Sherrie Williams (00:06):

Excellent. Hello everyone. My name is Sherry Williams. I am a senior HR system specialist here at Tractor Supply Company. I specialize in our recruiting, onboarding and employee central modules in the SAP SuccessFactors.

Mary Battle Broxton (00:21):

And I'm Mary Battle Broxton and I have the privilege of leading our employment brand and recruitment marketing efforts here at Tractor Supply.

Eleanor Vajsovic (00:28):

Amazing. Thank you so much. And I think I was so excited to introduce all of you. I did not introduce myself. So I'm Eleanor. I lead our strategic solutions team here at Paradox. And again, really love working with our partners and highlighting the client story. And so this is where our excitement really taps in. And so the whole purpose of getting this together is really being able to have a conversation and really being able to dive in and say, Hey, this is what we went through. This is our experience, and these are the stories behind the data points and behind the LinkedIn posts and behind the kind of wow factor moments. And we get to have just an open dialogue and we just got to share it with a little bit of an audience, whether you watch this now live or you watch this a little bit later.

(01:24):

So we'll dive in in share a little bit about the problems and the life before Paradox and SAP came together with Tractor Supply, some of the general themes around retail and then where we arrived and how we arrived at the solution together in partnership, and then some of the data results. And that's where everyone wants to say, okay, what was the impact? And then it comes into, well, how did you do it? And so we'll dive into all of those details and then give a little glimpse of what's coming next and after we achieved all of this, what's the next round and the next step. So without further ado, we're going to go ahead and get started. And so I think it's always important for everyone to understand I fell in love with Sherry and Mary. We need to know a little bit about what is Tractor Supply for those that don't know or haven't been to one.

Mary Battle Broxton (02:20):

So we are the uss, excuse me, largest real lifestyle retailer. We're proud to serve our customers. Traditionally, we're more in the farm and ranch space, but we are seeing our customers and the communities that we serve diversify year after year. We are definitely in growth mode. So since I joined three years ago, we've added probably about 300 stores, two to 300 stores to our portfolio. So we're in 49 states. The rumor may have it that Alaska may be on the roadmap sooner rather than later. We are in Hawaii, so which is pretty impressive. And we have over 50,000 team members to date. So we are pretty large from a retailer perspective. We just celebrated our 85th anniversary last year and we're just thrilled for the continued growth.

Eleanor Vajsovic (03:11):

Amazing, amazing. And so with all of that, you have a lot to kind of work through, and I think retail, while it's challenging, it sounds like you're ready to continue to grow and hire and see that number grow by 10%, by 20%, and on and on, and we're here for it. But there are some challenges related to hiring within the retail space. And I think Kara, you're seeing this across clients and customers alike, right? With SAP?

Kara Pastorek (03:41):

Absolutely. Yeah, and I think these are three of the, especially when it comes to retail, three of the biggest ones that we see, I can personally speak before entering the HR tech space, I was actually a recruiter in corporate retail. So understanding the high turnover that can happen across the board, and then budgets are always going to be something that come into play, whether it's from advertising, looking at what you need to do to support the hiring processes in general, budgets are always going to be tightly wound there. And then looking at your candidate pools, I mean, sometimes it's one of those things where in the case of tractor supply, like you mentioned, you are in a rural setting most often. And I have to tell you, I did have the opportunity to visit a store earlier this week and I want to talk a little bit about my experience, but I really think looking at your candidate pool, I think looking at least the experience I had, it looked as if or I had the experience that the people that I interacted with wanted me to understand why I should purchase something.

(04:48):

So I'll tell you a little bit about that as we move forward. But I think these three things speak to themselves definitely in retail, but even to those of you that may be on the call today that aren't necessarily just in the retail space or are experiencing this in other areas other than maybe just your field or store operations. So something that I think we constantly see, and we know that SuccessFactors can help, but with the help of our partners such as Paradox, it really becomes quite the symphony, if you will, in terms of what can happen together with our teams working together. But I have to say, just in terms of my quick experience, I needed bird seeded right now. This time of year we have all kinds of birds migrating north. And so I went to our local tractor supply, and I think I shared with you a couple of weeks ago, we tend to go there and get our propane filled quite a bit for our gas and heating needs outside.

(05:39):

But it was so nice because the lady said, oh, get this bird seed, I get this one, and I get all kinds of cardinals and tend to come to my window. So I took her advice and then I was telling Eleanor before we jumped on the call today, I was walking through it, there were little ducklings in the store. And so it was so cute, I heard and so said it Spring is here, which is a good thing, Midwest. But yeah, I think these are definitely retail hiring challenges that we see across the board, and you definitely had a customer service focus from those that helped me out. And how did you find that? What were some of the tips and Turks that led you? And I think that really kind of brings us to the full circle of where SAP SuccessFactors and Paradox come together.

