Candidate-centric experiences have been at PrideStaff’s core since its inception in 1978. With over 80 franchise offices across North America, local offices set out to deliver tailored experiences to every candidate they work with. Consistently recognized as one of staffing’s top firms, ranking in the top 1% of staffing firms and serving over 5,000 clients a year, PrideStaff has been laser-focused on building a strong brand across their network. And it didn’t just happen overnight - careful planning and a commitment to excellence are integral to PrideStaff’s success. The PrideStaff team knows that to build a lasting culture and brand, it takes the combination of processes, technology, behaviors, and beliefs.
PrideStaff saw the need and importance of staying in touch with candidates and contractors early on to distinguish itself from the market. “There’s real importance in customer experience, and to become a memorable brand it's all about the experience and about the culture,” says Tammi Heaton, Co-CEO of PrideStaff. “It really is, and it's a foundation of a lot of different things - you have to have open conversations, a lot of support, and highly responsive, engaging teams.”
PrideStaff was an early customer, adding Sense to their technology stack back in 2016. The PrideStaff system was one of the first staffing firms in the industry to bring in this type of candidate engagement technology and elevate their talent experience at scale. By offering its offices a new way to maximize recruiters’ productivity while delivering personalized experiences, the PrideStaff was more consistent, helpful, and memorable.
Heaton commented on PrideStaff’s commitment to quality. “Across offices, the PrideStaff experience is meant to be an exceptional one, it is about having a human connection and making sure things are personalized and really making sure that you're delivering, you're going the extra mile and you want every extension of the brand, every office needs to be able to do that.”
Leveraging Sense unlocked much more than a new way to up-level communication and engagement - it created a trusting partnership that strengthened both parties. “It's the overall partnership and joint thought leadership that's a big deal to me,” says Heaton. “If we think about it, when we first engaged Sense, there was a true partnership, a collaboration to build value from the beginning. The team is adaptable and simply easy to do business with, and that speaks to the partnership and a relationship that has such high trust.”
Trust was critical not just between the two businesses working together, but also in the critical mission to communicate with PrideStaff’s talent at the right time, at the right place, and with the right message. Over time, PrideStaff has implemented Sense’s full suite of automation and engagement tooling across its talent lifecycle. Being at the onset of every new Sense innovation, including the foundational beginnings of Sense Messaging, Sense’s two-way texting platform, PrideStaff has created a new gold-standard in automated communication and engagement strategies.
From the first automated workflows, PrideStaff began with on-assignment surveys and check-ins, they knew they were at the forefront of a new wave of talent engagement. The PrideStaff system finally had the right technology to bring their processes to life. “When we rolled it out, immediately our teams came back with "Oh wow, I'm getting real-time feedback from my candidates,” Heaton commented. “If we think about it operationally, we can have systems and processes, but it's hard to execute without the technology behind it.”
With more automated workflows to active candidates and the addition of Sense Messaging, PrideStaff continued to use Sense in advanced ways that created new gains for their teams. PrideStaff was one of the first to link automated SMS messages with a recruiter’s Sense Messaging number, automatically sending responses to the appropriate owner for immediate care in the native two-way texting solution. Advances like this caught on across PrideStaff and more offices clamored for additional systems and services - Sense was empowering teams to streamline processes, maximize recruiter time, and deliver more exceptional experiences.
“Our teams want more of Sense’s system and service - they say it's the best thing that's ever happened. And when you get that kind of feedback from a network of offices, I mean that's a testimonial in itself,” says Heaton.
But it doesn’t stop there. PrideStaff has achieved more than just high adoption rates - Sense analytics has tracked real impact that matters to the firm’s business. The productivity gains from automating time-consuming tasks resulted in major time savings: making recruiters on average 30% more productive and accomplishing the equivalent work of 21 full-time employees in a year.
PrideStaff has been able to get in touch with candidates and contractors more effectively, seeing increased redeployments (over 38K in the last year) thanks to automated workflows. And in a world where metrics and results are crucial to measuring success, Sense analytics have proven themselves time and time again. “The pure metrics alone are impressive, especially the cost savings and redeployment when you look year over year,” Heaton commented. “Often, many vendors are hard to trust because they’re positioning the data incorrectly, but when we drilled down into the Sense data - the interpretation of redeployments and the cost-saving was extremely accurate.”
While PrideStaff has been leading the charge in candidate and contractor experiences, the work isn’t done for the PrideStaff system. Amid today’s changing times, there’s never been a better opportunity to strategically regroup, prepare for what’s next, and plan for the future of staffing. And it’s clear, planning has been part of PrideStaff’s DNA. Thanks to the company’s long-time preparedness, they were ready to go remote quickly when COVID-19 related mandates began requiring teams to work from home.
“It's future-proofing your business in a way, not just for an unseen, unplanned pandemic, but just any what the future is next, to be able to do a lot of your work remotely, stay in touch remotely, keep your business running as smoothly as possible, that's all incredibly key to be able to make your business last through it all,” remarked Heaton. With technology like Sense already in place, they were able to keep talent informed and updated with a small lift, leaving the team time to think through ways to grow in the near future.
The team’s future goals take recruiter productivity to the next level, now planning for the workflows that will maximize resources and placements. Upgrading technology and processes are critical to hitting the ground running when hiring speeds up again, and PrideStaff has seen this opportunity before. “We had double-digit growth multiple years in a row because, during these times, you have to do two things, you have to do defense and offense, and the offense is upgrading the technology, the partnerships, and what do you want your system to in the near term and 3-5 years,” Heaton said.
PrideStaff is fueled by continuous improvement and innovation, always striving to do the best they can for their talent and teams. The partnership with Sense is no different, with both parties pushing one another to stay on the cutting edge of candidate experience technology. Into the future, the results of this trusting partnership will certainly remain best-in-class, creating innovation that elevates the PrideStaff brand and builds emotional connections to candidates and contractors worldwide.
Sense works with staffing firms like PrideStaff to identify areas for improvement and create impactful action plans. Reach out to our team to schedule time for a demo or to discuss how Sense can help your business.
