S4 E81 | Talent Operations Meeting #1 Recap

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Chris Hoyt, CXR 0:17
Alright, everybody, welcome to another edition of the CareerXroads podcast in this episode I have, I’ve got in front of us a recap, we just wrapped up with our first operations meeting of the year. I have two fantastic members from our CXR Community. I’m gonna let you introduce yourselves to Tamieka, why don’t you tell us who you are your title and the organization that you work for?

Tamieka Jones, AARP 0:40
Yes, so I am Tamieka Jones, I work for AARP. And I am one of the directors of talent acquisition with the organization.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 0:48
Wonderful. Thanks for being on with us.

Tamara Thompson, Delta Dental Insurance 0:50
And I am Tamara Thompson. I am a senior talent acquisition operations partner here at Delta Dental Insurance. And there is a difference because Delta Dental is a huge name. But our insurance company only has a few states. So when you look at Delta Dental as a whole, we are a big brand. But our company is a smaller entity of itself.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 1:14
Interesting, love that. So this was our first ops meeting of the year. We had it was full house. We did some exercises, we had some presentations, a little open dialogue in the end. So what was their big takeaway was something that resonated with you amongst the 40 so odd companies that were on?

Tamieka Jones, AARP 1:34
Yes. So though I will say if you don’t mind, I actually my big takeaway was around automation, we’re actually getting ready to transition to a new applicant tracking system. And one of the things that I heard around the pre boarding piece of what BASF are doing they’re doing is around the technology, we have such a pain point of ensuring that individuals have what they need for day one. So one of the things that I was thinking about when I think about a bot something that can help with the documentation collection, and all of the things that you need to ensure that the candidates have everything they need for day one. That’s one of the things I took away as I’m writing that down, we’ve got to explore that more, because that is a huge pain point for us. And it really impacts what we saw in some of our quality of hire and and that quality, how about candidate new hire satisfaction scores was around onboarding. And so we want to be able to ensure that that’s where we have our greatest opportunities. So we want to ensure that we’re kind of focusing on that. And so that, you know, being able to incorporate some types of bots in would be great for us and improving our process.

Tamara Thompson, Delta Dental Insurance 2:59
And to piggyback off what Tamieka just mentioned, one thing that got my HR ears perked up was, you know, you’re compliant with these bots and with these, you know, things that they’re putting in place, these automation tools that they’re putting in place, it is making you 100% compliant, which, to any HR person, you’re going to think, really, okay, sign me up, because there is so much legality that goes with our roles, every little thing that we do can be scrutinized and can be up for audit at the end of each year. And so to have something that is really putting your company and your role who you are in compliance, sign me up.

Tamieka Jones, AARP 3:45
Yes. And another thing on that is when I started to think about what the recruiters complain about the most is around the administrative tasks they have to do. And there’s a lot of administrative things that they have to do in order to ensure onboarding is facilitated properly, when really, we don’t really own up onboarding. So it’s one of those things that we don’t even own it, but yet, it’s still like if something goes wrong, well guess who they call,talent? You know, because it was part of the process with them coming on board. So so as I thought about it, I thought about what ways can we make the recruiters job easier? How can we then improve the scores? You know, all of those very similar things are very kind of came to mind.

Tamara Thompson, Delta Dental Insurance 4:35
Yeah, and allowing them to do what they were hired for a job recruiters are hired because they are a gem, they can find that needle in the haystack. And to bog them down with all these administrative tasks. It’s not enabling them to do what they do best and that’s what they’re, they’re paid for. And we need to enable them to do that.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 4:56
Yeah, don’t hate me. But you know, my big takeaway. I really think Kate And Tony from BASF sort of stole the topical show. With the work they’ve done, I think it was UI path they had used but what was fascinating to me, the sheer savings that they’re able to account for, for man hours right there, you’re talking about almost a $50,000 a year savings, and an optimization piece that was put in yet, at sort of toward the tail end of the meeting, the number one thing we all thought we would have automated by now, which was scheduling is something that no one has managed to conquer. So we’ve got these massive processes and bots, and automation in place now that are there already, you know, showing great returns. But the scheduling that we all thought was going to be the easiest thing to get done two years ago, is what everyone is still struggling with.

