FIS’s Winning Strategy for CRM Adoption Success

AI-powered HR tech can make life a lot easier for busy talent acquisition departments. The hard part? Getting recruiters to use it.

Zach Elder, Talent Acquisition Systems Optimization Lead for FIS Global, and his team encountered the challenge of technology adoption when rolling out their new applicant tracking system (ATS) and Phenom Talent Experience Management (TXM) platform at exactly the same time. Complex? Yes. Doomed to be a priceless yet unused piece of the tech stack? No.

Elder shared his successful 3-part approach for rallying his people to drive tremendous adoption, collaboration, and value realization of their talent experience platform — especially its Candidate Relationship Management (CRM) tool. View all of his insights in the video below — or read on to catch key takeaways!

Step 1: Lay the foundation with change management

FIS, a global fintech leader with 55,000 employees, onboards thousands of new hires annually. As a government contractor, OFCCP compliance is also top of mind for their U.S. recruiting group — a big reason why the chose Workday as their system of record, Elder noted.

But the team also wanted a way to better harvest their organic applicant data, where they could revisit previous applicants and message them in a meaningful way with robust templates and AI-fueled data and insights. Better referral management capabilities were also top of mind, Elder revealed. Since Phenom is a Workday Certified Select Partner, they could have it all — including their priorities for a CRM, internal and external Career Sites, Events, and Campaigns.

However, Elder knew successful deployment would require strategic effort to influence user behavior ahead of go-live. “It’s not enough to just turn it on,” he said. “How do we drive those user behaviors to fully adopt it?” Before implementing TXM, he created a solid foundation to support upcoming change management by:

Educating recruiting teams, stakeholders, and leadership on the benefits of CRM implementation. “Don’t make the assumption that everyone understands the value it brings to the table,” Elder said.
Completing Phenom courses to support a comprehensive understanding of the CRM capabilities and features
Holding FIS sponsored Phenom training sessions with support from CRM job aids
Ensuring a clear understanding of the handoff of talent information from the Phenom CRM to their Workday ATS — a crucial step for FIS and all organizations in industries that require compliance with protected information laws.

You might also be interested in — How to Deploy Intelligent HR Tech With Confidence

Step 2: Leverage consistent, targeted training

Since recruiters were learning two new systems at the same time, initial CRM adoption gaps were expected, revealed Elder. The solution? Consistent, focused training with the team’s dedicated Phenom customer success manager that included:

Biweekly global team calls covering individual components of the CRM
Job aids and exercises to help recruiters complete trainings. “Using the analytics capability within Phenom, we could easily report on who was actually completing those exercises, and really empower them to make sure they're capitalizing on those activities,” Elder said.
A team of “champions” to drive adoption, support training, and enhance configuration

Related Content — The Path to Partnership: Phenom Introduces CORE

Step 3: Get creative with incentives to drive continuous usage

Elder knew he had to keep enthusiasm high to influence long-term usage and fully achieve their CRM goals. What better way than a little gamification? A 6-week contest was organized in conjunction with the holiday season, awarding gift cards and Phenom swag as prizes. The rules? Interact as much as possible with the CRM. A weighted point system was used to reward high-value actions, such as:

creating notes
adding new prospects
forming lists
launching email campaigns

To kick off the contest, Phenom created a customized hype video. Check it out here:

“If that doesn't get you pumped up about CRM functionality or activity, I don't know what will,” said Elder. (I tend to agree...)

Early Wins & Success

To determine contest winners, Elder leveraged Phenom talent analytics and CRM usage reports. With a data-driven view of how recruiters are using the system, he could also better gauge recruiter behaviors and actions to manage KPIs. Here’s how that played out.

4.5 months of focused training and exercises:

active users increased over 100%
overall actions in the CRM increased over 560%

5 weeks into the contest:

active users increased an additional 24%
overall actions increased 675%

Another way Elder monitored progress? Login trends like the example he shows here:

While the stats speak for themselves, there were also some additional benefits that resulted from the adoption efforts, including greater collaboration among recruiters as they shared ideas and tips, and more productive, effective “champion” meetings. A standout tool that enhanced how the team worked through Phenom course recommendations, product releases, and contest updates was Microsoft Teams — which seamlessly integrates with the Phenom platform for streamlined communication and collaboration.

Lessons Learned

Like any major tech rollout (let alone two), there’s much to be learned. Elder stressed the following:

Stick with one rollout at a time. Implementing new technology will always come with a unique set of challenges. Adopting two new platforms at once was a little too ambitious and created some adoption gaps, Elder revealed.

Work closely with your implementation partner before go-live. Elder worked hand in hand with Phenom’s customer success team on configuration decisions such as governance, tagging conventions, and custom field capabilities ahead of go-live. “It’s much easier to set things up on the front end prior to go-live than roll everything out as a free-for-all and needing to back track on some of the functionality,” he said.

Choose the right champions. It’s crucial to create a team of technology champions that are happy to support their coworkers while they learn how to integrate new technology into their daily routines. Select team members who have a passion for technology, are fast learners, and will make enthusiastic evangelizers.

Focus adoption efforts immediately after go-live. Capitalize on the excitement and energy that accompanies a new rollout to drive faster adoption among users. Follow up immediate adoption efforts with long-term strategies or incentives to nurture full integration among your team.