The Challenge

Known as the “easy button” of the electrical distribution world, OmniCable prides itself on exceptional customer service and care. This aligns with the company’s origin as a home-grown, family-owned company that sparks so much employee loyalty that it boasts some of the lowest turnover rates in the industry.

Until recently, like many small companies, OmniCable relied on manual processes and spreadsheets to support their entire recruitment and hiring process. In fact, before their first HRIS implementation in 2015, many HR operations were still performed via carbon paper copies stored in massive file drawers.

When OmniCable was acquired by a growth-oriented investor in 2019, the need for more sophisticated processes and systems crystallized. “This growth mindset is what led us to seek out Phenom,” said Cora Walker, Chief Human Resources Officer at Omnicable. “We had a high-powered HRIS, but it didn’t connect to or talk to anything. Talent acquisition processes were happening outside the system.” 

Some of OmniCable’s biggest pain points?

• Opening a new requisition took up to four days

• Managing large volumes of data entry was a challenge for small teams

• Lacking visibility into critical talent processes and key metrics hindered progress

• Hiring managers felt uninformed about open job requisitions and unable to contribute meaningfully

The Solution

As an HR industry veteran, Walker was familiar with Phenom’s approach and offerings. But with a limited budget, no internal expertise, and a third-party recruitment model, Walker was cautiously optimistic about the prospect of Phenom being a viable solution for OmniCable. 

“Phenom said, ‘We can do this anyway’,” she shared. “A partner who wants to be on the cutting edge of the technology but won’t put your business at risk is very challenging to find.”

OmniCable implemented Phenom Hire, specially designed for small and mid-sized organizations to manage the entire job application and selection process with AI and automation. With capabilities including job requisition templates, job posting, job approval workflows, candidate relationship management, and candidate application and selection workflows, OmniCable TA got to work re-designing key recruitment processes for a sleek talent experience.

In addition to the platform’s powerful features, Walker noted the following differentiators that position Phenom as a true value-add for her organization:

Intuitive UX. The tool’s agility allows the team to truly divide and conquer when it comes to talent acquisition. For example, staff can easily toggle between recruiter and manager views and navigate in and out of the Talent CRM to quickly get the information they need, at the moment they need it. “The fact that I don’t need to spend hours training people how to leverage and use the system is pretty spectacular,” Walker said.

Innovative partnership and network. According to Walker, Phenom’s customer service is as intuitive as the products. “Ninety-nine percent of the time that we have a need, Phenom already has a solution for it in development.” In addition, Phenom’s willingness to share how clients leverage the product is unique, Walker noted. “Phenom also will connect clients with each other to share ideas and problem-solve together.”

The Results

“We started with basically nothing,” Walker said. “We didn’t have an ATS, data, or metrics. Phenom helped us understand our own processes.” Based on this insight combined with Phenom’s expertise and platform, OmniCable forged a much smoother, more efficient path to recruitment and hiring activities.

Although the team hasn’t yet undertaken tracking and measuring data, Walker sees plenty of evidence indicating dramatic improvement:

Simplified job requisitions. Before implementing Phenom, opening a job requisition required more than a dozen emails over four days or more. Now, even a brand-new role can be initiated in about 90 seconds using Requisition Management. 

Decreased time to fill. Particularly for distribution center job openings, this is one area where the numbers speak for themselves: Time-to-fill for these roles dropped from nearly 50 days down to 33 days, according to Walker. “And that’s hard to do. You need massive amounts of candidates for those distribution center roles.”

Happier hiring managers. Requisitions are now fully transparent to hiring managers — and over 80% actively use the platform when they have open roles. As Walker describes it: “We’ve given them visibility that’s a hundred times better than they had before.” Through the platform, hiring managers can view the requisition and all related recruitment activities (e.g., candidates who have been screened). Because the Hiring Manager app is compatible with the Talent CRM, hiring managers can effortlessly collaborate with recruitment teams to keep the hiring process moving forward faster. This self-service approach has expanded the recruitment team and reduced reliance on agencies.

More productive recruiters. Better collaboration and visibility for hiring managers means that recruiters are fielding far fewer calls and emails. “Phenom lets our recruiters actually recruit,” Walker said. “Our primary distribution recruiter has been able to whittle down administrative tasks so she can just focus on recruiting, sourcing, and understanding what hiring managers need.” 

Continuous workflow optimization. Another value-add for recruiters? A thumbs-up/thumbs-down feature that keeps the Human-in-the-Loop (HITL) collects instant feedback on the efficacy of workflows and processes. Behind this feature sits the platform’s AI, which silently gets to work making adjustments based on direct recruiter input. Recruiters may not notice the AI, but “the improvements are obvious,” Walker said. 

The Future

Now that her team has built a talent acquisition experience that delights candidates and hiring managers alike, Walker is enthusiastic about the next frontier: creating an equally compelling employee experience.

OmniCable plans to leverage Phenom Employee Experience to create a highly motivating internal environment, with improved visibility into career pathing opportunities. 

Based on her experience with Phenom, Walker feels confident in the solution’s ability to streamline the work required for the initiative — a major help in securing buy-in. “We see the value, and we can make a business case around it.”