8 Quick Tips to Consider When Changing Your Recruitment CRM System

Nobody likes change, especially when it’s in a business or product that you’ve invested in. However, it’s important to make sure that your business is making money.  Your technology, especially your recruitment CRM system, could have a big impact on this.  Below are some things you should bear in mind when going through a system change:

1. When you begin your change, make sure you identify any risks involved and plan against these.  For example – is there going to be any down time in your business? If so – why?  Make sure you are changing for a reason and not just because you think you should.

2. Make sure you set expectations for your staff in relation to the extent of change. Setting a good expectation level to your staff will help reduce worry and fear and will encourage support from your team on every level. Having commitment from every level will make your technology a success – if your users are not on board the technology could fail.

3. Make sure that your change is future-proof, and that the system you implement now can keep up with your business in three years’ time. Think about how the system you’re considering implementing compares to the one you have now.  How will your new CRM change your organisation – will it make you more effective as a company?

4. Before you start your project make sure everyone involved knows the reasons for the change and that these reasons are reinforced throughout the project. If you lead with a good management team who can filter this information down correctly, this will ensure that the messaging around why you are changing will remain the same.

5. Make sure you have a project plan and a communication plan for your change. It is vital that everyone involved has a copy of this and that they understand it. It is also a good idea to have a FAQ document – so that most questions are answered.

6. Ideally your implementation process will be simplistic and straightforward – think about the core functionality you need from your CRM, the ‘Must-haves’ versus the ‘Nice-to-haves.’ This will ensure a quicker implementation and better adoption from your team. You can always build on your system.

7. It is a good idea to have some ‘super users’ for your new system. You should nurture your super users as they will be able to help other users and take some responsibility for training and ensure a positive attitude through the team.

8. Make sure you can get the best training for your team or your adoption of the system will fail. At the same time make sure that your team adopts a good practice around data entry and data cleansing. Having one process in place for data collection and entry will ensure good, clean, up-to-date data.

Most of all make sure your CRM change is productive and positive.