Why a Massive Career Site Redesign Didn’t Faze UPS

United Parcel Service (UPS, as most of us know it) has a knack for doing things on time. Its package delivery performance between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday ranked #1 last year, marking seven consecutive years of stellar reliability.

So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the logistics giant quickly stood up its new global UPS career site in 29 languages. But this is no small feat for a company of this scale. The Atlanta-based company operates in more than 200 countries and employs nearly 500,000 people, including hourly workers like drivers, package handlers, and driver helpers, plus students and veterans. With that kind of reach, maintaining its reputation as a top workplace means creating hiring experiences that work across cultures and time zones.

Motivation for the new career site was fueled by their vision to create a world-class experience that would elevate their candidate and recruiter experiences on an international scale, shared UPS’s Director of Talent Acquisition Emma Gregory during Phenom Customer Obsession Day.

“Given UPS’s global footprint, our career site needed to reflect a unified brand while supporting the unique needs of dozens of business localizations,” she revealed. “The career site is truly the front door of our talent brand. It's where many form their first impression of UPS.”

Creating a consistent, modern career site experience across so many languages had quite a number of moving parts that could have derailed the project at any time, but Gregory explained how it was kept on track. The secret? 

• Strong project management and the right resources

• Clear roles and communication across teams

• Being in lockstep with their “awesome” Phenom implementation team 

• Leadership alignment and executive sponsorship

“From the start we defined our North star: prioritize consistency, enable local flexibility, and deliver on time,” Gregory said. Executive sponsorship helped the team move quickly and avoid getting stuck in decision paralysis, which can often happen in projects of this size and scale.

What also helped move things along with so many teams involved was being disciplined about what needed to launch on day one versus what could wait for later phases, added UPS’s Catherine Southergill, Director of Recruitment Marketing.

First 90 Days After Go-live

The first three months after rolling out their Phenom Career Site and additional Applied AI solutions was a learning period, but it was also a time of stabilization.

“We focused on giving candidates a stable, reliable platform and then pivoted that focus to gathering feedback right away to inform our next round of improvements,” Gregory said. The collaboration with partners and making sure support structures were in place also paid off in the early days. Communication channels were always open and the HR team tracked site metrics and feedback closely, making quick fixes possible.

The early results reflect that stability. Chatbot usage, site visits, and click-through rates have all increased, and the team is also excited to expand the use and capabilities of their Phenom Talent CRM.

Implementation Lessons Learned 

“We've really proven to ourselves as a team that with the right approach, we can deliver complex digital transformations at this size scale, and that's truly invaluable as we look at our strategic roadmap and upcoming implementations with the Phenom team,” said Gregory.

For other organizations contemplating an undertaking of this magnitude, don't underestimate the importance of having clear project alignment and the right resourcing in place from the get-go. Keep your guiding principles front and center, and everything else will follow.

Also, be ready to listen after launch, advised Southergill. “The first 90 days are just the beginning, so the work to mature and expand value never stops,” she said. “It's very much an iterative journey.”

Software rollouts are not for the faint of heart. Applying AI technology to human resources requires the right resourcing, the right stakeholders, and the right implementation team. Having a team of dedicated and experienced professionals coupled with a solid game plan is the fine line between success and failure.

Learn more about Phenom Global Professional Services to discover our proven implementation roadmap designed for seamless talent transformation.