Transcript
Speaker: Recently, Aviante made a big bet. We announced the first ever integration between applicant tracking and vendor management systems, something that no one in the staffing technology space had done before.
Speaker: And let's be honest, we knew it was ambitious, but what we've learned since then has been nothing short of game changing. There were surprises, some good, some frustrating, and a few assumptions that held up better than expected.
Speaker: But through it all, one thing has become clear. This type of integration has the power to transform how staffing agencies support their clients. Today, we're pulling back the curtain on what we've learned since we began this process and why we're more convinced than ever that this was the right move for agencies, for employers, and for the future of staffing.
Speaker: Welcome to this episode of Aviante Digital Edge. I'm Chris Ryan, Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer at Aviante. Two years ago, we announced that Aviante and Simple VMS were joining forces with the first ever deep integration between a staffing agency, ATS, and a vendor management system.
Speaker: And the vision was bold. Let's create a seamless digital experience from employer to agency to talent and back again. a system where job orders, candidate data, and compliance could move in sync without friction, without duplication, improving efficiency and saving money.
Speaker: Now, if you're in staffing, you know that VMSs have hardly been popular. Most weren't built with agencies in mind, and often they're optimized to act even as gatekeepers. But Simple VMS was different.
Speaker: It was designed by a team that came from the staffing industry, and it included tools like integrated timekeeping, built-in compliance and reporting. Simple VMS offered something rare, a platform agencies actually liked working with.
Speaker: And so began our mission to create a fully integrated platform that supports the workflow from employer to agency to talent and back. And now with the integration live and clients actively using it, we've learned a lot, not just the technology itself, but how it's being used in real world applications.
Speaker: And joining me today to unpack what we've learned and where we go from here is Joe Heiber, Director of Product Management for Simple VMS, and previously our own Director of Product at Aviante.
Speaker: We'll get into what worked, what surprised us, and why, despite the challenges, we're more bullish than ever on this integration and what it means for the future of agency-driven contingent labor.
Speaker: Joe, welcome back. Thanks, Chris. So Joe, why is the integration so powerful? What were your original goals when you were setting out to connect the Aviante Bold ATS with Simple?
Speaker: My original goal was really to look at the efficiency gains we could provide by doing an integration of the systems. So specifically, when you take a look at the old process, which ultimately was a recruiter would receive an email for a job opportunity and then go and enter that into the ATS.
Speaker: Basically doing a bunch of copy and pasting of all the details that they received in this email over inside of the ATS system. Once they created that job profile, they then would start to recruit against it, ultimately attaching a candidate and then placing them on assignment and then turning around and doing the same thing in the VMS, submitting the candidate, reentering candidate information ultimately to get it over to the hiring manager and maintaining a process of dual systems.
Speaker: And so when we set out to do the integration, we said, hey, let's really meet the recruiter where they live inside of bold. Let's meet the employer where they live inside of simple VMS and let's meet the candidate wherever they live.
Speaker: So by reducing the data load of those personas, we ultimately made it much easier and took down that process to allow for users not to have to reenter information back and forth.
Speaker: So in the integration world, the recruiter isn't an information middleman who's they're entering in the VMS, then they're entering in the ATS, then that they're swivel sharing back and forth.
Speaker: And of course, whenever you're doing manual entry between systems, a lot of mistakes and errors can happen, there are delays and so on. So really part of the integration was just a dramatic improvement in workflow and elimination of double entry. So right there, that was an expectation. Exactly. Let's let the recruiters recruit and let's eliminate the data entry pieces of it all.
Speaker: So now the integration is live. We have a number of staffing agencies who have it up and are using it with clients. Are these benefits materializing? What benefits are we actually seeing from this?
Speaker: Yeah, it's actually been really impressive to see the time and labor savings. Like you mentioned, just in that dual entry piece, I would welcome all of our listeners to check out a recent case study our marketing team put out, really noting how one client implemented the integration.
Speaker: What they saw was a increase in time savings that allowed them to reduce their headcount for on-site managers. This allowed them to focus more on recruiting and filling the top of funnel with qualified candidates so that when a job comes in have more candidates ready to staff. Let me just interrupt you there for a moment.
Speaker: The people who had to work on site, were they actually doing data entry of the VMS at the employer site? Is that what was going on? Yeah, it's that swivel chair you were talking about before. if you can reduce that swivel chair and focus on recruiting, instead, you're going to see, obviously, a bigger top of funnel. And that applies not only just to the employers that are working with the VMS, but that also applies to that entire agency's business.
Speaker: Let's talk a little bit about specific client examples. And I know that you can't mention names, but if you could just tell us a few examples about how the integration was set up, how did it work, and what's happened since in each case.