Tamieka Jones, AARP 5:48
And I actually captured that as well, because we’ve been talking about it. And again, the big challenges come and I made note of it, hiring manager by and there’s so many different types of interviews, who handles the interview set like schedules. So we have some hiring managers where admins manage their schedules there, and then some where no one manage them at all. So it’s that working through all of those various different nuances, I that has truly been one of the things that we thought about as well.

Tamara Thompson, Delta Dental Insurance 6:22
Absolutely. And I have to say that in our breakout, I was on the technology breakout. I did ask them for, you know, who they use for scheduling tools, and one that came up, Lockheed Martin uses Paradox. And they said that they really, really enjoy that. And then another one that was thrown out as a more kind of on your own. Not a huge cost to it was Calendly. I think that’s just more on your own versus a whole company wide tool. But good to throw out there as well. But I do think we would be doing ourselves a disservice if we don’t talk about what Jennifer talked about. From Spectrum, she I was pinging her while she was talking, I’m like, Can I have your email address, we need to talk after this call, I need more information. Because she made mention of being more intentional with candidates. And really, I mean, that’s what we all need to do. We want them to have that experience. We want them to leave an interview, even if they don’t get it we want them to leave, knowing that they were valued that their time was taken seriously. And and having seen Delta Dental in a great light. And so with them putting that new, I don’t think it would work for everyone, because they are such a huge organization. And they do a ton of hiring. But with the new the automation that they put in place where people can go to their career site and click take this 10 minute survey, showing them what their interest maybe that they don’t know about and really highlighting different roles. I think that’s pretty darn cool. Because for us, we struggle to hire enough people in our call center, because they’re you’re constantly hiring. So to put this survey tool and kind of directed in a certain way. It’s pretty neat. And then you’re getting the diversity that you want, you’re getting the gender that you want in in those roles, which I thought was pretty darn neat.

Tamieka Jones, AARP 8:32
Yeah, I do think it’s pretty neat as well, just because we’re asking recruiters to do so much with whether it’s, there’s so many different things that takes them out of their day to day of doing sourcing and oh, how do we keep candidates engaged? And how do we do these things now, with implementing something like that, that’s a new way of maybe taking additional things off of our plate and allowing it to be automated to actually do that, so that I did find that very interesting. I did find it maybe as challenging maybe a bit more challenging to implement in our organization. But definitely one that I wrote down is something to consider some, how will we utilize it? Let’s let’s you know, unpack it a little bit more for sure.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 9:18
I think I think what will be very interesting to be to two big ones that are going to come out of that I predict. So when they go live externally, I think they’re going to be able to point a lot of people to jobs that they wouldn’t have already thought of right, the idea that they go through this short survey, and then jobs get recommended to them that they may not have thought that they would have been a match for I think that’s gonna be a big deal. But, you know, to your point, I think there is an element of feeling heard, that the candidate desires right to feel validated and that you know, what I’m looking for, and I had the chance to explain and display my skills and my abilities to you in a way that is fair, right? And there’s that perception of fairness and that perception of being Heard that I think will just will really resonate with with the candidates to take the time to go through it. Pretty powerful.

Tamara Thompson, Delta Dental Insurance 10:07
Well, and she she made mention that they were just going through a new career site and we’re doing that same thing. So I was like, I am reaching out to you, I need to know how you failed and where you did good, because I don’t want to make those mistakes. And I want to piggyback off your successes. So I loved that. It was just the different breakouts. It was warm. It was inviting. It was very, I mean, we were laughing, it was just a family environment. And yet, we’ve never met these people before. So I loved that it made me wish we were in person cuz I’m like, I want to go have a drink with you guys.

Tamieka Jones, AARP 10:42
Yes. And I must admit, I do miss “What the duck!” Oh, we have a way to do a virtual with the duck. So

Chris Hoyt, CXR 10:51
That’s a good call that I had. Gosh, I forgot I have bags and bags and bags of ducks sitting around and just not we have to figure out a virtual with the duck.

Tamieka Jones, AARP 11:00
Yes. Let’s figure that out.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 11:03
Oh my gosh. All right. Well, I just I want to thank both of you so much, not just for doing a quick recap with us but also just you know your involvement and just the way you lean in and contribute so much to the community because that’s what we are we are truly a community and you are our work family. And so we just really appreciate both you and thanks for making the meetings a success.

Tamara Thompson, Delta Dental Insurance 11:23
Awesome.

Tamieka Jones, AARP 11:24
Thanks for having me.

Tamara Thompson, Delta Dental Insurance 11:26
Thanks.

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