Is it Time to Invest In New Technology?

Behind the booming global staffing market stands a booming staffing software industry. One with a projected compound annual growth rate of 10.2% for the period 2013 to 2018. So how do you determine whether it’s time to invest in some shiny new kit?

Here’s some indicators that suggest upgrading could be worth the investment:  

• You’re struggling to attract and retain talent. The right technology can save time, increase productivity and help you attract new consultants to work for your agency. Recent exit interviews will tell you if you’re losing recruiters because your systems are out-of-date. Adopting the latest technology can become a real selling point allowing you to stand out from the competition.

• You want to become more mobile-centric. Many older platforms aren’t fully compatible with mobile tools, while reports show that young people now use their smartphone every other minute. The study also revealed mobile users are more likely to turn to apps, rather than a browser, to access the internet. Developing a more mobile approach to recruiting should be an essential and integral part of your candidate attraction and retention strategy.
  

• You’re concerned about compliance. The rules affecting temporary and agency workers have changed over recent years and fines for not being fully compliant can be a real risk for agencies. Many of the latest platforms track your candidates’ compliance documents, alerting you to expiry dates or helping you ensure that candidates are offered the right pay rates, according to local legislation.
  

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• You’re looking to improve worker loyalty. With ever increasing skills shortages it makes sense to improve your candidate experience, in turn enhancing engagement and retention. Look to make candidates’ lives easier through smart apps that enable them to advise of their real-time availability for work helping them secure work where and when they want it. In-app job notifications, personalized assignment and shift details, and eradication of paper timesheets are all possible too.
  

• You want to drive a strategy for growth. Like most businesses, staffing organisations rely on data to make informed decisions that underpin new strategies for growth. Many new platforms will allow you to easily collect and analyse all types of data, without the need for manual administration. Understand which clients and industries you’re best equipped to help and gain visibility of your contingent workforce to drive more revenue.

You’re put off by the hassle of change
This might be a bit of a strange indicator for your need to invest in new technology, but if you’re worried about the impact of change you’re already aware that you need to upgrade. Implementing new software isn’t as big an upheaval as it used to be. Most new platforms are available in the cloud, which means that they’re easily accessible wherever you are, require less maintenance and can be automatically updated when new features become available. Because of this, they are usually more cost-effective than older software systems too.

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