Speaker: Yeah, I measure everything based on my ah ROI. And that's ultimately where we get to determine whether or not we are delivering value. And so we've been digging deep into the results. And honestly, the savings have been really impressive.
Speaker: For instance, one client decreased the average time to fill by 80%. And they saw in the same time, the time to submit reduced 64% time.
Speaker: Wow, that's huge. Did the customer note or was it just in the data? It definitely was in the data. Now, of course, it's important to say not all improvements can be directly related to this integration alone. And we recognize that in the staffing industry, there's tons of variables at play.
Speaker: And even within our technology, we've changed some of the variables. This year, SimpleVMS underwent a significant overhaul to introduce a 2.0 version, and that enhanced efficiencies across the board.
Speaker: So the data that we're analyzing really looks at it over the course of the year when the integration was just a small portion of it. But with those types of results, 80% average time to fill increase, 40% reduction in time to submit,
Speaker: we can assume that the integration had a large part to do with some of that. Yeah. So the integration showed up at the party. It was part of the play. Whether it helped 50% or 80%, it was a huge contribution.
Speaker: So Joe, we've talked a bit about some of the advantages of building an integration between the ATS and the VMS. But what I think our listeners would like to learn more about is What were some of the big surprises along the way?
Speaker: I think one of the surprising things, and this is probably more personal for me, is that we really set some ambitious goals directly related to ah ROI. And one of the surprising insights I gained is that the successful agency clients are still maintaining that strong relationship with the employer.
Speaker: So the integration didn't necessarily offer them more new jobs. It just made their lives easier. And the dynamic of that relationship is crucial because the integration makes the lives easier, but the relationship is still with selling and getting the deals, getting the jobs in.
Speaker: I need to paraphrase this for you then. We often talk about return on investment and technology as something that's very important, but it almost sounds like you're talking about a return on relationship.
Speaker: that you know if the integration is working properly, the efficiency is just part of it. It's that you actually have this stronger customer relationship somehow. How does the technology actually boost the relationship?
Speaker: Well, it's not so much I'm boosting the relationship piece, but if you don't have the relationship at all, the integration will not help you. You still need to be able to have that relationship, provide quality candidates, understand the need of the customer.
Speaker: The staffing aspect is still there. We automate a lot of the process and make the dual entry much easier and less swivel chair. But when it comes down to it, the success of you working with a VMS partner and or employer still comes down to how well you understand that customer, how well you put quality candidates forth.
Speaker: The integration isn't going to necessarily help you with that. It just ultimately makes those processes a lot faster and easier. So Joe, with every rollout, there are going to be bumps. What were some of the early pain points encountered during an implementation and how did you work through them and what did we learn from the experience?
Speaker: One of the things that I was really surprised by and learned about was just the change management process. Anytime you introduce a new process across the board to agencies and employers, you're met with some reluctancy, and I totally get it and understand it.
Speaker: One of the things that we learned is that A lot of customers have peak seasons and those peak seasons happen to be during the time we were rolling out the integration. And so the change management piece of introducing a change during peak was met with some reluctancy from the agency. And so I totally understand, but it was one of the things that kind of surprised me a little bit was we also have to forecast calendar time into rolling out an integration.
Speaker: Rolling out an integration in the middle of third and fourth quarter sometimes is a bit of a challenge. Thou shalt not implement new technology in peak season yeah is is one of the commandments.
Speaker: So let me follow up on the resistance to change. When the integration was being set up, was it easier for the employer or was it easier for the agency? Where's the biggest point of resistance in that process?
Speaker: Yeah, I think it's important for the listeners to learn, especially when doing the change management, we built the integration so that you didn't have to necessarily roll over your and entire VMS business onto the integration.
Speaker: We allowed for you to test the waters and really roll out the integration employer by employer. So that if you did have dedicated teams that were just servicing, say, a single employer, we could roll out the integration one by one. So you didn't have to disrupt the entire flow of your business, especially when you're working with multiple employers, maybe multiple regions.
Speaker: It allowed for our agencies to really test the waters and see the value before rolling it out to the rest of the org. So it almost sounds like having dedicated teams using the integration would be a best practice or a recommendation if it's possible.
Speaker: Yeah, we see that a lot where there is a lot of dedicated teams just to service that one client, whether that's an onsite arrangement, whether that's still inside of the branch offices, but just really dedicated folks that ultimately learn the customer, learn what they're looking for and what their typical positions are and how to staff for them.
Speaker: Got it. Got it. Let's look more closely at how the integration actually works and what it entails. So when you initiate something in simple VMS, how does the information flow? What is passed over from the VMS directly into the ATS system?
