Kenexa’s Analyst Day and 7th World Conference – A Winner: Part 2

Gary Bragar, HRO Research Director, NelsonHall

For the last couple of years, Kenexa has been rapidly growing its RPO client base globally and 2012 has been no exception.

Recent RPO wins include BOSCH, FMC, and BT, all of which have been multi-country awards. It also has two additional RPO contracts pending. Reasons cited by the clients for selecting Kenexa for the new contracts include:

• Quality of hire
• RPO experience including engineering and technical recruiting
• Cultural fit with Kenexa
• Global capability
• Flexibility of solution design.

Further information on the pending contracts will be released soon on NelsonHall’s website.

The customer panel at the analyst event included United Healthcare (UHC), AMD, and Fluor.

AMD:

• Issue: AMD’s global salesforce and internal formal training were not meeting its needs.
• Solution: Kenexa implemented its social LMS, which helped employees gain access to experts quickly.
• Result: AMD went from 39 separate websites of products and training to one LMS with Kenexa that is hosted to eliminate IT and technical issues.

UHC:

• Issue: UHC had a decentralized team, poor technology, low hiring manager satisfaction, and other metrics did not exist. It was hiring ~11,000 employees per year and wanted to standardize services and deploy a consistent system, starting with non-exempt hiring for a call center and extending into some exempt level recruitment.
• Solution: Kenexa is using a hybrid delivery model of service center and onsite employees. Monthly and quarterly business reviews are conducted that include reviewing metrics such as on-time delivery within 26 days, acceptance rates, class fill rates, and candidate and hiring manager satisfaction.
• Result: UHC is expanding the contract from the U.S. to include Europe (U.K., Ireland) and APAC (Philippines).

Other developments at Kenexa include:

• A new RPO COE in Raleigh, NC (others are in Shanghai, Dubai, Buenos Aires, Krakow, Vizag (India), and Frisco (TX))
• Fit Compass, which includes an interview guide that the hiring manager receives with custom questions tailored to each candidate based on the outcomes of the Fit Compass Assessment and an onboarding tool, Personal Fit Planner, to ease the transition from candidate to employee. It can also be used for development, career planning, and team building.

With each RPO engagement, Kenexa begins with an analysis of the client’s culture; it then trains its recruiters on educating the candidates and what it’s like to work for the employer. Some clients also include additional services. For example, Whirlpool’s contract also included a career site, social media, employment branding, and marketing.

At the Kenexa World Conference on October 17^th, I attended two sessions:

• Improving Quality of Hire at the Entry Level: A Strategic Application of Assessment, by Home Depot: Home Depot screens hundreds of thousands of candidates each year for hourly in-store positions and needed a more strategic method. It implemented Kenexa’s large library of assessments and Kenexa’s 2x BrassRing to improve the quality of hire and efficiency.
• RPO 2.0: Creating the Hybrid Model, by PAREXEL: PAREXEL’s original five year contract with Kenexa was to end in 2011, but it renewed and implemented a hybrid model. Kenexa’s services include sourcing, screening, and candidate interview management; PAREXEL retained strategy, candidate relationship, job offers, and reference checks. The two companies work effectively side-by-side meeting with hiring managers to understand their needs; outsourcing is transparent to the client and SLAs have mutual accountability.

In sum, it was a fulfilling analyst day and World Conference. I look forward to the next IBM Kenexa Analyst Day, which will include a smarter workforce track.

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Kenexa’s Analyst Day and 7th World Conference – A Winner: Part 1

Gary Bragar, HRO Research Director, NelsonHall

Kenexa’s October 16^th analyst day included:

• A conversation with CEO Rudy Karsan
• Product overviews
• Business unit highlights
• A customer panel
• One-on-one meetings with executives including Rudy and CMO Tim Geisert.

IBM’s acquisition of Kenexa, which is expected to close by the end of the year, could only be talked about in limited discussion. Kenexa employees will be integrated during 2013. Initially, IBM’s RPO business will be integrated into Kenexa’s RPO business and will be named IBM Kenexa RPO. The group will report into Rudy, who will then report into Alistair Rennie of IBM. Phase 1, occurring through 2013, will be business as usual with IBM as a new source of business for Kenexa, a very large channel. Phase 2 will be integration into IBM.

In addition to RPO, key assets Kenexa brings to IBM include SaaS, innovation, and the ability to get big data into IBM’s warehouses (e.g., Kenexa has 100m employee touches a year globally). Kenexa’s 2015 revenue projection will be doubled with IBM’s added social capabilities and analytics (IBM will demo this at its conference in January 2013).

Below is an overview of Kenexa’s new products and services that were presented by the respective product manager. The presentations also included videos and a one-page user-friendly brochure.

• RapidHire: 2x BrassRing’s high-volume hiring module (ideal for the retail, restaurant, and hospitality sectors)
• 2x Onboard: used in ~50% of contracts (including many global deals for cost savings and compliance), improves the employee experience (with mobile access available) by:
  • Making introductions before the employee’s first day
  • Helping new hires understand the culture
  • Conducting employment eligibility verifications for new hires
  • Providing new hire surveys, which can be scheduled at any time
  • Assisting internal employees and contractors who have been transferred
• 2x Perform: includes performance, succession, and compensation management
• Learning: includes a new social LMS, content management, and Hot Lava to develop content on all mediums (i.e., tablets, mobile devices, and PC’s)
• Engagement: highlights include a mobile feedback application that can be used for immediate feedback from meetings / events, employee surveys, and 360 degree feedback
• Global Talent Management: clients include Shell, Exxon Mobil, Walmart, BP, Yum (in China), and Huawei (in China); 2012 sales included the suite of recruitment, learning, and performance management; EMEA sales grew 40%, mostly from competitor conversions
• Compensation Management (part of 2x Perform): added ~500 new compensation clients YTD 2012 including Ernst & Young, Cox Enterprises, and Cracker Barrel.

For more information on these products and services, please see my prior blog entries, Kenexa’s vendor profile, and the NelsonHall database.

Kenexa is also continuing to develop its survey, assessment, and leadership development capabilities with recent contract awards including Amazon, Campbell’s, and Cargill announced October 16^th.

Stay tuned for part 2 later this week, which will include RPO highlights.

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