hiring Managers, Interviewers and Employees. The hiring and employee lifecycle process is quite simple. We have 40 employees and around 5 open roles at once. The core focus right now is on hiring, fast onboarding and general employee data management. Payroll is outsourced.        
• Future projections - We estimate a total increase of approximately 500 individuals in our headcount over the next 24 months and assume an average attrition rate of around 20%. The complexity of the hiring process and volume may increase, hence the priority of ‘hiring’ functionality. Later on, in about 12 months, a performance management process will be introduced in the company.   

Map the available resources and know-how 

• Know-how - Depending on the size and complexity of your organisation, running such a project may be a ‘piece of cake’ or a ‘true challenge’. In many cases, the success of the tool will be directly dependent on the know-how and experience of the project manager who is leading it. While running such a project in a smaller team of 20-30 people may not require technical knowledge and could be run as a side project, achieving success in larger organisations would require an experienced and skilled project manager who is well-versed in project management methodologies and ideally possesses technical understanding.    
• Time(-line) / capacity - Bringing a new technical tool into an organisation, no matter how simple it may look at first, requires time and work. Evaluate carefully the capacity your project manager/team will have for this project and the desired completion timeline.      
• Budget - Defining the budget in advance is highly important, as it will be one of the major criteria for you to consider when deciding which vendors to proceed with and which to drop. 

Important factors to keep in mind 

• Data Privacy and GDPR - Depending on which countries you operate in, the regulations on how the company stores and handles the candidates’ and employees’ data might be very strictly regulated. Hence, we highly recommend familiarising yourself with this topic, ideally with the help of a legal expert.         
• API and further integrations - In today's rapidly evolving era of innovation and technological advancements, the effectiveness of any tech tool you choose depends not only on its individual capabilities but also on its ability to seamlessly integrate and interact with other tools and platforms. Especially when you expect fast growth where you may need to start using some further tools based on your organisational needs.     
• Future growth projections and scalability - While it’s critical that the tool solves your current organisational needs, it is at the same time important to think about future growth projections. Especially if you are aiming for fast growth and scalability, we recommend putting in place 6-12-24 months projections and evaluating also whether the tool that you would like to go for would still be able to meet your requirements in this time-frame. Switching from one HR/TA tool to another is very often a painful and time-consuming process.     
• Workflow automation - While AI-powered tools are a relatively new phenomenon and are still in their early stage, workflow automations have been around for quite some time and can be extremely useful for your teams, especially when handling manual-heavy administrative processes.     

Making it happen   

1. Define and align on the use cases, goals, success metrics and the timeline 

In this step, it's all about clarity and alignment within the team. Define the specific use cases (refer to the section titled 'use cases' above), goals, timeline, and criteria for measuring success, while ensuring alignment among everyone involved or impacted (including potential users within your organisation). This will help reduce friction in the future when the project execution begins.

2. Research, evaluate and test (...and evaluate) 

Once you have the clarity and alignment on what you are actually looking for (the must-haves and nice-to-haves), it's time to start the market research. This could be an exciting experience, as there are so many great tools to discover and you may feel like being in a candy store. Here the ‘most important survival tip when visiting a candy store’ also applies: don’t lose your focus and keep in mind the must-haves that you are looking for. Once you have done your research, you will probably end up with a long list of vendors, which we would recommend to trim down to the top 3 with scorecard-based evaluations. This is the moment when you can start reaching out to the vendors to explore the various ways you can try out their tool. Ideally - you will experience the tool live based on the use cases that you have described earlier. This could be a prepared live-demo session with the vendor where you can ask the questions directly. At this point, try to address as many questions and concerns as possible - don’t be shy. After you have seen the short-listed tools in action, the moment of re-evaluation takes place where you make a final decision on which vendors to choose and which ones to drop. If you feel like none of the tools match the criteria that you have set, reach out to another 2-3 vendors from your list. But keep in mind that this could extend your project delivery timeline.

3. Decision   

Now that you have a good overview of what's out there and how it works, it's time to make the call. Depending on the size and complexity of decision-making in your organisation, this step could be as short as a quick email or chat within the group or as lengthy as a presentation with in-depth analysis of the various options. Two small but important notes for this step: a) ensure that everyone who needs to be involved is included, and b) simplify the decision-making process as much as possible (e.g., prepare all the information in advance and present it in a clear and understandable way). Additionally, in your organisation, the decision-makers may also want to review the entire implementation plan for the project as part of the decision-making process.

4. Planning the roll-out

This is the second toughest part of the whole project (after implementation itself). Here you will need to think about how and when to integrate the tool into the workflows of your organisation or team and how to onboard the users. As with the previous steps, also this one needs a lot of alignment and clarity across the business. Think about what the employees who will be impacted by the new tool will need to know and when, and where will they find this information. At this point, we recommend to map out the user-experience journey of your (internal) users and plan what type of enablement and what timeframe they will have to master the new tool, ideally - without any hiccups. In general, we always recommend rolling out the tool in small groups while having a 'transition/testing time' so that you can address and iterate on any problems that may arise.           

 5. Roll-out 

Drum roll! If you decide to roll out in small groups, we advise being as close as possible to the members of each group and constantly keeping an eye on how they are experiencing the new tool. At the same time, invite them to proactively share any challenges and feedback they may have. This will help you gain a better understanding of the needs and experiences of new users, which you can use to continuously improve on your future iterations. 

6. Collect the feedback and review the success  

Collecting feedback from your team or organisation, regardless of its size, is highly important to understand their level of satisfaction with the new tool and its effectiveness in their daily work. There are so many ways to collect the feedback - from checking the sentiment in the chat group to anonymous surveys and open table sessions. Just make sure that you keep it as simple as possible and that the user would not need to put much effort and time into providing this feedback. Otherwise, you risk ending up with no feedback at all, as everyone is usually busy with their own daily tasks.

One of the most important steps is to measure the success of your roll-out, based on your timeline and goals. This will help you evaluate how you are progressing with your plan. Additionally, it is advisable to revisit your initial problem definition after the roll-out and evaluate whether your chosen solution has effectively addressed the problem. This will help you understand if the solution that you decided to go for actually solved what needed to be solved in your organisation.   

Final words 

As every organisation and team has its unique features, some aspects mentioned in this article may prove effective for you, while others may be less applicable. Hence, we encourage you to keep in mind the distinctive qualities of your team and implement only those strategies that you deem suitable. Also, we have purposefully maintained a high-level approach in the article, avoiding excessive details that could unnecessarily lengthen it. The ‘real life’ project details will strongly depend on the size, stage of growth, complexity, industry and the culture of your organisation. Two further recommendations from our side that could contribute to making this project a success, especially in the case of a larger and more complex organisation:

1. Assign a professional project manager who is familiar with project management methodologies and has a relevant track record,
2. Consider applying a change management framework (e.g., ADKAR) while planning the roll-out.   

As a small addition, we have also put together two practical business case scenarios for GoodTime (link to the article) and SocialTalent (link to the article), which we hope will help you get a better understanding of how a roll-out of these tools could look like.

Thank you for making it here and if you have any questions, ideas, suggestions or feedback - please feel free to drop them into the comments or reach out to us ( Valeria Stanga and Ilja Mitrofanov ) directly!