Speaker: So from a functional perspective, employers still create the jobs just as they typically would inside of simple VMS. If the agency receiving the job posting is integrated on the bold ATS, the job automatically appears inside of bold.
Speaker: Now, there's some automation configuration that can happen that allows for the job to automatically be created and or distributed to the twenty four seven mobile app. When using that mobile app, candidates can automatically express interest and then flow directly into the job.
Speaker: Any jobs that don't meet that automation rule configuration are directed to our external job staging screen. And this is just a landing page for jobs where recruiters have the ability to make a decision, do I even want to staff for this role?
Speaker: Those are typical staffing jobs that recruiters may or may not want to staff for. So ultimately what the staging screen allows for is that decision to be made. Do I want to staff for that position?
Speaker: And the same process applies where they can automatically send the job out to the mobile app to candidates that might match and be interested. It sounds like you can automate the entire staffing workflow if you want to, but the staffing agency may want the recruiter to actually be acting on the information that is being passed.
Speaker: So I'm curious, do you find that some agencies want the automatic pass-through and others want the recruiter to be looking over the data at each stage? Yeah, we've offered quite a bit of different automation configuration with that. So you can get very granular or specific to the jobs that are automatically created versus those that you want to review first.
Speaker: What we're finding is that quite a few jobs are being created by automation, especially for those commonly staffed positions that you already have a bench of qualified candidates ready to go.
Speaker: And then it's just a matter of, again, the employer creating the job, it flowing out to the app and the talent saying, yeah, I'm interested. We still though have a recruiter involved for reviewing those candidates to make sure that quality fit is still there.
Speaker: And that's the important piece of the automation. We don't automate the entire flow. The agency still is involved to ensure that this candidate is the right fit for that job. So they'd still do the submission process, including attaching any compliance documents, resumes,
Speaker: Things that are ultimately really important for a human to review and present quality candidates for. Got it. But to be clear, once the recruiter reviews those documents, they are then able to pass them using the integration back to the VMS and back to the customer in an automated fashion.
Speaker: Is that correct? Yeah. And that was a friction point. right In the old way, you'd have to download those documents to your desktop, go back over to the VMS system and reattach those same documents.
Speaker: So through the integration, again, by having all those documents inside of bold, we're able to easily indicate which those documents are and pass them through the integration without having those additional clicks. Got it, got it. So there are other programs out there. There's third-party integration software that helps an ATS integrate with a VMS.
Speaker: But my observation is that most of those seem to be unidirectional. You can pass a job order from a VMS into the ATS. But in this particular case, It sounds like your integration is highly bi-directional. And in fact, it essentially puts whatever the recruiter needs to pass the information back and forth. So you can rapidly get information from the talent and rapidly pass it back to the employer. And it's simply a matter of the recruiter's decision making as to how much automation they want to use.
Speaker: Is that right? Yeah, what we automated was the job distribution out to the candidate and expressing interest in the jobs, but we didn't automate the submission process on purpose.
Speaker: There is a human involved, and that's really where the agency and the recruiter provide ah immense value. It's the, hey, I want to review candidates to make sure the quality candidates are submitted to the employer, and that's really where you need the human involved.
Speaker: That makes a lot of sense. One thing I'm curious about, were there any unusual requests from customers or agencies? What insights can you share with us? Yeah, as I mentioned, we really focused on the automation of getting a job from the employer all the way out to the candidate in the least amount of friction possible.
Speaker: And so one of the things that we learned is that hiring managers are not experts at marketing jobs to candidates. And so by having in a full automated flow from the job being created in the VMS out to the mobile app, sometimes those job descriptions were not mobile friendly.
Speaker: they were not the best foot forward, so to speak, in getting these jobs out to candidates. So we pivoted very quickly into allowing for templates to be used, allowing the recruiter to still indicate, hey, this is a job I typically staff for, but I also know how to market this position out to candidates.
Speaker: And so by including some automation configuration that allowed for templates to be used, we still allowed for that automation flow to happen, But we put in the middle the recruiter's spin on, hey, this is what the job actually entails versus what the employer was originally inputting out for the agency to digest.
Speaker: That's interesting. I know that job descriptions are often described as a war between marketers and lawyers. And i think one of the interesting ways that a staffing agency could help the employer is precisely marketing the candidates.
Speaker: That's a real value add for a recruiter. But that also changes the way you think about the integration, doesn't it? Because now you're looking for ways to transform the information while constantly keeping your employer apprised of what you're doing.
