Case Study
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A new direction
for WestHQ
Expr3ss! simplifies it
WestHQ is one of Sydney’s leading lifestyle and entertainment venues. As the largest licensed club in NSW, WestHQ have been hailed by the Sydney Morning Herald as a future cultural icon for Sydney’s west. With such an impressive reputation, sourcing and hiring the right team members is vital – to do the brand justice and maintain a reputation earned over years of consistent customer service. There are other brands that fall under the WestHQ umbrella too, including the 4.5 star Novotel Hotel, SGAC Health Fitness Aquatic, AMF and Laser M9 as well as the Sydney Gymnastics and Aquatic Centre. While each of these brands has its own unique identity, they are all part of one larger team.
Stuck with an old system that served only as a database, Laiken McCabe (Human Resource Manager at WestHQ), knew there was only one option: move with the times and find SaaS (Software as a Service) that would simplify her team’s staff selection processes. So, she did what any dynamic HR professional would do, turned to Google to start the search. “We were getting tired and frustrated, so I jumped on Google and found Expr3ss!. After looking at various providers, it did not take us long to realise that it was far superior, it was the obvious choice for us.”
While it was the obvious choice, the HR team at WestHQ still had to pitch their new-found solution to their management team. This involved getting across the nitty-gritty details of how the Expr3ss! system works. And conveying the business value to management. “Andrew Lester, General Manager at Expr3ss!, was authentic and genuine about the potential benefits and uses of the software. He equipped us with the insight we needed to drive the purchase, change attitudes to technology and coordinate adoption of the system.”
Instantly!
That’s how quickly the WestHQ Team could see the most suitable applicants to bring in for an interview
4 months
After jumping on board Expr3ss! WestHQ started using the seamless Expr3ss! / Xref integration
4.3/5
Average applicant experience rating (Where applicants rate their application experience)
From capturing data to pinpointing applicants
Once the decision had been made to jump on board Expr3ss!, WestHQ’s team were concerned about how they would get all of the valuable data that was stored in their legacy system over into Expr3ss!. “Since we had been trying to build a talent pool, we felt that losing that data will be a real loss to the business. What we quickly learnt was that Expr3ss! could help us build an up-to-date talent pool quickly and easily,” explains Laiken.
WestHQ would often recruit for six to seven roles per month. Sometimes roles would remain vacant because the team could not pinpoint the correct candidate through their old manual process. “We saw an immediate improvement when we jumped on board Expr3ss!. As soon as we clicked on a vacancy, we could instantly see the most suitable candidates to bring in for interview. You can’t put a cost to the time we are saving and the effort of sifting through resumes and the frustrating process.”
Accelerating recruitment with references
It is not only the sourcing and screening process that is time consuming if you are not making use of predictive hiring technology like Expr3ss!, getting references for shortlisted candidates is laborious too. Xref is an online, automated candidate referencing solution. It turns a traditionally slow, labour-intensive and admin-heavy task, that is fraught with risk and provides minimal value, into a simple, efficient, secure and insightful tool. Businesses of all sizes use Xref to automate HR reference checks, saving time and money, while protecting the business against candidate fraud and breaches in discrimination and privacy.
Cutting hiring time in half
When Laiken and her team were tasked with staffing an entire new department, Expr3ss! was truly put to the test. “One of the biggest benefits was the fact that we could organise all of our group interviews with ease. This interview-scheduling functionality enabled us to bring 10-12 frontline role applicants in at a time. As a result, we only did two group interviews before we had filled all the roles. Each applicant simply went to the calendar and booked themselves in, where-after they would literally walk through the door – their details were already included and the entire process was automated for us,” explains Laiken.
The team at the WestHQ found that one of the biggest hold ups of the recruitment process was waiting to get in contact with references. It would sometimes take a couple of days before references could be contacted, resulting in long periods of “waiting by the phone to ensure we could put an end to the inevitable game of phone tag.”
The challenge extended far beyond simply contacting referees and scheduling a time to talk to them. “When I was successful with contacting references over the phone, there would be times when the referee was talking so quickly or unclearly it was hard to type their responses as they were talking. I would often have to confirm their comments to ensure that I hadn’t misheard or made any errors with the information provided. This would add on additional time to the phone call which at times could make an already time-restricted referee irritated,” recalls Laiken.
Thanks to the fact that Expr3ss! is fit-for-purpose and takes a best-of-breed approach, the software has been developed in a manner that allows other HR technology platforms, like Xref, to integrate with it seamlessly.
The Expr3ss! / Xref team really guided us through the transition and our expectations were surpassed. Integrating the two systems just streamlined the process and the change management system behind it.
Laiken McCabe
Human Resource Manager, WestHQ
“Since using the Expr3ss! and Xref integration, WestHQ have seen a dramatic reduction in the number of days post interview to fill our vacancies. I no longer experience frustration with contacting referees as the process is now so simplified that literally with a click of a button reference checks are sent and underway giving me back the hours in my day. The quality of the content from the reference checks provides me with confidence that the best suited candidate is selected and the fast turnaround time allows me to make offers faster. Providing an offer as quickly as possible assists with ensuring we don’t miss out on high calibre candidates that may be considering other employment opportunities.”
With the automation of the recruitment process, together with the unique temperament piece that Expr3ss! offers with the seamless Xref integration, WestHQ has been able to attract the right calibre of people who “want to turn their job into a career”. “This helped me realise that recruitment isn’t supposed to be hard, we tend to make it harder than it needs to be, but Expr3ss! simplifies it for us.
