How to Build a Mobile Talent Strategy A White Paper From imomentous Research January 2013
Introduction FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT: Ed Newman imomentous As mobile technology continues to permiate every aspect of our personal and professional lives, employers need to take a hard look at their HR processes and systems to determine the best approach to engage an increasingly mobile workforce. This document outlines a methodology for building a mobile talent strategy to address both current and prospective employees. +1 610-842-0841(m) info@imomentous.com How to Build a Miobile Talent Strategy 2013 imomentous All rights reserved 2
MOBILE TALENT It's time to start thinking about a mobile strategy for all talent. With the launch of the iphone in 2007, the way we communicate at work and in our personal lives changed forever. Five years later, it's now inevitable that the mobile device is becoming the primary tool for workplace communications. This trend is forcing businesses to rethink everything they do, particularly the ways in which they engage and communicate with their customers and employees. The Human Resources function needs to quickly figure out how to adapt their systems and processes to engage an increasingly mobile workforce. Many cutting edge recruiting departments have already taken the plunge and mobile recruiting is well on the way to becoming mainstream. This is because the shift toward mobile is most problematic for the corporate career sites and applicant tracking systems. Job boards are seeing upwards of 20-30% of their traffic coming from mobile devices. There is even a dedicated mobile recruiting conference - Michael Marlattʼs mrecruitingcamp is going into its third year in 2013. In the next couple of years, if you do not have a mobile friendly career site it will be like not having one at all. The statistics say it all! In 2011 the number of smartphones sold exceeded the number of PCʼs. In November 2012, mobile internet traffic was nearly 13% of all web traffic globally, up from 4% just 2 years ago. By mid 2012, mobile internet traffic surpassed desktop internet traffic in India, and China. Mobile App and Ad revenue is estimated to be $19 billion in 2012, up from $5 billion 2 years ago. It is not enough to only build mobile interfaces to your legacy systems. And while recruiting is a great place to start, it is important not to overlook the opportunity to engage current employees with mobile solutions. It is time to think more broadly about how to communicate better with all talent. It is hard to know where to begin. Is it best to build a native app for the itunes store? Build custom mobile websites? Is it ok to communicate via SMS Text? What should be the first priority? The best thing to do is to develop a comprehensive Mobile Talent Strategy. Let's get started! How to Build a Miobile Talent Strategy 2013 imomentous All rights reserved 3
MOBILE TALENT STRATEGY FRAMEWORK Optimize All content and email links Connect Drive traffic & repeat visits Integrate Technology infrastructure Engage Native app for all talent How to Build a Miobile Talent Strategy 2013 imomentous All rights reserved 4
OPTIMIZE All content should be easily consumed on a mobile device The first priority in any mobile talent strategy is to make sure all content is optimized for mobile devices. This means the content will display in a format that is appropriately sized to whatever device is being used. You never want the end user to have to pinch and zoom to read or navigate your site. But mobile optimization is more than just fitting the screen size. Here are some key things to consider: 1. Navigation - Make sure the navigation is touch screen friendly. Large buttons for thumbing and options for swiping. 2. Data Entry - Minimize the amount of data that must be typed by using social profile integration to prepopulate fields. Use menus and pick lists wherever possible. 3. Geo Location - If the information is location sensitive, take advantage of the gps features of mobile devices to serve relevant content (i.e. jobs in your zip code). 4. Content - Rule of thumb: a mobile site should have only about 40% of the main site content and consider the format - less text and more video. Too much content will impact performance and response time. What to Optimize? Corporate Site - Make sure all links on the mobile corporate site lead to optimized content. If it's not optimized, don't link to it (only exception is the option to go to the full site). Career Site - Same as for the corporate site. If the corporate site is not optimized, make sure the job seeker is redirected to the mobile optimized career site when they click the careers link with a mobile device. Email Links - Any link embedded in emails should lead the user to mobile optimized content - 90% of email is being read first on mobile devices. How to Build a Miobile Talent Strategy 2013 imomentous All rights reserved 5
CONNECT Get to know your talent through interactive content Once the content is optimized, the next big opportunity with mobile technology is to create a personalized user experience where content can be served based on an individual user's characteristics. In order to develop the intelligence required to personalize the experience, a connection must be established through multiple interactions. Push and pull techniques can be used to drive traffic, generate longer visits and attract repeat visitors. Some examples include: 1. SMS Broadcasting: Send job alerts, announcements or content updates via SMS Text. Either start with an existing database, or build one by allowing users to opt-in. Just like with email, always allow for the opt-out. 2. SMS Shortcode/QR Codes: Use keywords and short code or QR codes for specific campaigns such as accessing current vacancies, promoting employee referrals, participating in a poll or survey. 3. Mobile Advertising: Develop a mobile ad strategy to target users by geography or other profile characteristics. 4. Micro-sites: Create mobile micro-sites with interactive content for different categories of talent such as college recruiting, or retail/ hourly. Use QR Codes in your print media to promote and market the sites. How To Identify Quality? Connecting is not only about generating quantity. A good strategy should also include ways to determine quality of the talent. Here are two ideas: Gamification: Develop games, puzzles or challenges that are relevant to your business or brand. Give away prizes by drawing or high score. Keep tabs on those who perform well and invite them to come back. Assessments: Allow users to take an assessment to see how they fit into your culture. Provide them with a report that will help them identify strengths and weaknesses and how to improve. How to Build a Miobile Talent Strategy 2013 imomentous All rights reserved 6
