Today on the Sense blog, we welcome Christina Vinson, Director of Marketing at Matlen Silver, a mid-market IT staffing firm, to share how they have been leveraging the Sense platform to stay engaged with talent, candidates and clients during COVID-19.
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Things have certainly changed quickly, haven’t they? The world we knew has drastically changed, and that certainly is illuminated in the world of recruiting.
With everything turned on its head, many organizations may feel completely overwhelmed right now. And yet, although millions are currently searching for work and many industries are laying off or furloughing workers, many more are actively hiring. Here at Matlen Silver, our clients across several key industries are recruiting in full measure. In fact, we’re onboarding new clients.
I cannot say enough about our team and their commitment to getting through this pandemic, together. Our CEO, Manny Vidal, is committed to keeping our team together throughout this challenging time.
When Manny became CEO, he quickly moved to build a strong culture of Mavericks. We get things done, continually move forward and upward, and we are committed to building and nurturing strong relationships. These are essential to who we are, and have helped us increase revenue significantly under Manny’s helm. Sense empowers us to put our values into action, maximizing our bandwidth while simultaneously staying in touch with and actively engaging our network of talent.
With so many looking for work, it could be tempting for some organizations to neglect candidate engagement. After all, with so many people looking for work, they should be glad to come to you!
That’s not how we operate.
Regardless of the situation, the best talent will ALWAYS be in demand. That’s why committing to candidate engagement will always be at the top of our priority list. Our talent doesn’t just want to work for our clients, they want to work with US. We don’t take that lightly.
Right now, it’s pretty scary for a lot of people. Spouses are out of work. Kids are home from school. Millions of people have health conditions that put them at ‘high risk’ for complications, even if they’re outwardly healthy. Everyone is stressed, and that’s completely normal!
You’ve probably received or seen some tone-deaf communications from businesses. Matlen Silver unequivocally does NOT want to be one of those companies! We’ve been using the Sense platform to send reassuring messages to our network of talent, to communicate important details to our consultants and to let the Matlen Silver family know that we are here for them.
But we’ve also used our platform to send “thinking of you” messages to our talent. Each week for the past month, with the help of Sense, we have sent out communications with more of a personal touch to reassure our talent that we are thinking about them and want them to feel connected to us. All of the emails are fun and/or informational and share ideas to help our consultants and their families get through this challenging time. Our hope is to put a smile on their faces. Some of our emails have included “shelter in place” resources, links to virtual tours of museums and national parks, links to educational sights for their children, some of our favorite recipes, binge-able shows and more (What do you think, did Carole Baskin kill her husband?!).
Now, our entire team is extremely proud of our NPS score, which was already more than twice the industry average. We recently discovered that since the pandemic hit, our NPS score has actually increased. And significantly -- a 22% increase!
How we use the Sense platform to engage talent is the culmination of those aspects of our culture that make us Matlen Mavericks. If you’re struggling to engage talent right now, or are simply looking for some inspiration, here are two of our biggest keys to success that we feel are helping us not only survive during this difficult time but thrive:
When Manny first committed to building a culture that supports people and relationships, that meant prioritizing hiring only those internal candidates who exemplified what it means to be a Matlen Maverick.
Consequently, our team is incredibly tight. Early in our new “work from home” normal, we started hosting weekly “All Hands on Deck” calls for our entire team across the country. I remember the first call vividly. The headlines were all over, touting layoffs, furloughs in major industries. Tension was thick, as our employees expected much of the same.
Manny quickly put that to bed, assuring our team that his goal is to emerge from this pandemic with our team intact. You could almost hear the collective exhale!
Then, Manny quickly established what would be the “agenda” for each subsequent Monday call -- sharing “Maverick Moments,” success stories from our team. These calls serve to motivate and inspire while reminding our team that we are all in this together.
Our team knows that we are there for them and that we recognize their achievements. As a result, they extend the same to our network of talent. It’s a very powerful cycle.
While words are obviously important (hence, candidate engagement!), they can quickly and easily ring hollow if they’re not followed up with actions. From our CEO to every member of our team, we encourage Matlen Silver employees to take action. Move things forward. Show grit and resilience if you hit a roadblock.
When we decided to shift gears and commit to people and relationships above all else, we needed the right technology to help us put that thought and those words into action. It can be difficult knowing where to start and what direction to take.
Sense empowered us to quickly make our new candidate engagement strategy a reality. We were able to quickly and seamlessly integrate their technology into our processes in order to reach our goals.
There are plenty of companies that talk about putting candidates first. We didn’t want to be caught in that trap. We wanted to take real action. Sense helped us do just that.
Because our commitment to taking action is such an integral part of our culture, every member of our team knows that we can get past every roadblock or challenge. And while the current challenge is unprecedented, we aren’t just saying we’ll get through this, all of us KNOW that we will. It’s a very powerful distinction.
Caring. Action. It’s easy to see how starting with such simple fundamentals internally logically branches out to our network of talent. Our internal team feels the difference, and our consultants do as well.
Culture and people are critical to the success of any organization. We’re extremely proud of the team and culture we have here at Matlen Silver. But once we combined these with powerful Sense technology, it really helped us stand out from the pack. As noted above in our NPS scores, it’s helped us build stronger, better relationships with top talent. And ultimately, it’s helped us deliver better, more impactful results for our clients.
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As veterans of the staffing industry, we at Sense understand how much even small shifts in the economy can have major impacts throughout staffing. The COVID-19 outbreak is creating unforeseen challenges to business operations throughout the world. At Sense, we’ve seen unprecedented and creative usage of both our Engage automation and Messaging two-way texting platform to tackle these challenges, ease manual and administrative burden, increase communication with clients, talent and employees, stay connected when your community needs to hear from you the most, and rapidly pivot strategies. For specific communication examples or to see Sense in action, reach out to our team to learn more today.