Eleanor Vajsovic (06:22):

And I love that and I think when it comes to retail hiring, these are the dominant problems. But to your point, and we'll dive into a little bit more specifically, the problem is experience with Tractor before our partnership. But when it comes to different themes outside of retail, so when we're thinking about field hiring, when we're thinking about, well, there's that particular position, it has a higher level of turnover. Maybe there is a rural candidate pool where traditional advertisements or the distance to that work location is a concern, or there are other areas of where we don't have the budget to send out a ton of advertisements or just support for those retail or those field operations, whether it's home health, whether it's supply chain and distribution centers for an automobile or even drug manufacturer. All of those considerations because of how we're finding locations to set up stores and locations, restaurants, distribution centers, I think it all impacts.

(07:37):

And you have the same similar themes happening in different industries as well. And so with that in mind, when we're thinking about digging into, while this is a retail specific storyline and we're going into the tractor supply experience right before, I think you'll see the parallels of what the recruiting team, the hiring manager team, and also the candidates are experiencing because there are so many parallels related to the problem set. So yeah, let's dig into what was life before, right before we get to the good stuff, it's like what were the pains and the problems and what were you facing every day before the partnership happened?

Mary Battle Broxton (08:22):

So I almost can't remember life before Paradox and Success Factor. It feels so long ago, but we were facing a lot of the same things that you mentioned specifically around our rural communities for talents. And one of the things that is pretty interesting is that we were actually still accepting paper applications. So we needed to revolutionize the way that we hired all around the board. And we started with a whole HR systems transformation and a part of that was onboarding SuccessFactors. We went all SAP and then we onboarded SuccessFactors. So it was really great that we were able to get that integration because it allowed us to approach our application in a new way. And as a result, we were able to decrease our time to apply by nearly 60%. So our application was way too long before sometimes it came in a paper form.

(09:22):

We were able to add text to apply, which we know that most of our applicants are not coming to us from a desktop computer being in rural areas, sometimes internet is even hard to access. So we had rolled out broadband in our parking lots, but we were meeting people right in their pockets on their cell phones. So Text to Apply is something else that we rolled out. We didn't have necessarily that visibility into where candidates were in the application process that they could access without that manual intervention from our recruiters. So Onboarding Paradox and SAP together allowed us to give that visibility to candidates who were applying and they didn't have to wait until the recruiter was able to get back to them. Again, with the needing to streamline directly in stores, we were able to produce employer brand materials and recruitment marketing materials that were trackable. So we always want to measure our efforts and to create these assets and make sure that we can measure how effective it was to get candidates the application right away. And then again, we were able to help build that brand awareness through serving up content through our conversational AI assistant, whose name is Corey. She was one of my favorite parts about onboarding their

Eleanor Vajsovic (10:48):

Success. Oh, that's so fun. Actually, I'm going to go ahead and show her off a little bit because I think that is a highlight, putting together the brand awareness, but then also kind of coming together and saying, what is our persona? How do we want our assistant to greet and experience, and what does that feel like? Because we want it to almost emulate what the Tractor Supply experience is. So whether you're going into the store or doing it online,

Mary Battle Broxton (11:22):

We refer to it as legendary customer service. And Kara, I'm so excited to hear that you had a taste of that at your recent trip to Tractor Supply. And that brings up another really great point. We're a very strong mission and values-based company, and we're looking for talent that not only recognizes and shares that, but they can execute on that. So we want people to feel like they're are neighbors when they come into the store and to get that legendary customer service and that experience to be the same whether you're in your normal store, whether you're traveling and you go to another store, you call our customer service center, you work for one of our distribution centers. So we really wanted to streamline and make sure that that was a consistent focus and the talent that we're hiring and Corey's able to deliver that messaging and really put a candidate first experience at hand. So we've noticed that the industry for talent acquisition has changed some. It's not necessarily come work for us because you need a job. It's why we want you to come work for us. So that selling the company to candidates and putting that candidate experience first, our partnership, the trifecta of Tractor SAP and Paradox has really made that happen.

Kara Pastorek (12:36):

And I think too, especially when it comes to retail, you want people to work for you that believe in your product and what you do, what you sell, and how you help the community. I mean whether from how you're purchasing things to help someone run their farm better or in a case of helping people to find the right birds to come visit their window. I mean, I think it's one of those things where it just really shows some passion and from your candidate first hiring, some of your candidates are oftentimes customers as well. So having that nice balance and being able to market to them is just key.

