WorkSafeBC, the worker’s compensation agency for British Columbia, Canada, had talent management systems aging toward obsolescence and a generation of in-house talent aging toward retirement. As the human resources lead, Larry led a modernization of WorkSafeBC’s recruitment systems that established a new Web portal with a revised application process, set up collaboration for hiring managers and laid a foundation for a database of potential employees.
In nine months, the new system processed 8,000 resumes, directed hiring managers to top candidates, tagged previous applicants and ones worth watching for a later date through email and social channels. An organization that had otherwise been paperless since the 1990s, WorkSafeBC’s in-house talent management was now a digital-first initiative and responding to the technological expectations it already had of its 3,000 staff across British Columbia.
“We took a look from the view of an information based organization that wants to attract the same [digital] type of people in today’s workforce, people who will do work on systems much of their lives. The younger generation needs to be approached in a substantially different way,” Gregg says.
Gregg started a Six Sigma project to build on its recruitment process. With knowledge of what they had and what they needed, WorkSafeBC created specific questions and triggers for positions, and set up tools, including one called Resume Mirror to parse the growing database and also deal with compliance issues, including the U.S. Patriot Act.
“Really, we were creating a data structure for these people’s data to live together,” says Gregg.
Quotable: “The new generation expects social media interaction. You can’t tell them not to do it, if you want to be an employer that has people stick around. Turning that into an opportunity is going to be a big challenge. If you can capitalize, your organization will be better off, the people will be better off, you’ll get a better match for employment and everything will go more smoothly.“
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Justin Kern is senior editor at Information Management and can be reached at justin.kern@sourcemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @IMJustinKern.
