In an industry fueled by relationships and personalized service, manual and clunky processes, fragmented communication, and disparate systems can make growth impossible. Explore why Palmer Group partnered with Tracker to transform their operations, propelling them towards continued success despite the need for various workflow configurations to accommodate all types of staffing.
About Palmer Group
Founded 25 years ago, Palmer Group is an employee-owned, full-service employment firm offering a wide range of staffing and recruiting services including temporary staffing, direct hire placement, executive search, outplacement, consulting, and more for almost every industry.
Palmer Group takes pride in being relationship-focused, prioritizing face-to-face interactions and a high-touch approach to connect with both clients and candidates.
Challenges before Tracker
Prior to implementing Tracker in 2020, Palmer Group used a custom-built applicant tracking system (ATS) that had significant limitations.
Key challenges included:
- Lack of centralized communication and collaboration tools
- Inefficient manual processes for tasks like candidate submissions
- Limited reporting and analytics capabilities
- No texting or modern communication features
- Difficulty tracking recruiter and sales activities
- Inability to effectively support remote work
With ambitious growth goals, Palmer Group needed a more robust, modern ATS/CRM solution to improve productivity and scale the business.
The Solution
After evaluating several options, Palmer Group selected Tracker as their new ATS and CRM platform. They implemented the core ATS/CRM along with additional features like automation, texting, and onboarding.
Key capabilities that Palmer Group is leveraging include:
- Centralized database for candidates, clients, jobs, and placements
- Automated sequences for candidate and client communications
- AI-powered tools for writing job descriptions and candidate profiles
- Robust reporting and analytics
- Mobile app for remote access for recruiters
- Texting integration
- Custom fields and workflows
- Integration with key technology vendors
Results and Benefits
- Improved Communication and Collaboration
- Increased Recruiter Productivity
- Enhanced Reporting and Analytics
- Improved Data Quality and Compliance
- Accelerated Growth
- Ongoing Optimization
Improved Communication and Collaboration
One of the biggest benefits Palmer Group has realized is significantly improved internal communication and collaboration. Features like @mentions, linked records, and automated alerts have transformed how the team works together.
“The communication within the team has greatly improved since having Tracker,” said Amy Vokoun-Lutter, VP of Operations. “In the past, so much of our communication about job orders, candidate feedback, etc. was done through face-to-face conversations or email. Now we can communicate instantly through Tracker, which has been a huge time-saver.”
The ability to link activities across candidate, contact, and company records provides a holistic view of all interactions. This has eliminated silos and improved coordination across the organization.
Increased Recruiter Productivity
By automating manual tasks and streamlining workflows, Tracker has enabled Palmer Group’s recruiters to focus more time on high-value activities like candidate engagement.
“Our goal is to keep recruiters on the phones and recruiting,” noted Nicole Bjurstrom, Compliance Specialist. “Tracker has allowed us to automate a lot of the administrative work so they can spend more time talking to candidates.”
Specific productivity enhancements include:
- Automated sequences for candidate follow-up
- AI tools for quickly writing job descriptions and candidate profiles
- Texting integration for faster communication
- Mobile app for accessing information on-the-go
Enhanced Reporting and Analytics
The robust reporting capabilities in Tracker have given Palmer Group much deeper insights into their business.
They now track KPIs like:
- Recruiter activity metrics (calls, interviews, submittals, etc.)
- Job order statistics (new, closed, priorities)
- Contractor headcount and financials
- Placement metrics
“The dashboards and reports in Tracker give us visibility we never had before,” said Amy. “We can quickly see how individual recruiters and teams are performing and identify areas for improvement.”
Improved Data Quality and Compliance
As a compliance-focused organization, data quality and integrity are critical for Palmer Group. Tracker has helped them significantly improve in this area.
“Working with Tracker has made our processes more detail-oriented and reliable,” Nicole explained. “We’re able to do much more thorough audits and ensure compliance across the organization.”
Custom fields, required fields, and data validation have helped enforce data quality standards. The ability to easily run reports and audits has improved overall data governance.
Accelerated Growth
While it’s difficult to quantify the exact impact, Palmer Group credits Tracker as a key enabler of their growth over the past few years.
“I don’t see how we would have been as successful during that time if we wouldn’t have had Tracker,” Amy reflected. “Having one central point of communication where everybody could be on the same page regardless of where they were sitting was crucial.”
The scalability and flexibility of Tracker has allowed Palmer Group to easily add service lines and team members as they’ve expanded.
Ongoing Optimization
While they’ve realized significant benefits already, Palmer Group sees opportunities to get even more value from Tracker going forward.
They are focused on:
- Further automating manual processes
- Expanding usage of AI tools
- Implementing more client-facing sequences and automations
- Enhancing data analytics and reporting
- Continuing to train staff on advanced features
“There are so many capabilities in Tracker that we haven’t fully tapped into yet,” Amy noted. “We’re excited to keep optimizing our usage and unlocking more efficiencies.”
Conclusion
By providing a centralized platform for managing their entire recruiting and staffing operations, Tracker has enabled Palmer Group to streamline processes, improve collaboration, increase productivity, and accelerate growth. The company now has the modern, scalable technology foundation needed to achieve their ambitious expansion plans.
For other staffing and recruiting firms considering Tracker, Palmer Group offers this advice: “It’s a great tool with almost endless features and capabilities. Have a good plan for your initial rollout, training, and ongoing optimization to get the most value from the system.”