Q&A: Nina Jaksic of Retail HR Summit 2018 sponsor Avature
Avature delivers an innovative and agile enterprise HCM platform for customers to do business the way they want, create the user experience they want, and gain a competitive edge in their talent programs.
Nina Jaksic, Product Marketing Specialist, In- Store Recruiting
Bio: A global orientated professional, with experience in product design, user experience and HR management. Since 2016, Nina happily continues to innovate alongside Avature’s developers and customers.
What does your company do? / What is your USP?
Avature delivers an innovative and agile enterprise HCM platform for customers to do business the way they want, create the user experience they want, and gain a competitive edge in their talent programs.
What’s special about the platform and your approach?
Avature In-Store is a unique hiring solution we designed alongside store managers to ensure they can easily recruit on the fly and from any kind of device. The Avature retail solution was configured to help you find candidates for hard-to-fill positions and handle high-volume applications through smart automation and filtering capabilities. It can be customized to meet your exact business processes and lingo, and it can also be combined with Avature ATS or connected to an external corporate ATS for full visibility in your recruiting programs.
How does a product/service implementation actually look like and how do you measure success?
For the duration of the implementation project, Avature assigns an implementation consultant to serve as the principal contact throughout the project, as well as lead the effort to configure your system according to your designed process flows. The implementation also involves other Avature specialists: a reporting specialist; a web template specialist for the design of landing pages, email templates and websites; an integration engineer for managing any web-services based integrations; and a database analyst to manage any complex data manipulation and migration activities. In addition, Avature involves our in-house training team and, depending on the scope, may appoint a solutions consultant for some of the more complex requirement-gathering or process-design phases.
Avature measures the success of an implementation based on the results of a user acceptance test. We help our customers create a test plan to confirm that the configuration meets their requirements. Once the customer performs the test and approves the configuration in the sandbox, it is migrated to a production environment, legacy data is uploaded, and training commences.
How are retailers using your systems to gain competitive advantage and what does best practice look like?
Avature In-Store gives store managers the right technology to recruit effectively. Retailers are using our mobile friendly platform to create talent pools of previous employees and promising applicants. In the retail industry, this is game changing for securing hard-to-fill roles and high volume requisitions. Our tool enables store managers to perform smart filtering and automatic actions to ease the screening process. In order to stay in touch over time, store managers are using Avature In-Store to send branded and personalized automatic communications to previous high-quality seasonal employees.
On the applicant side, walk-in candidates in stores are using our tool to apply via QR codes or SMS keywords that lead to our customers’ career sites. When candidates arrive to the career site, they can take advantage of our Google Maps integration to review jobs near them based on their browsing location.
What advantage does it add?
Avature In-Store enables strategic HR. The benefits are threefold. First, within one platform, HR can collect data from corporate offices, warehouses and stores in order to make informed decisions and improve recruiting programs. Second, store managers can stretch their valuable time with smart automation. Finally, applicants can easily apply and stay engaged over time with your company. Retail hiring has never been so easy.
What challenges and opportunities do you see in UK retail for 2018 / What challenges are retailers facing in 2018?
Millennials care about your brand. In order to attract today’s discerning talent, you need to present a clear employer brand story in your stores, on your website and across your social media channels. Companies can leverage these different channels to reach candidates, and then analyze data to know which channels work best in each distinct area. In today’s hiring climate, an omnichannel approach doesn’t just apply to selling products; it also pertains to selling your employer brand.
Candidates expect simplicity, so attracting them with a strong employer brand is only half of the battle. In order to keep them engaged in the process, applying to your job needs to be just as easy as buying a shirt online.
How will you address these challenges and turn them into successes?
Your career site is still the number one source that candidates use to research and learn about your company. Avature In-Store enables you to move beyond a simple job list and instead showcase a clear and inviting portrait of the employee lifestyle. Via microsites, applicants can learn about your company culture, values and current employees. For example, using Avature’s streamlined site design, you can feature employee testimonials and highlight the reasons why people want to work and stay at your company. Avature In-Store also provides features for you to deliver personalized information such as nearby store locations, introductions to your departments, and special landing pages for students and graduates.
Recruitment marketing is central to retail talent acquisition. In order to reach candidates where they already are, you can use post jobs across different channels like social media networks, job boards, and agencies. You can also target in-store candidates by posting SMS or QR codes that lead candidates directly to your career site or talent network. Using Avature’s reporting capabilities, you can easily see which sources are the best use of your money.
Avature’s smart automation streamlines the process for store managers and candidates alike. Store managers can save time with knock-out questions while screening for high-volume positions. Candidates can quickly apply using their social network profiles or parsed resumes. After the information is pre-populated, they can track their application status using progress bars and complete the process at their own pace.
At the macro level, Avature allows you to connect the three distinct retail business units via automated data collection and reporting capabilities. With Avature all of your recruiting information is stored and available in one place.
What is on the horizon for you as a company?
Avature has a robust customer-driven roadmap that includes enhancements at both the platform and solution level. In the past year, we have dedicated more than 25% of gross revenue on research and development, and we intend to maintain this level of commitment to innovation. Avature is continuing to expand its solution set to allow our customers to compete for and retain the best talent in all steps of the employee cycle.
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