Acorn Recruitment, part of the global Synergie Group, is a UK-based recruiting agency specializing in engineering, healthcare, and technical sectors. With a workforce of 200 employees, including recruiters, consultants, and support teams, Acorn’s mission is dedicated to connecting high-performing talent with leading UK organizations. Leveraging cutting-edge recruiting technology and deep industry expertise, Acorn delivers tailored recruitment solutions that empower businesses to build high-performing teams.
As the organization scaled its recruitment operations, Acorn faced increasing challenges in onboarding new recruiters and ensuring they maximized its Bullhorn ATS investment, which the organization used to build its hiring and recruiting operations and workflows.
THE CHALLENGE
Roadblocks to Operational Efficiency and Bullhorn ATS Adoption
Between its workforce growth and the mission-critical nature of Bullhorn ATS in achieving its business outcomes, Acorn Recruiting faced new complexities in its onboarding and training for new hires. It faced challenges ensuring recruiters quickly became proficient in Bullhorn, familiarizing them with its ATS workflows and its contextual tasks. Traditional training methods, including classroom sessions and static content, resulted in inconsistent knowledge retention and long onboarding cycles.
Nichola Holdship, People Development Manager at Acorn Recruitment, said, “The biggest issue was getting everybody onboarded before we went live on the new system. With Whatfix, we reduced the onboarding time of a new user by 80% in just 2 weeks with 84% user knowledge retention.”
Additionally, compliance issues emerged due to incorrect processes, such as users inaccurately creating job records in Bullhorn. These errors affected invoicing and data integrity, highlighting the need for a more efficient, scalable, and consistent training approach.
THE SOLUTION
Enabling End-Users With Role-Based Learning and Support in the Flow of Work with Whatfix DAP
Acorn Recruitment implemented Whatfix DAP, the official digital adoption partner of Bullhorn, on top of its ATS processes and tasks to enable its new hires and support its recruiters in the flow of work. By leveraging in-app guided Flows, Task Lists, Pop-Ups, and Self Help, Acorn delivered contextual, role-based training that aligned with each recruiter’s needs.
Nichola emphasized: “The problem with any system training is that it’s really hard to tailor training based on user roles. Training needs to be flexible. With Whatfix, you can instantly access information, rather than wait until a subject matter expert is available.”
With Whatfix, Acorn Recruitment enabled its end-users with the following:
Task Lists and Flows provided interactive, step-by-step onboarding experiences for new hires, reducing the reliance on live training sessions.
Pop-Ups and User Actions were deployed to ensure compliance and correct processes, redirecting users to proper workflows, embedded within end-user tasks.
Self Help empowered recruiters to find answers to common ATS-related questions instantly, reducing the need for support team interventions.
“The problem with classroom training is that everyone learns at different speeds which is hard to accommodate to keep pace. It was not ideal due to the number of people, their geographical spread, and the time needed. DAP is flexible and accessible, delivering consistent training messages for all users. It can be accessed in various ways to suit different learning preferences (videos, Flows, PDFs) and at a time to suit them instead of trying to get everyone together, making it much more efficient and effective. The trick is to provide additional support for users where necessary, so they still get that personal touch. We offered live sessions to underpin the learning to ensure users still had time with a trainer should they need it,” said Nichola.
THE RESULTS
Empowering Recruiters and Driving Business Outcomes for Acorn with Whatfix DAP
Acorn Recruitment achieved remarkable results with Whatfix, transforming its recruiter onboarding and system adoption processes. By investing in a partnership with Whatfix DAP, Acorn Recruitment was able to achieve:
80% Reduction in Onboarding Time: New recruiters became proficient in Bullhorn within 2 weeks, down from 10 weeks with its previous traditional training timelines.
84% User Knowledge Retention: Consistent and contextual ATS reinforcement training and support embedded within their Bullhorn workflows ensured higher retention rates, driving sustained productivity.
2,454 Hours Saved Annually: The reduction in training and support queries translated to significant time savings, equating to $42,946 in yearly productivity gains.
98% Reduction in Training Support Queries: Support teams were freed from repetitive Bullhorn ATS training questions, allowing them to focus on strategic initiatives such as automation and system innovation.
Improved Recruiter Compliance and ATS Data Accuracy: Real-time guidance and corrective actions reduced job creation and invoicing errors.
“We don’t work with any other partners that are so keen to support us as Whatfix. The Whatfix team has set such a high standard for us. I enjoy working with Whatfix, and I’m excited to see what else we can do eventually and how we can make it even better than it already is,” said Nichola.
Acorn Recruitment’s partnership with Whatfix improved operational efficiency and empowered its recruiters to deliver exceptional outcomes for clients and candidates. Acorn is now exploring ways to use Whatfix on other mission-critical applications it uses internally. It also plans on exploring Whatfix Mirror for creating simulated sandbox application environments to provide hands-on ATS training for its recruiters.
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