Speaker: Absolutely. And again, it's focusing on where the agency provides a ton of value. And so we didn't want to lose the agency still marketing jobs out to the candidate. And so through the integration, we had to add some defaults, some templates, some ways to which we could still have that frictionless flow, but yet still provide agency value.
Speaker: So one thing I'm curious about is during the integration, are there certain things that you found were common across all of the different setups? How much has to be customized or configured agency by agency because they want to do something different or the employer wants to do something different?
Speaker: There's definitely not a one size fit all process. And I think one of the things that we've learned through the integration is that each employer or buyer has a different configuration across the VMS system. And each agency has their own configuration inside of their ATS.
Speaker: And so unifying that data has been a little bit of a challenge. But ultimately, what we've come up with is a way, like I mentioned, to have that automation flow and be able to service each of those personas.
Speaker: Got it. So really what you're trying to do is create a configurable architecture with standard data models, but configurable architecture that allows different variations in workflow, different levels of recruiter intervention as the data gets passed over.
Speaker: Yeah. I think that one of the things that we learned early in the integration as well is that the employer really is in the driver's seat. They're the ones that everybody's trying to service well. And so but We've been really adaptive in the integration on the bold side to be able to support their configuration on the simple VMS side.
Speaker: Because ultimately, they're the ones that are paying the bills. that That makes sense. So let's talk a little bit about compliance, because I know that's something that's on everybody's mind. And when a staffing agency onboards, obviously employers have to be very concerned about ensuring that compliance goes properly.
Speaker: How is compliance information passed back and forth between simple and bold? I think one of the things, especially when you think about compliance and you touched on it a little bit earlier, is that a lot of information can get lost when you're not integrated.
Speaker: It's really up to the interpreter to enter and configure and set up everything in the ATS that is needed to meet that compliance of that job. And so what the integration does is it ultimately standardizes that process.
Speaker: So if a job has a drug test requirement or a background check requirement, It's all inside of that job when it was created through the integration. So in order to submit candidates, recruiters must attach these things. There's no spot where a recruiter might forget or might misconfigure a certain job requirement.
Speaker: We force that through the integration and it allows for us to standardize that process to ensure compliance is being met. So what that means essentially is that if compliance is set according to the employer's rules and simple, then the integration enforces the compliance from the staffing agency automatically.
Speaker: Correct. Yep. And there's Nothing left to interpret by a human. Yeah. and And that's the one place where you don't want human interpretation necessarily. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So Joe, how will this integration evolve and where do you see it going?
Speaker: What are the next couple innovations you think longer term? Recently, actually, we released a feature that allows for the sign-on between both platforms to be really easy. It's a single sign-on tool.
Speaker: What we learned going back to a little bit of our earlier conversation is there's still certain actions that a recruiter must do inside of simple VMS. I want to review who's punched in for today. I want to be able to generate a report for my client prior to going on site.
Speaker: So certain aspects of the integration were just, hey, make it easy for me to go between platforms. Certain activities are best suited to be done in simple VMS or certain activities in bold, for example.
Speaker: So the feature that we most recently came out with is a single sign-on. It allows for easily going between both systems. On top of that, kind of next up, we're working on some day labor so functionality inside of SimpleVMS. And so we'll be enhancing the integration to support all of the day labor customers.
Speaker: And from there, we're looking longer term at bringing in a lot of the back office data. So bringing in invoicing, bringing in time data, making that much easier for our back office folks.
Speaker: Got it. yeah So in fact, you could envision a point in time where there might actually be synchronization between the staffing platform back office and the billing module in simple and making sure that those actually tie together. And if there's a discrepancy, it could be identified.
Speaker: So within the staffing industry, we often talk about the adversarial relationship between a VMS vendor and a staffing agency. But one of the things that Aviante learned about Simple VMS was that a VMS could actually enhance the relationship between a staffing agency and an employer if it was used properly.
Speaker: And it could actually simplify or save a staffing agency money in serving an employer. So what would be really helpful, Joe, is if you could talk a little bit about why a staffing agency might benefit from their employer having simple VMS?
Speaker: Simple VMS offers the employer quite a bit of benefits, especially when they're working with multiple different staffing vendors. It allows, from an employer's perspective, the pain point of,
Speaker: hey, I have all this disparate invoices, I have all this disparate tracking that I'm trying to do. So SimpleVMS as a technology solution allows for the employer to solve pain points such as multiple invoices, different reconciliations that I have to do.
Speaker: And so by agency bringing in SimpleVMS to the relationship, to the discussion, They're ultimately acting as a consultant, as an advisor to that employer to say, I have a solution for you, Mr. Buyer, that allows for you to solve a lot of your pain points, but yet still keeping me a part of that relationship.