Mary Battle Broxton (13:09):

That's actually what we say internally that we hire our customers, we hire our neighbors as well, but we do, we see a lot of that translation from people who live the lifestyle, whether you're a pet parent like myself or you have a farm, we see that often.

Kara Pastorek (13:27):

Yeah. I do have a question for you about thinking about the mobile piece. I think we all know that thinking about a handheld device and how communicating is so key, and you mentioned here having that 24 7 communication, but with the Cory assistant being able to help you. So many people, I mean, I check my text messages so much more often than I do my personal email. Can you talk a little bit about how that really helped you from your candidate first perspective? I feel that that's just so important to be able to have that instantaneous and the increase in response that I'm sure you've experienced.

Sherrie Williams (14:06):

Absolutely. Yeah. So ultimately at Tractor Supply, we engage with almost half of our candidates after normal business hours. So 24 7 communication allows real time support to our candidates when they need it by way of personalized engagement. Our conversational AI or Corey, our recruiting assistant, is there to help via text, to apply or chat to apply and help our candidates no matter what time of day it is with their job search as well as their application questions. And along the lines of more solutions that we've implemented, QR codes and keywords in stores. So our candidates of course are mobile friendly, so they're on their mobile devices significantly more than they are email. So we've positioned our hiring process around that statistic. QR codes and keywords are strategically placed throughout our stores and provides a convenience element to our marketing strategy with a single scan. A customer, as we mentioned previously, is easily transitioned into a candidate.

(15:24):

So we use this data from our QR codes and our keywords and we track it and monitor it, and we use that and we will maneuver our approach or change our approach depending on what that data reflects for us. We also have here noted our automated communication. So throughout the candidate first hiring experience, our automated communications such as our email reminders or text reminders to candidates, it frees up some of that time for our recruiters so that they can focus on people versus process. But in addition to that, it helps keep our candidates engaged, keep them informed on where they are in that hiring process, and also those reminders they really come into play when we need to remind candidates when they need to take action as well.

Kara Pastorek (16:18):

Yeah, I agree. I think it's a great prompt to be able to do that and to keep people engaged. I mean, we know that there've been across the drop off rates, not just when candidates are coming back to apply or maybe pausing their application, but as they move forward favorably. I think there's just so many different opportunities out there. We see that drop-off happening across the board throughout the hiring process. But I do see one question in the chat if you don't mind sharing that. I think, I don't know Eleanor, if you would agree, there's a good one about, I think you may have answered this with the QR codes and keywords, but Suzanne has asked a question about where is your text to apply advertised? So do you do that on your careers page as well as for your walk-in candidates? Can you talk a little bit about that for how your candidates are notified of that or aware that that's a possibility?

Mary Battle Broxton (17:07):

Sure. I'll take this one. Go ahead. I create all the marketing content, but we have posters in our stores. We have at one point we were considering including it on our receipts. We have digital hiring assets that we share online on social, our recruiters share on LinkedIn. It's included there. We've expanded some of our recruitment marketing tactics to also include, of course, paid ads on social. It's there, we do sometimes gas toppers. We can't put it on our billboards that we use because we don't want to encourage people to text and drive drive. But really anywhere that we can, I mean, we do direct mailers at times anywhere we can evangelize that fence banners outside of our stores, hay ring banners. So there's a printed, a digital aspect to where we share our text to apply information.

Sherrie Williams (18:05):

Yeah, I can almost guarantee you go visit a tractor supply store, you're going to see those QR codes somewhere and those keywords. Yeah.

Kara Pastorek (18:13):

Good. And I think there's also another question that maybe this is something we can cover downstream, but about rehiring employees, if there's any tips that you can share, there was another question about that as well. So I don't know if that comes into play with any of the details that we'll be covering today, but maybe we can kind of think about that and maybe answer some of your tips and tricks you can share across the board with retail rehires as well.

Mary Battle Broxton (18:39):

That is a hot topic and I'd be happy to connect on that either downstream or at another time for sure. But one thing, and I don't mean to steal your thunder, Eleanor, that Sherry mentioned that I think would be really important is agility and how we change things based on the feedback that we've received. So I do know that it's on the slide, but Watsi completion was something that is the hot topic, and it's something that we made a change to, and I'll let Sherry talk about it based on the feedback that we were getting from the data.