ENGAGE Use native apps to build real talent communities Engagement is the "holy grail" of human capital management. Whether it is engaging job seekers in a talent community, or increasing employee engagement, it is the best measure we have for quality and bottom-line impact of HCM initiatives. After creating an interactive mobile environment, the next step is to create a more engaging mobile experience for your talent. In terms of a mobile talent strategy, this is where the deployment of native apps is the most appropriate solution. Why Native App? 1. Send push notifications directly to the device. 2. Local storage of data to increase performance and allow offline capabilities. 3. Integration with other features of the device such as camera and geo-location. It is shortsighted to build a native app just to replicate the functionality of the mobile career site. Instead, by taking a total talent lifecycle perspective, a native mobile app can be designed to engage both prospective and current employees with a rich user experience. By inviting employees and job seekers to share the same app, functionality can be segmented by user type and the mobile device becomes the system of engagement for all talent. Within the administration of the app user security can be set to limit or grant functionality based on role. For example, only certain employees are given access to send push notifications to candidates. Or perhaps the talent community is an "invite only" feature for job seekers. Native apps are also a great opportunity to integrate the consumer brand with the employer brand. Total Talent Native App Job Seeker Employee External Career Site Assessments Contextual Alerts Video Interviews Referrals Events & Interviews On-boarding Gamification/Leaderboards Social/Collaboration Surveys & Polls Internal Career Site Career Development Payroll & Benefits Rewards & Recognition Talent Community How to Build a Miobile Talent Strategy 2013 imomentous All rights reserved 7
Any mobile strategy would not be complete without a plan to integrate with your current technology infrastructure. The good news is there have been major advances in the interoperability of systems and most of the new solutions come with open API's and toolkits that make integration relatively painless. INTEGRATE There are several key touchpoints that should be incorporated into an integration plan: Integrate with your core technology infrastructure 1. Job Feeds - Even with responsive web design, you will most likely need to create a feed of jobs from your ATS. Depending on business requirements job feeds can be designed to run on a timed interval or to trigger in real time. 2. Re-direct - Setting up a redirect from the home page of the career site is just the first step. Make sure that all links from ads, postings, and emails will detect a mobile device and redirect the user to an optimized experience. 3. Social Media and Cloud - Make it easy for users to share or apply to jobs by integrating with social media. Use social profiles to pre-populate fields or to upload a resume stored in the cloud. 4. Back-end Systems - In addition to mobile apply integration with the ATS, it might be necessary to integrate with a CRM or Talent Community solution. Integration with HCM/HRIS systems will be necessary for referral, onboarding, or career development apps. Mobile Talent Platform Integration Model How to Build a Miobile Talent Strategy 2013 imomentous All rights reserved 8
GETTING STARTED Prioritizing your mobile strategy with other initiatives Developing a strategy to optimize, connect and engage your mobile talent is really the easy part. It is much more difficult to figure out how to mesh a mobile strategy with other priorities. With the number of new products entering the market, all of the redeployments, upgrades, global expansions, and integrations, the thought of adding a mobile project can be overwhelming. Mobile Talent Maturity Model But the shift to mobile is happening so fast it should not be ignored or put it off until all other projects are done. Instead it might make sense to add mobile to the scope of an existing project, incorporate mobile into a second phase or start with a small step and grow over time. The table below is a maturity model that can be useful when developing a mobile talent strategy roadmap. Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Optimize Mobile optimized landing page with registration for email updates and job alerts. Mobile optimized job list with serach and basic apply functionality. Mobile optimized career site with job list, search, fully integrated apply, and rich content highlighting employee value proposition. Connect Mobile SEO and Opt-in registration for SMS text alerts. SMS short code, QR codes, and mobile microsites for interactive campaigns. Advanced mobile advertising and interactive content such as gamification and assessments. Engage Mobile login and profile management. Careers link in consumer native app. Native app for careers and employee referrals. Total Talent Native App for employees and job seekers, talent community, referrals, and on-boarding. Integrate Overnight job feeds from applicant tracking system. Email job link for apply. Real time job feeds and simplified mobile apply with social profile integration. Fully integrated apply with dynamic display of job content. Integration to ATS, CRM and/or HRIS, or other 3rd party content. How to Build a Miobile Talent Strategy 2013 imomentous All rights reserved 9
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT: Ed Newman imomentous +1 610-842-0841(m) info@imomentous.com