The challenge
Northern Michigan University is a dynamic public university home to approximately 7500 students and 1100 employees across academia and support staff. Known for its cutting-edge technology and nationally recognisedrecognized academic programs, the University prides itself on delivering high-quality learning experiences. With educational excellence strongly imbued into the organisationalorganizational culture, the University understands that hiring the right people is critical to long-term success.
The university operates under a decentraliseddecentralized hiring model, with just 6 team members within the core HR function responsible for benefits, compensation, employee/labor relations, training and employment/staffing.
As a lean team in a busy environment, the HR function was stretched thin. Reporting was tedious, and the recruiting process needed to be more streamlined and efficient. To scale recruitment and reduce friction in the hiring process, Head of Human Resources Rhea Dever knew the team needed to prioritiseprioritize their recruitment and search process tasks, and understand where best to focus their efforts.
The focus
In order to scale their recruitment processes and offer the best support for the decentraliseddecentralized academic and staff search processes, implementing a new ATS was the natural next step. But the team knew they needed more than just a software provider —they wanted a strategic partner.
“Based on our own previous experiences, not just with software but with organisationsorganizations in general —they tend to sell you something and then they just disappear”
— Rhea Dever, Head of Human Resources
It was clear to the team that finding a vendor with a strong focus on customer service was a top priority. But, the solution also needed to have a positive impact on both applicant and user experience in the back-end.
“With our previous provider, there was a gap in terms of a user friendly applicant experience and a connected administrative experience on the back-end. There was also no customer relationship, if we had an issue we’d put in a ticket and hope someone eventually got back to help us.”
With these goals in mind, the team released an RFP to find the right solution.
The solution
NMU chose PageUp to partner with them to provide a sophisticated talent management solution. Using PageUp’s ATS, the team was able to dive into the metrics, evaluate sourcing channel effectiveness, and form a strong strategic partnership to drive their talent strategy forward.
“We’ve had a couple of very fabulous client relationship folks that we’ve worked with. It goes beyond just “Here’s what’s going on with my system, can you help me?” It’s more strategic conversations about how we use the system in general which I think is incredibly beneficial and you don’t typically get that from a vendor once they’ve sold you their product.”
In a true partnership approach, the team at NMU has also been empowered to co-innovate additional features and requirements that improve the product for themselves and other PageUp users.
“One of the things I like about PageUp’s approach is the ability to provide feedback on the things that we do and don’t like about the product as it currently is. As Pageup takes this onboard and does actually use this feedback to reshape the product or workflows moving forward.”
A key highlight for Rhea comes from PageUp’s incredible configurability —the solution can be entirely tailored to the exact requirements of the organisationorganization.
“The beauty and the beast of the PageUp system is that it’s infinitely configurable. It works the way you work —in implementation you work with PageUp to create the workflows based on your needs.”
The team at NMU have been able to do away with drawn-out, manual reporting and now can easily see the metrics that really matter. Through a thorough evaluation of sourcing channel effectiveness, the team has fine-tuned their approach to drive ROI and maximisemaximize limited resources.
But perhaps the biggest win for the team at NMU has been the positive impact on applicant and user experience. Now, applicants are given a consistent, streamlined hiring process, and internal team members can enjoy streamlined workflows, reduced complexity, and a one-stop shop for all recruiting processes.
“It’s streamlined the work that we’re doing. We were doing some things outside of the system: between us and hiring managers. But because we’ve been able to configure the system to our needs, we’ve been able to pull in 95% of our processes into the one system.”
Using PageUp, NMU was able to:
- Reduce time spent on reporting and gain access to valuable insights to inform decisions
- Streamline the recruitment process with custom configurations to significantly boost user experience
- Co-innovate and adopt a strategic partnership approach – to ensure they’re consistently getting the maximum return from their tech solution.
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