Sherrie Williams (19:13):

So the changes that we've made to our WE completion, we have now integrated it with our RMK or our application rather. So immediately following the application, whether that be chat to apply, text to apply or filling out the application on our external career site, the candidate is immediately taken into complete that wace just to get it out the way. Also, we have reminders in place, so just in case they need to get away from the application, you've submitted it and you are on your way to become a tractor supply candidate, that's where those paradox reminders come into play. We'll send that friendly reminder to let them know that that WA is still pending completion access to that link immediately within that communication as well.

Eleanor Vajsovic (20:04):

Yeah, that's amazing. And I think that that's one of the things that actually when we think about the data and we think about the ROI and we think about the partnership, I think it's important to dive into the solution and how we've come to arrive to it. I think also the fact that I would love Kara to share a little bit, and then I would love to give it back to you, Sherry and Mary on how you were able to combine because we weren't timed exactly the same. And so I think that's an important thing to talk about too. But also it's not easy to get an SAP endorsed app to be able to say that. So maybe describe a little bit Kara of what that means, and then did that translate right for us? It means a lot because that means something pretty major for SAP and SuccessFactors and Paradox. But then I would love to hear from Sherry and Mary, what did that mean to you? And then the third part of this is really like how did you bring it together because it didn't, there was a little bit of a step-by-step and almost like a waved approach or a phased approach on how we continued to evolve based on timing, et cetera. So Kara, maybe just share a little bit about what that means.

Kara Pastorek (21:32):

I think there are several I'll save and I think tractor supplies and also a super unique situation just based on how you're utilizing SuccessFactors and paradox, utilizing Paradox with more than one provider. So I think that was very interesting for me to learn when we've been over the time that we've met over the past few weeks in prep for today's call. But to be an SAP endorsed app is just a very much an honor and something that really shows the partnership and the journey that you have been on as an organization to really support our customers in providing some really excellent innovation and solution for us that we know that's vetted and approved. And you've definitely been at the table with us on many different conversations, so it's very exciting to be here with you today as a part of that. But just to know that our customers are able to take advantage and explore as Tractor Supply has implemented, but what you offer to really compliment what we do together to make that real symphony of what can happen in the recruiting experience. So definitely something, the endorsed app says it all, you're definitely at a gold standard. So Tractor Supply for them for you to really talk about how that's related into your experience, again with success factors and then other technologies that you've used as well. I think it's neat to have that different experience and that twist of what your journey has been with Paradox.

Mary Battle Broxton (22:56):

Before we came to SuccessFactors, we did start with Corey, our recruiting assistant on a separate, we were using a separate a TS for our recruiters and everything was a little disconnected. It was disjointed. So we had a vendor for our career site, a vendor for our A TSA vendor for our HRAS systems. And what SAP SuccessFactors allowed us to do was to bring everything under one roof and seamlessly integrate the technology of our recruiting assistant and then add on layers like our communications. So that just made it sweetened the deal, it sweetened the pot for moving from all these different systems to one and then also allowing that integration that we could upon. So it wasn't just taking one technology from Paradox, another technology from another candidate experience vendor. We were able to do a one and a half shop, if you will. We had our paradox for all things candidate experience facing, but SAP SuccessFactors really made everything work seamlessly together, whether you were to the rehire question, an existing team member, a current team member.

(24:12):

So it just allowed everything to gel together and it made it easier for our recruiters. So they're able to not necessarily have to log into two systems, the systems talk to each other, and then they use the Chrome extension for paradox. And it's easy communication, whether it's texting candidates, emailing candidates, we even have used the events for some of our distribution centers. Everything is through that extension widget. So it's very easy. They don't have to manage two different systems. Everything works together and it makes it more efficient. So not just cutting down on the time to apply, but also the time that it saves our recruiters to be able to get the job done and to have a larger and greater impact with our candidates.

Eleanor Vajsovic (25:03):

I love that. And thank you again for highlighting the trifecta of this, right? It's just the sweet spot of the problems that you're facing with your candidates and candidate experience, plus the recruiter kind of experience and hiring manager feedback loop of a lot of manual effort, a lot of chasing, a lot of maybe you wished and you wanted to always had it on your to-do list to follow up and to answer those voicemails and answer those emails. But then with the addition of a single system, a system of records, system of truth with SAP SuccessFactor Suite, and then Paradox owning the communications through Corey, where she's able to do the communications automated at night and on the weekends and on holidays, and you didn't have to extend your team's time, but then also if automation messaging and et cetera wasn't enough, you can also just go right in and just say, okay, let's go ahead and there was a quick change to the interview or Hey, the location, can we push it by five minutes?