Speaker: So... It changes the dynamic of I'm trying to sell based on cost to, hey, I'm trying to actually solve real problems for you, Mr. Employer. So the VMS is helping the employer to consolidate all their contingent workforce operations.
Speaker: But are there specific requests that an employer makes of a staffing agency that are kind of like value added that the VMS could take care of instead? For example, unusual reporting requirements and requests.
Speaker: Yeah, I think we see that a lot. One of the biggest advantages and requests we hear from employers is just to be able to track the cost of labor, be able to actually see what does it cost for me to produce whatever it is I'm producing or manufacturing, and be able to have that data to say, I know this costs me X so I can charge Y and get X in profit.
Speaker: I know that there has been a movement afoot within manufacturing to understand total labor costs, including both full-time work and contingent labor and factoring it in together.
Speaker: My understanding is that sometimes employers are asking staffing agencies to provide them with data to support that, but it sounds like if you have simple VMS instead, now you've taken a burden off the staffing agency to provide that kind of reporting.
Speaker: That strikes me as one example. Are there other examples like timekeeping function? One of the timekeeping functions that we're pretty proud of is our new AI photo time. And and what that allows for is the miss punching, the buddy punching, the things like that, that you hear in the industry.
Speaker: What it does is ultimately ensure that the right person is there. And so with our advanced timekeeping solutions, we're also solving real buyer pain by being able to say, Hey, we have advanced solutions and it doesn't matter what agency your contingent labor is coming from. You don't have to have 10 clocks on the wall.
Speaker: You can have one and it's a unified timekeeping process for all of the line managers, anybody else involved in the process. So this might be a way for a staffing agency to avoid having to put in a special timekeeping system and still have some kind of flow back and forth between the systems.
Speaker: So, Joe, let me ask a more speculative question. Occasionally, i will hear from a staffing agency that says, I want to partner with a a VMS and become an MSP.
Speaker: I'm curious your thoughts about that. How does that work? Is that realistic? Wanting to be an MSP is a desire that a lot of agencies have. But I think that in order to become an MSP, the agency really has to understand what that exactly means.
Speaker: Being a tier one vendor and still having the relationship with the employer is oftentimes just as good, if not better than becoming an MSP. Managing a full MSP program is skill set that a lot of agencies, unless they've done it before, can really become a trap because ultimately by managing that relationship,
Speaker: If they don't do well, they're going to get removed from that employer and also potentially lose the entire account as a whole. Whereas being a tier one vendor, they still are allowed to support that client, they still have first right at all of that client and capturing that business.
Speaker: However, they can rely on the support team and behind Simple VMS to actually manage the program. So this is one of the things that we're really advising our customers on pretty often to say, are you going to be the right fit to be an MSP or should you let us manage the program for you and just be that top tier client and doing what you're used to doing staffing?
Speaker: Got it. It sounds like staffing agencies have to be very reflective about what their capabilities are and what strategies they want to drive their business going forward.
Speaker: And it sounds like there's one path that says, if you've got the right skill set, you could become an MSP. But it also sounds like it's perfectly viable strategy to stay in your lane as a staffing agency, but be outstanding at what you do as a tier one vendor, and you could still benefit from the VMS relationship. Is that fair?
Speaker: That is totally fair. You bring up a great point with the businesses evolving. i think that we're seeing across the industry more and more use of vendor management systems across larger employers.
Speaker: The employers are requesting to be and use VMS systems because they have a lot of those pain points that we talked about earlier. And so it's one of those situations where as an agency, we got to recognize that the business is evolving the that the platform such as VMS is another tool in your tool belt to help sell into your employers.
Speaker: The employers are looking for a VMS system. And so it's either be a consultant and provide value or potentially be caught in the dust. So Joe, this has been a really insightful conversation and i appreciate your willingness to take the time to help us unpack.
Speaker: what an ATS VMS integration looks like. I think we're talking about the future of staffing here, a complete digitization of the entire process from employer to agency to talent and back.
Speaker: It's clear that we're still learning and refining and the product is going to evolve along with the clients who are using it. The one thing that I've learned from this conversation is that agencies and employers who embrace this integration are going to see some real meaningful benefits.
Speaker: So thanks again for joining me today and to our audience. Thanks for tuning into this episode of Aviante Digital Edge. Be sure to like and subscribe so you don't miss future episodes where we dive into the intersection of staffing and technology and we can share more about what we're building at Aviante.
Speaker: And to learn more about us, visit our website at aviante.com. Until next time, this is Chris Ryan. Thanks for being with us and we'll see you again.
