You often hear people talking about the value of ‘real-time’ – real-time data, real-time insight, real-time reporting – but for recruiters, in practical terms what does this mean and why is it so important?
Instant visibility of performance
What having real-time insight does is gives you instant visibility of performance. This means that at a glance, and at any given time you can see a complete and comprehensive overview of activity which allows you to be more proactive on a range of different fronts. If you implement real-time data capturing and reporting abilities well, it shouldn’t just be basic information that you can access; you want to be seeing things like missed calls from clients/candidates, who they were trying to call, when they tried to call and why the call couldn’t be answered etc. as well as basic call volumes and peaks and troughs in call traffic.
So what are the key steps to follow to ensure you really are getting the right insights and value from these insights?
Step One: identify what is valuable
Before you even start evaluating solutions and reporting options you need to have decided what valuable real-time insights you’d benefit from first. We have a tendency to measure what is easy to measure, or what a platform tells us it can measure without giving much thought as to if it’s actually valuable and relevant information – by thinking about this first you can ensure that your efforts aren’t wasted and that these insights really are telling you something.
Step Two: consider how you want to use the data
Once you know what you’d like to measure, consider how you need that data to be interpreted and presented and to whom. In the same way that we want information to be collected ‘in real-time,’ we want to be able to gain access to it instantly in a digestible format and we want to be able to share it with the rest of the business. There is no harm in giving your consultants visibility of some of the important call data – you may actually find it motivates them – equally however, there will be some information that should only be shared at management and director level. The solution that you implement therefore not only needs to be capturing the right data, but be equipped to present it in the right way.
Step Three: negotiate!
Now for the best bit; you’ve decided what you want, now it’s over to somebody else to make it happen! It may be that some negotiating needs to happen at this stage if what you’re asking for isn’t possible, but by speaking to the right supplier and somebody who already has a reputation within your industry the risk of this should be minimised. Don’t forget to always keep what you were originally after in mind to avoid getting distracted by sales talk and the offer of other/different functionality!
Step Four: implement FULLY to see results!
Once you’ve chosen a solution and it’s being implemented, prepare and update your processes to ensure that you’re fully utilising these insights in order to see results. I started this post by saying that real-time insight and visibility is the key to better performance; if your processes don’t allow for this information to be used quickly/instantly, it loses its power. For this to really have an effect your processes need to revolve around it, and everybody in your business including your consultants needs to know what they are allowed and expected to do with the information that is visible to them (if anything).
If you’d like to do some further reading to put this into context, click here to read a case study about one of our clients (Panoramic Associates) and the solution that we’ve implemented for them including ‘wallboards’ to present their live stats. That was my project so I would be happy to discuss it with you in more detail if you’d like and share some more information – give me a call on 03300 249012, or drop me an email ([email protected]) if that’s the case. As always, thank you for reading!