(26:08):

Let's do coffee instead and you can, let's message right in real time while they're getting out of their car not driving and they're meeting you at the front entrance instead of the back entrance, right? Those are all the things where I love that the solution has kind of come together and we can highlight a little bit of what the data really told you. A lot of the questions I think that come in and we often get shared is like, okay, candidate experience is great, but what's your CFO say when it is like they're really happy that you condense the systems. So yeah, check the box there. You've gotten better surveys and results from the candidate experience and maybe you're getting happier candidates, happier starters, happier employees from the experience. But then what did that actually mean, right when it came to numbers and it came to the story that you were telling to your stakeholders once you made the decision?

Mary Battle Broxton (27:09):

Well, it also decreased the cost per hire because we saw that we were having a conversion rate of 80% of those who got to experience Corey and chat with her. They also applied to our jobs and they were doing it quicker. And then to Sherry's point, we engaged so many candidates and to your point after hours that it's not necessarily that overhead that you would think of when you're thinking about cost per hire and salaries and things of that nature. So it had a profound impact. This integration has had a profound impact on our business, our bottom line even. And people, when you go back in and you actually read the conversations, of course you can read them in the dashboard. People really think that Cory is just a part of the recruiter team. I mean, she is digitally, right? But they think that Corey is an actual person who sits on our recruiting team because the answers that she's able to give, they are within our brand tone, it sounds like they're talking to someone.

(28:14):

So it even builds that stronger connection to this is a place I want to work. These are people that I connect with, even if it is Corey and she's digitally representing the team. So I think that's really important as well for our company from a whole, and we think about our brand awareness and brand reputation. She fits right in line and it's so agile, so we're able to change up responses, help Corey get smarter as things go on, if they have benefit specific questions or pay questions, bonus questions, questions about our culture. She's able to serve it right up and it makes them feel better about the prospect of working at Tractor Supply.

Sherrie Williams (28:57):

Yes,

Kara Pastorek (28:59):

These numbers are remarkable. I just have to say, I mean to look at where you benchmark this and how you were able to determine this and the timeframe, I mean, what was the timeframe in terms of where you were able to really see this difference from, especially looking at the chat to apply conversion rate? I mean, that is just remarkable. So what did that look like? How long of a timeframe did it take to achieve this?

Sherrie Williams (29:24):

So in terms of the decreased time to apply, we went live with our recruiting, onboarding and employee central modules in SAP SuccessFactors February of last year. Wow. I can't believe it. It's been forever it feels like. But I would say within six months we were able to see a real difference, a significant difference, just making those changes to our application questions and then just the flexibility that we had with the conversational AI or our buddy Corey, was able to make some huge change. Yeah,

Kara Pastorek (30:04):

That's great. Excellent. I do see a question, if you don't mind in the chat, that I think might be timely just to talk through in terms of offers. So they wanted to ask, Aaron wanted to know, are you utilizing Corey at all for any of the offer process, part of the hiring process as well?

Sherrie Williams (30:23):

Not at this time, no.

Kara Pastorek (30:26):

Okay. Alright.

Sherrie Williams (30:32):

Thank you. Great question.

Eleanor Vajsovic (30:35):

Well actually that kind of leads into, and I know we'll have a little bit more time for questions too, and we can always share a little bit more of how we've supplemented and supported other SAP and SuccessFactors clients through the offer process. And a lot of it comes with communications and just connecting the dots with you had this amazing assistant throughout the whole hiring process. And then we're continuing the conversations and just letting you know where the offer's sitting. It's at your email, please check your email. If you haven't checked your email, check your spam folder. We're sending those friendly nudges along the process. And so it kind of leads to, when it comes to communications,

(31:23):

Where do we go next? What's the next step? How do we take it either from a little bit more to the right where we're saying, okay, we're following up with maybe feedback from an interview or we're following up on next steps related to and before or maybe sometimes after the offer process. But there's a few things that I know we've brainstormed and we talked through related to the next evolution and things that we've picked up over the last few months on feedback and just where do we take this as far as candidate experience, recruiter experience, automation, even if you wanted to highlight that. Yeah.

Mary Battle Broxton (32:08):

So one thing that we've piloted, which I think is also really important to mention is our events feature. We have three main different business units that we hire for. So we have our store support center, which is more of our corporate function, but we exist to support the stores. We have our distribution centers that of course get all of our goods and our products to our stores and to our customers. And then we have our stores. Our stores is our largest population, but we are growing all over, which includes their distribution center network. And one of the things that we've been implementing as we've been trying new ways to track candidates are hiring events. So we just piloted hiring events and it was so helpful for that recruiting team, our supply chain team, to be able to push candidates to a landing page hosted by paradox, but also get them to simultaneously apply and get that information in SuccessFactors so that our recruiters knew who they were meeting when they were coming on site.

