From application to gold mine: How the temporary employment sector can cash in on data
The temporary employment sector can add much more value by making more use of data in addition to automating processes. A lot of valuable data (website, marketing, recruitment, invoicing, remuneration) is generated and if made transparent in the right way, leads to further optimization of all your business processes.
Due to corona, the introduction of the WAB and its consequences, in recent years, much emphasis has been placed on increasing the efficiency of processes and the associated cost savings. At the same time now the attention for an optimal and personalized candidate journey and customer journey has ramped up.
Central data warehouse
The focus on costs and on orchestrating the perfect end-to-end journeys makes a closely connected and well-cooperating application landscape within the organization essential. An important step in increasing insight through optimizations is setting up a central data warehouse which is exactly why many organizations in the temporary employment sector are working hard to set that up. In doing so, they are leaving the era of a fragmented application landscape, with associated data silos, behind them for good.
Four types of data usage
Of course, a central data warehouse alone is not enough. It must contain the data from your marketing channels, website, vacancies, candidates, placements, invoicing, compensation and financial administration. In short, from the entire process.
Linking the data from the various sources within this data warehouse is a central issue in the IT architecture and the data model used. Organizations that have achieved this use data for four different types of activities; reporting, dashboarding, nudging and automation.
+ Reporting gives good insight from the results of the past, often with a financial impact, known by the majority of organizations.
+ Dashboarding can be used to keep employees informed in real-time about the realization of the most important KPIs that apply to the team or department.
+ Nudging is using data to get employees focused on activities that deliver the most value or are the most important to increase customer or candidate satisfaction. For example, when a wanted candidate, matching an open vacancy, is active on your website, a task is created that appears at the top of the list so that the employee in question is immediately drawn to it and can get started with it.
+ There is ‘automation’ when the employee does not contact the candidate, but an email or Whatsapp is sent directly to the candidate with a link to the relevant vacancy. No AI or machine learning, just having your data sharp and transparent and thus optimizing your entire business operations (marketing, recruitment, sales and finance).
Complexity
Every organization can immediately start improving insight step by step. Organizations often already have experience with setting up a central data warehouse and the technological complexity is generally not high. Linking the data from your marketing channels, and combining it with the data from your internal processes, is also a very solvable challenge.
The complexity generally starts when applications cannot easily receive data back. Such as receiving a trigger for a follow-up action based on an online active customer. Such an open data model is not only important for receiving (near) real-time triggers, but in general, such an open data model also enables you to easily link recruitment tooling, without having to adjust the application; so quite important.
Fragmented application landscape
A fragmented application landscape is a reality for a significant number of companies in the temporary employment sector. This does not make it easier to use data to implement the desired innovations and optimizations. Each additional application creates the need for an additional ‘key’ for linking the data. Data silos that, for example, cannot link financial data to data about placements and/or time registration of specific candidates or customers is highly undesirable. The optimal IT architecture, therefore, takes into account how relevant data can be linked across the entire organization.
Predict the trends
More insight generally leads to a better read of the market and what you need to do to seize the commercial opportunities. Whether it’s seasonal trends; For example, when should you start campaigns, or how many candidates should you have in your recruitment funnel to meet capacity demand, based on historical conversion KPIs?
But also think about getting a better view of the margins of placements, so that you can use commercial campaigns in a more targeted way to identify new trends in the flex market more quickly. Still no AI, but just properly linking data and using the existing tooling within your organization in the right way.
The future is already here
A beautiful statement I find: the future is already here, it’s only unevenly distributed yet. That certainly applies to this theme, at the moment companies are fully engaged in using the benefits that data offers in their organizations. Sometimes aimed at using the marketing channels more effectively, or setting up margin control in real-time dashboards for regional teams.
All these steps are now being taken. The trick will be to combine small steps and immediate improvements with an architecture that contributes to making the entire organization data-driven. This is an issue that, in my opinion, is not merely the task of the IT department, but is a core responsibility of every board of directors within the temporary employment sector. It’s definitely chefsache.
Matter of attention
The attention that has been focused on AI in recent years may have diverted attention a bit from setting up optimal data management. Blinded by a possible future of an algorithm-driven temporary employment sector, valuable time has sometimes been lost to do what is already possible first and to reap the full benefits.
The process of turning your application into a gold mine is not very complex, but it does require attention and a few smart choices in your IT architecture. The technology is available and is already being used extensively, it’s a matter of picking up the glove and doing it.
Written by Jaap Postma, CEO Mysolution
*This article was also published on Flexmarkt.
