Marsden Services: Cut time-to-hire from 18 days to an average of seven days
About
Founded in 1952, Marsden Services has become one of the largest privately-owned facility service providers in the United States. With over 50 brands under their umbrella, the business provides clients with local high-quality and professional services including janitorial, security, HVAC, calibration, emergency response, and facility management services. Roger Swartzendruber, Vice President of Human Resources at Marsden Services, has played an instrumental role in ensuring the company continues to deliver to their clients by keeping positions staffed with the right employees.
Results
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Exploring solutions for scalable growth
When Roger Swartzendruber, VP of Human Resources, started working at Marsden Services, he saw an opportunity to improve the existing hiring system. The company was using a software that had very limited capabilities and therefore required a great deal of manual effort on behalf of the talent acquisition team. They needed a system that could meet the needs of each of the company’s 50-plus brands while also decreasing time-to-hire without increasing his recruiting team’s workload.
“We sell our services to our clients, but we cannot deliver without having the human capital,” said Swartzendruber. “That’s why finding the right ATS is so critical for us to be successful.”
One of the non-negotiables for Marsden’s new ATS was the ability to handle a high volume of candidates. With Fountain, they can create individualized workflows for various positions and automate the majority of the tasks, resulting in candidates moving through the pipeline faster.
Marsden Services also saw potential in Fountain’s sourcing capabilities. When Swartzendruber began looking into applicant tracking systems, he knew sourcing was a major pain point for the organization. With Fountain’s integrations, recruiters can easily post to multiple job boards simultaneously.
“For those in my position [who are looking for an ATS], we often have to evaluate companies that either offer sourcing or offer the applicant tracking system—and with Fountain, it’s one complete solution,” he said.
“Being able to have the candidates do everything from the phone—from application to onboarding—has been incredible.”
Human connection with the power of automation
Maintaining a human element within the highly automated hiring process also was important to Marsden Services. Fountain’s customization capabilities enable the talent acquisition team to provide a constant touch while still getting applicants to their first day of work quickly.
The talent acquisition team created personalized automated messages for different stages of the hiring funnel, allowing them to hire at scale while helping guide candidates through the process.
“We really amped up our automated messages back to the applicant,” said Swartzendruber. “We remind them of things like their upcoming interview or that they have to fill out their I-9, etc.”
Automated messaging helps the team filter out candidates early via preliminary surveys, allowing the recruiters to spend time focusing on getting the best candidates hired fast. The hourly hiring market is competitive, but with their new process, Marsden Services was able to help one of their clients reduce their time-to-hire from 18 days to seven days on average and decrease their vacancy rate.
“Our client had an 18% vacancy rate for their locations,” said Swartzendruber. “If we can’t put the person there, it affects our revenue. With Fountain, we moved the needle from 18% down to 6%.”
“The reporting dashboards help us identify areas of improvement.”
Mobile-first for both recruiters and candidates
Fountain prioritizes a mobile-first approach to make it easy for candidates to move through the hiring process from wherever they are. Hourly applicants often take the first job offered, so keeping candidates engaged while quickly moving them through the funnel is critical to winning top talent.
“The mobile capabilities have been amazing for our hiring process,” said Swartzendruber. “Being able to have the candidates do everything from the phone—from application to onboarding—has been incredible.”
The SMS functionality within Fountain has been a major factor in Marsden Services’ improvement, both for the applicant and the recruiter. Candidates can seamlessly text recruiters with any questions and recruiters are instantly notified of new messages via the app and email.
“Our recruiters are so excited that they’re able to message back and forth versus wasting time calling or emailing,” said Swartzendruber. “The candidates are getting a constant touch and we’re not losing them in the process.”
“We can’t grow unless we have an applicant tracking system that is able to sustain the human capital piece that we rely on.”
Data visibility and analytics
One of the challenges Marsden Services faces in serving their clients is in helping each business reach its hiring goals. Fountain’s data and analytics help the Marsden team tackle potential workflow blockers to eliminate those challenges.
Marsden noticed applicants to one of their client’s jobs were stuck in one of the drug-screening stages, waiting on results. This client wasn’t particular about the results of one of the drugs being tested, so the Marsden team stepped in and adjusted the workflow.
“Because of Fountain’s ability to provide us with analytics, we modified our 10 panel screen to a five panel by removing the particular drug screen, resulting in time savings and cost reduction” said Swartzendruber. “Fountain is a very powerful tool, and you can pull those pieces out and use that information to get better results.”
Fountain’s analytics not only help Marsden Services identify granular improvements, but they also help the team gain an overall understanding of ways to grow the enterprise.
“The reporting dashboards help us identify areas of improvement, like how long it’s taking candidates to get the job or how many applicants we are losing,” Swartzendruber said. “Then we can adjust accordingly to continue to refine those areas.”
Building for the future: Prioritizing retention
Retaining hourly workers in any industry is challenging, so increasing retention is a major focus for the human resources team at Marsden Services. Providing employees with the tools they need to be successful starts with a comprehensive hiring process and getting applicants to their first day of work.
A large focus for the Marsden Services team is giving supervisors the opportunity to lead their teams. Without the proper hiring platform in place, supervisors become strained and their employees suffer, resulting in higher turnover.
“We can’t grow unless we have an applicant tracking system that is able to sustain the human capital piece that we rely on,” said Swartzendruber. “If we can’t deliver quality employees, then our supervisors have to become full-time recruiters, and that takes away from their time to develop and lead their team.”
Creating workflows that prepare candidates for success is crucial. Whether that means inserting videos explaining the role or offering opportunities to ask questions about the position, Fountain enables companies to tailor their applicant experience so they hire the right individuals who are prepared and ready to work.
Marsden Services has also leveraged Fountain to help support the retention of current employees by offering referral bonuses and stipends through the platform. With Fountain, Marsden Services has seen a 16% increase in day one retention.
“Fountain is not only helping us hire but they’re also a part of us maintaining our workforce so we can succeed as a business,” said Swartzendruber.