(33:14):

They already had the application completed, so we didn't have to beg them in the moment to whip out their phones or apply on one of our iPads or tablets. Everything was done beforehand. So that's something that we've just piloted and it was so helpful in getting a lot of the administrative work. But again, a great example of how SuccessFactors and paradox work together. The systems talk to each other to make our jobs easier from a talent acquisition perspective. Another recruiter's dream is the scheduling feature, so we haven't implemented that yet, but we are working on ways our IT team and security team just met with Paradox to make sure that we can get that on board so that Corey can also schedule our interviews. Again, cutting down on time and making things easier for everyone involved, including hiring managers and candidates. And then another thing that we were talking about, and we've talked about it a little bit, but was feedback and surveys.

Sherrie Williams (34:16):

Absolutely taking advantage of that feedback and survey functionality. If our approach is candidate first, then I believe Eleanor, you hit the nail on the head in terms of connecting those dots. So collecting that feedback and then taking action on that feedback. Absolutely.

Eleanor Vajsovic (34:36):

I love that. And I think that's what's so exciting, right? There's always a yes. And where else can we, because it's about communication. And when we think about it from our perspective as a human, it's like what do we expect? And I think a lot of it started with your first part is we're consumers, right? We go shopping, we sign up for events, we sign up for, we make appointments, and we expect certain things when it comes to communication. And so we need to translate that back to the hiring experience and not only remember that we are humans. And I think it's great to be warm, and I think it's great to have a tone that's friendly and approachable, and you don't have to have these stringent, very canned, impersonal communication styles. And it's just nice and everyone does check their text messages over their emails at any given point of the day.

(35:41):

So I think it's fun to explore this, and I think it's even more exciting to see the iterations and how we can continue to pilot and explore. And then as things continue to change and evolve with our candidate population, this is an election year. There's a lot going on with just work in general. And so how do we work and also keep up with the times and keep up with the behaviors, both from leveraging SAP and Kara, all of the clients and customer industry knowledge that come with this partnership, but then also really hearing from those that are experiencing it every day and including that in roadmaps and other feature enhancements and feedback loops in general. So I think there's a couple of questions if you all don't mind answering a couple of questions, see where it leads, and then any questions that maybe are better left in one-to-one more intimate conversations, we'll make sure to follow up.

(36:51):

So team on the line, we'll dive in and then we'll make sure that we always follow up afterwards. But also just putting a quick while we go through some of the questions, just putting a quick information. Let's see, can you see, let's see, where is the QR code? And we'll kind of put it up as just like a quick thank you for anyone that's interested in learning more information, but we'll also just follow up with a thank you again for joining the webinar. Thank you for participating and asking questions. And then we'll also share a little bit more there. But let me just make sure it's up. Can you all see all good? Yes. All right. So for those that are interested, and also you can kind of play with the QR code technology if you're not aware of it that Sherry and Mary mentioned, it is this quick and easy as long as you don't take a photo of it, but it's fine if you do. Sometimes you do that the first time around and get teased by your kids all good. It's just an example. Not anything I experienced personally.

(38:06):

But if we're all open, should we go through a couple questions? Absolutely. Let's do it. All right. So I can take the first one and then Kara, we'll just kind of ping pong back and forth. Yeah, that sounds good. All right. So we mentioned, I'll just start from the top. We talked a little bit about WATC and kind of took for granted that everyone knows and understands. So maybe taking a couple of minutes to just talk a little bit about the Waze process, what is it? Maybe describe it for a couple of seconds, and then what the benefits are and where it fits in the process I think would be helpful. I think that was one of the questions that came up.

Sherrie Williams (38:52):

So off the top of my head, don't remember exactly what Waze stands for. I know the TC is tax credit, so it's W TC

Kara Pastorek (39:00):

Work Opportunity Tax Credit,

Eleanor Vajsovic (39:02):

Work Opportunity,

Sherrie Williams (39:03):

Work Opportunity. We go, there we go. Absolutely. Yes. And the other part of that question was where it fits in our process, correct? Right. So it is immediately following application in which it is completely optional for our candidates to complete in which it's tracked then on the back end in success factors as well, once it is submitted by the candidate, but immediately following the application. So text to apply, chat to apply, or rather going directly to our external career site to complete the watsu survey. And then those results are sent over to the watsu organization to process. But that's where it fits in our application process.

