Wayne and Chloe Wright are known for not doing things halfway, and in 1996 they opened their first childhood centre in Tauranga, New Zealand with only four employees. Today, their BestStart has grown into New Zealand\u2019s largest provider of early childhood education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over the past 13 years, BestStart has grown to more than 270 centres, employing 4,500 staff according to HR Manager Amy Wilkins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At this current stage, Amy has noted that they are facing the most difficult staffing shortage that she has seen in her 10 years since working in the organisation, despite \u201c20 new centres that we are looking to open up over the next 18 months,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere is a nationwide shortage of teachers across the board in every sector in New Zealand \u2013 recruitment is a top priority for us at the moment so that we can continue to support our growth.\u201d A challenge for BestStart\u2019s recruitment is their time to fill, which \u201ckeeps going up and up,\u201d said Amy, due to the current market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With 1,500 casual employees, Amy emphasises the \u201cconstant turnover, constant churn, constant recruitment,\u201d that comes with hiring contingent workers in the industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Prior to implementing JobAdder, BestStart was using a New Zealand build system called JobHire, their first-ever ATS. \u201cIt was a very basic system, and as our needs were getting more complex and we continued to grow in size, we found that JobAdder was a much better product,\u201d Amy said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Their previous system \u201chad no development over the three years that we were using it,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wilkins says that BestStart is primarily focused on continuing \u201cto be in growth mode over three years,\u201d and looking for \u201cgreater functionality.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Considering their last system \u201cdidn\u2019t integrate with everything, so it stood alone,\u201d Amy liked how JobAdder has an open API and \u201cis so easily integratable,\u201d she noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite having four regional recruitment specialists who oversee JobAdder in each region, \u201cwe still fundamentally believe that our Hiring Managers need to be a key part of that recruitment process.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With their current volume, JobAdder has worked for them by involving their Hiring Managers. \u201cWe like that JobAdder is very responsive in the fact that we kind of pick and choose how much our Hiring Managers are involved in.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Keeping up with trends and solutions, Amy found JobAdder to be \u201cin continuous development mode where we don\u2019t have to be thinking \u2013 JobAdder is always listening to their clients and making changes. Often these are things that we hadn\u2019t thought of, but when it comes through we think \u2018that\u2019s brilliant,\u2019 or it helps our processes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
BestStart was looking for ease of use, as \u201cour people and Hiring Managers aren\u2019t necessarily IT savvy, so we need things that are quite intuitive in terms of use,\u201d said Amy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI also needed to know that I could get really robust reporting out of the system,\u201d Amy added. As a JobAdder superuser, Amy found that having the ability to gather information on questions senior management may ask such as, \u2018where are people going?\u2019 or \u2018where are we losing people?\u2019, was \u201ca big driver for me,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve now got that information through JobAdder, which is really powerful,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With seamless integration, BestStart found it \u201cvery easy to change over,\u201d and quickly discovered their own JobAdder champions within the team. Throughout the first week of integration, Amy and her team had already explored and \u201cpottered around in the system.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Online training from JobAdder and group meetings allowed Amy and her team to \u201cmake sure we shared all the information that we were learning along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI definitely use Hiring Manager, as I don\u2019t have time to be managing candidates for my colleagues. So we see it\u2019s got plenty of potential and when it\u2019s used well, it\u2019s really powerful,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With the new JobAdder dashboard, Amy has been able to quickly check how long vacancies have been left unfilled, as well as providing a \u201cquick snapshot of how many applications we\u2019ve had so that I can go into our submissions and see what\u2019s happening with those,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By reducing their applications, BestStart has \u201cbeen able to use the system to support that, which is a good thing,\u201d Wilkins said. Screening questions have enabled the team to quickly remove applicants and efficiently collect \u201can overview of who\u2019s applied,\u201d Amy added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With high volume roles receiving hundreds of applicants, JobAdder allows BestStart to reject applicants \u201creally quickly, so it\u2019s actually saving us time because we\u2019ve got greater visibility of where we\u2019re at with each process \u2013 it also gives us a bit of visibility to know where our high priority areas are.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, their casuals team is now going completely paperless through JobAdder\u2019s HelloSign integration. According to Amy, \u201cwe can now manage our entire onboarding process through JobAdder, which is really good.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Improved candidate experience and communication across teams has been the biggest benefit of using JobAdder, says Amy. \u201cWe are potentially able to give a much better candidate experience than we were previously. There\u2019s so much more customisation with JobAdder \u2013 even when we tell an applicant that they were unsuccessful, we\u2019re able to do that in a variety of ways, which makes it a more personal response,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Moving forward, BestStart has just begun their international recruitment and is \u201clooking for teachers globally, as we\u2019re so short.\u201d explained Amy. By using JobAdder, \u201cwe\u2019ve got it all in one space and anybody can jump in at any time and pick up where a candidate is at. Whereas previously we were on one computer and it wasn\u2019t centralised.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAs an organisation, we are looking to streamline our processes. And so we\u2019re trying to really extend JobAdder to as many areas as we can, to help that process which has been really good. We\u2019re enjoying the flexibility of the system.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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