As we head into the final months of the year, it’s common for businesses to hold off on big technology decisions until January.
By Melinda Jennings
As we head into the final months of the year, it’s common for businesses to hold off on big technology decisions until January. But according to Nina Mapson Bone — author, consultant, people strategist, and experienced leader in the recruitment space — postponing key updates to your recruitment CRM or broader tech stack could cost you more than you think.
With 25 years in the industry and three major CRM implementations under her belt, Nina knows the risks of delaying these decisions. We spoke with her about why companies often hesitate, the potential downsides of waiting, and why now is actually the ideal time to start scoping out your recruitment software needs for 2025.
Reasons businesses delay tech decisions
1. The fear factor
Many businesses put off major tech decisions because they’re afraid to take that leap. Nina explains that this concern could be based on previous experiences, or just fear of the unknown.
"Leaders feel like updating systems will be too difficult or complex, especially if they don't have a strong technical background," she says. “There’s also often this, somewhat false, idea that changing a system is such a big job that it has to be really bad before they’re ever going to make that decision.”
2. Time of year
Starting from as early as October, many businesses start to significantly slow down, pushing projects into the new year.
Conversely, people still seem to be as busy as ever. Nina challenges businesses to look at the type of work they’re busy with at this time of year, and whether it’s worth prioritising over getting a headstart on your 2025 recruitment CRM solution.
“If you take a look at your schedule, often at this time of year it’s full of tasks and projects that are not very useful and don’t necessarily need to be there,” she explains. “This time of year is a good time to ask yourself, ‘are we still working on that, and do we need to be?’ That way, you can give yourself more time and opportunities to set yourself up for success for the new year.”
3. All strategy, no execution
Coming up with strategies is one thing, but finding the time and business buy-in to execute on them can be a real challenge. In Nina’s extensive experience consulting with leaders, she’s seen two major reasons why people come up with brilliant strategies that don’t make it off the page:
- Failure to understand and manage day-to-day operational priorities against strategic execution.
- Failure to bridge the disconnect between people and strategy.
Luckily, as you’ll see, there are ways to successfully navigate these challenges.
Benefits of prioritising your CRM upgrade
The right CRM transforms how you operate, streamlines processes, improves candidate experiences, and drives revenue growth. Using JobAdder’s CRM, customers have been able to:
- Reduce admin time by 50%
- Reduce time-to-fill by 50%
- Reduce clicks-per-task by up to 75%
- Consolidate 9 different database into one centralised source-of-truth CRM
And much more.
Beyond the technical advantages, Nina says there are two further key benefits to starting the process sooner rather than later.
- Employee engagement
"When employees get a sense that businesses are delaying decisions, it directly impacts employee morale and engagement," Nina says.
Prolonged procrastination can lead to decreased productivity and increased disengagement, Nina warns.
“The cost of delaying business decisions is not just the literal, monetary cost. There is an impact on general employee morale.”
- Strategy alignment
As already mentioned, when businesses delay decisions, it widens the disconnect between people and the overall strategy of the company. And successfully aligning people with your strategy, Nina explains, is hugely beneficial.
“When you can align your people to strategy, you actually get better outcomes overall,” she says. “You’ll achieve much greater engagement from your team, which in turn improves staff retention.”
5 tips for tackling better decision-making
The benefits for getting your CRM in order this side of the new year are clear; but how do you go about it?
Nina has 5 key pieces of advice for leaders wanting to take the plunge.
- Understand day-to-day operations
There’s often a gap between the strategy that business leaders design, and how that balances with day-to-day recruitment operations.
To successfully manage a transition to a new tech system, Nina recommends “creating the time, space, and resources” to really understand how things work at a ground-level. From there, you can better understand the potential impacts of the change you’re implementing.
- Communicate your strategy
We’ve already mentioned how important it is to bridge that gap between people and the company strategy, and the answer for doing so is surprisingly simple: communication.
If you want buy-in for change from the people in your organisation, Nina advises you communicate your strategy early on.
“If you communicate the ‘why’ behind your strategy well, when it comes to rolling out a change like a CRM update, you can easily tie it back to that,” she says.
“Then the conversation can look something like; ‘We want to roll this project out because this project aligns to the strategy here, which will help us achieve our goals, and as a result create greater career pathways, which means you're going to have more opportunities…’
It might still be scary at first for people, but there’ll be less pushback when they understand the overarching reason and benefit they’ll enjoy from the change being made.”
- Set micro goals
As you begin your actual planning, Nina advises that breaking things up into micro goals is the way to go.
“Planning the whole process out and chunking it right down makes it much more achievable,” she says, “It also helps you think through all of the things that could go wrong, all of the steps you need to take, and all of the possible outcomes.”
- Plan for the worst, hope for the best
Although you hope everything goes smoothly, it’s always advisable to be prepared in case things don’t strictly run to plan.
Nina suggests appointing a ‘black hat’ role.
“A ‘black hat’ is someone whose entire job is to point out potential holes in every idea or concept,” she explains, “You can have one person assume that role, or you can all go around each meeting and have every person pick holes in the plans you’ve discussed.
It’s not to focus on the negatives. Instead, it helps you mitigate potential risks and make sure you’re actually covering all bases.”
- Get ahead by taking action now
By taking action now rather than waiting until the new year, businesses can get ahead of the curve. Nina suggests that as the rest of the world winds down, this could be the ideal time to spring forward.
“What better way to hit the ground running in the new year than by thinking about what you’ll need for a successful 2025, now,” she says. “That may mean you need to critically evaluate your current workload and cut out unnecessary tasks to free up time and resources.”
Set yourself up for a successful 2025 with the right CRM
While the rest of the recruiting world winds down, it’s the ideal time to make your CRM a priority. With the right planning and execution, you can position your business for success in 2025 and beyond.
As Nina notes:
"It will take more time and effort than you realise, but that doesn't mean you should put it off,” she says.
"Done well, it's worth the investment - not just for the tangible benefits, but for the boost in employee engagement and morale."