Kara Pastorek (39:49):

And I'll just say, I know for some organizations that can fall in different areas, so it's really configurable to where it makes more sense for your team and where you want to really insert that into the process. So that's great. Exactly. Yeah. Good. Alright. I do see a question, I just lost the chat thing for a second here, so let me pull that up. There was a question about the communications and how you monitor that throughout the process. So thinking about more like the interview timeframe and kind of the go back and forth that may happen between the candidate and the recruiter, and even if the candidates want to talk to the hiring manager, who is monitoring that and how are you utilizing that part of the system and is paradox a part of that process?

Sherrie Williams (40:34):

So paradox, we are considering paradox as part of that process as a future enhancement, but currently it's more so managed by our recruiters, our recruiting coordinators, or in some instances depending on the job, our hiring managers all within recruiting and success factors.

Kara Pastorek (40:53):

Alright, excellent. Yeah, I think that should answer that question there. For example, if they need to speak with a hiring leader about interview accommodation. So it sounds like you're doing a little bit of that about texting through Corey and then some of that through the onboarding piece as well, right?

Sherrie Williams (41:11):

Correct.

Kara Pastorek (41:11):

Okay, great. Alright, and then Eleanor, do you see other questions? I know I have a question if we're out of questions for today, but I think we covered the majority of 'em unless you see one.

Eleanor Vajsovic (41:28):

Yeah, the only one I see that's out there is around, I know there was a follow-up of is it possible to extend offers through Corey and yes, we can. There's a few different ways that we can leverage and you can choose your own adventure, right? So depending, so we've done kind of an evolutionary step where clients that have come in with paper applications a lot, where some are dealing with such a high volume, they do verbal offers. And so what's the first step is like, okay, let's do simplified offers and then we go into the more robust offers. And so it depends on the population of candidates, the type of roles and how far you want to take it. And then also we would partner up with SAP on what that path could look like as there are a couple of different options we could take.

(42:27):

So the possibility is there and we would just workshop it out and I think are endless. Oh, oh, there was a good question here. The last one, which I think is always a good one to kind of round out is, and Carol, we'll come back to your question too, is what have been the biggest obstacles with Corey so far, if any? And I think that's a fair question. Sometimes it could be technical, sometimes it could be just change management, sometimes it's training. So I think sharing a little bit about that story, I think that would be good. See the tea that I promised, right? It's the tea that I promised where it's just like if you stayed in for the little bit more, you can get a little bit more of the detail. So I think it's great.

Sherrie Williams (43:15):

All right. So I'll get into some of the tea. Okay.

Eleanor Vajsovic (43:19):

Oh, but we also have include how we overcame it.

Sherrie Williams (43:23):

Absolutely, absolutely. And one of the obstacles in which we faced is definitely around that change management process. So when we may have a slight change to our application from SuccessFactors, we also need to partner with our paradox team to ensure that we make those updates to the chat to apply or text to apply also. So it has been a learning experience in which it has only strengthened our partnership. So huge shout out to our representatives at Paradox that support us around that space.

Mary Battle Broxton (43:57):

And when you say agile, I mean there were a couple of weeks for, it was a daily standup call just to make sure that we got through the work and our team was phenomenal. So a very big thank you. You guys always deliver when we ask, even if we ask for things that are pies in the sky, you make it Corey. I think it was more of an internal thing and working through our processes, especially transitioning to success factors from a prior a TS and the team made it happen and continues to do so.

Sherrie Williams (44:33):

Yes.

Eleanor Vajsovic (44:35):

Amazing.

Kara Pastorek (44:36):

Well, I think it's just so it's been so nice to be a part of this today and really understand where having the uniqueness of your industry, where you focus on in retail and my recent wonderful experience I had in your store, but Sherry and Mary, if you could both just take a second to talk about what do you think are the biggest wins in terms of what you personally think. If someone were to ask you, you've got great data to show the fruits of your labor, but what would you say are some of the two things that a thing each that you think has just been, my gosh, we can't believe we live without this until now. What would you say?

Sherrie Williams (45:12):

I'm going to say getting rid of those paper applications. Mary, I don't know about you.

Kara Pastorek (45:16):

That's great.

Sherrie Williams (45:17):

We've come a long way from paper applications to conversational ai and it's just the beginning. So something that we're super excited about and very proud of just making those enhancements and we continue to learn and grow and create a better candidate experience.

Mary Battle Broxton (45:37):

Okay, well say that, but I'll say I think just making our recruiters lives easier. I've personally been a recruiter before and it is a labor of love for sure, often a thankless job, seriously. So being able to give our HRIS team a little bit of an ease with just one main system being success factors, but then not having our recruiters have to log into another platform and just using that Chrome extension, it just makes it so much easier for them to communicate with candidates, for them to follow up, for them to manage that flow and then take advantage of the other suite of products that paradox offers. And the two systems don't have to. It's seamless them talking to each other. There's no manual intervention of, oh, I got to make sure this candidate was also put into this system and I don't see them. And there's this one integration that happens at seven o'clock at night every day. We got to wait 24 hours. None of that. It is seamless. So I think making our recruiters lives easier also just inherently makes our candidate experience that much sweeter. Absolute. So that would be it for me.

Kara Pastorek (46:56):

Yeah, and I love what Eleanor, what you said earlier, I mean, we all want to have a consumer experience. I mean, we text more than we email, more than likely in our personal lives. Why not? When you're going through the hiring process and when you're engaging with candidates, I think it's so important in the today's market. So great story. I'm so glad you were able to share it today.

Eleanor Vajsovic (47:15):

Yeah, I love it. And Gino followed up with one more. I love this question and so I was like, I'll share it with you. I won't just hold it for myself. What are the big picture visions you have for recruiting, right? We all were recruiters, or we lived and breathed and empathized, right? But any downstream processes of the recruiting process that you foresee would be helpful for an AI like Corey to play into big vision dream wise? I mean, we have big visions, but I would love to hear from Jerry and Mary. That's a good,

Mary Battle Broxton (47:58):

Do you have anything that comes to mind? Top of mind, big

Eleanor Vajsovic (48:02):

Vision? I

Mary Battle Broxton (48:03):

Can spitball

Eleanor Vajsovic (48:04):

Something for you. Yes.

Speaker 5 (48:06):

Yeah, no, I can't think of anything top of mind. How about here?

Mary Battle Broxton (48:11):

So my lens has changed, right? I'm a little bit more on the communications and branding side now. So selfishly, when I think about what employer brand needs, it's not just an external brand experience. How do you retain the talent that you've recruited? So technically this does have to do with Yeah,

Speaker 5 (48:34):

Absolutely

Mary Battle Broxton (48:36):

It does. We want to keep our talent, our great talent that delivers that legendary customer service. How we can leverage and mirror that experience so that our candidates who become team members, they never feel like we stop courting them. They never feel like we stop trying to get that buy-in to build that engagement and that relationship there. So that's really where my brain goes when I think about big picture downstream. How do we make the candidate experience match the team member experience? Absolutely. I love that.

Eleanor Vajsovic (49:09):

Love that, love that. Because I mean, if we're really honest, and I know this is going to be a bold statement and maybe controversial, but everyone's a candidate at any time.

Mary Battle Broxton (49:19):

Absolutely.

Eleanor Vajsovic (49:20):

And so if we try to ignore that, well then you're going to take things for granted. And so I love that refocus on your team members making, if it's easy to talk to, let's see someone else's assistant and some other place, well then, but they have to go through a few different hoops and they have to go in and maybe making it just that much easier so that they can continue to develop or at least understand what's going on and be cared for extra special, not just equally,

(49:54):

But it's just extra special. And we'll actually walk you through this and maybe we'll evaluate what you're missing in all of the next level things. I think that's great. I love that. I could just, okay, I'll see if there's one more, but then otherwise we'll say I think we've done really well as far as covering it and then also sharing a little bit of additional insights and little anecdotes and stories. So I hope the setting the setup was what we delivered, which was just a little bit of a showcase of what this trifecta of partnership really looks like, how we dove into and experience some of the problems, but we're real about it. We didn't ignore where we were, right where we were before. And then also how we built on the solution together and really explored not only what we were aiming to do, but then leveraged feedback and instant data that was coming in because our systems are talking to each other and made changes along the way and didn't have to wait.

(51:07):

Right? Absolutely. Also, just being able to plan for the future and at least start thinking bigger and also expanding those communications further down or within the same process, but at a deeper level. And I think it was an absolute pleasure and a joy to share this kind of virtual stage with all of you and appreciate your time, your storytelling, and the general experience and partnership. So thank you. Thank you. I love it. I love it. It was our Oprah moment. That's right. You get a car and you get SAP and you get a Cory. Just kidding. You can edit that out. But have a great day and thank you so much. Our next conversation. Right. Thank you. Absolutely. Thanks aor. Thanks Kara.

Kara Pastorek (51:58):

Thanks. Great job. Thanks.

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