“We’ve had teams that have been heavy recruiters for years and years, and from day one have gone ‘This is amazing. This is so much easier. We have much more visibility. It’s way more intuitive.’”
The City of Kingston is a local government area located south-east of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It employs approximately 1,600 people in diverse roles and specialisations and focuses on delivering exceptional services and benefits to the community.
The challenge
The small but dedicated HR team at the City of Kingston operates within a decentralised recruitment model. Hiring managers are responsible for shortlisting, interviewing, and conducting reference checks. The HR team supports the business to curate advertisements, manage pre onboarding checks, the offer stage and onboarding.
The team faced a pressing issue: their Applicant Tracking System (ATS) provider discontinued its product, requiring a migration to a new solution. This transition highlighted several challenges they had been grappling with:
- Limited flexibility: The ATS was rigid and required manual intervention to progress through each step with blockages in the process as it lacked agility in its approach. Tasks had to be completed sequentially, even when unnecessary, such as sending paperwork that wasn’t always needed.
- Dependence on the provider: Any internal changes to the system’s configuration required the provider’s involvement, incurring additional costs and lengthy delays.
- Lack of updates: The provider had ceased investing in the product, leading to outdated functionality and no enhancements with little support when issues did arise.
- No analytics: The system lacked sufficient reporting capabilities, leaving the team without data and insights to inform decisions.
Beyond the ATS, the HR team needed functionality to keep new starters engaged, induct new employees and provide them access to online learning from day one. These gaps hindered their efforts to streamline onboarding, enhance employee learning, and ensure compliance.
The focus
The City of Kingston sought a modern ATS that would go beyond the capabilities of their previous provider and elevate their HR operations. Their priorities included:
- Enhanced HR capabilities: They aimed to improve processes related to employee inductions and day one learning.
- Seamless integrations: The new system needed to integrate with their existing payroll and HRIS systems to automate workflows and increase efficiency.
- User-friendly system: Hiring managers required an intuitive system with the flexibility to tailor workflows to their business needs.
- Actionable insights: They wanted robust analytics to provide visibility across the hiring process, share insights with stakeholders, and generate detailed reports to find trends, identify bottle necks and inform process improvements.
By addressing these focus areas, City of Kingston aimed to streamline recruitment, support employee development, and drive greater operational efficiencies.
The solution
After evaluating various options, City of Kingston selected PageUp ATS, Onboarding, and Learning solutions, identifying it as the best fit to meet their priorities.
“We went through a really competitive process. We landed on PageUp for a whole bunch of reasons, and really loved that PageUp is an Australian founded company.”
Sarah Varley, P&C Systems – Project Coordinator at City of Kingston
Throughout the implementation process, the system was configured to meet the needs of their People and Culture teams, internal business users and candidates. Receiving greater flexibility to align with their workflow ensured they got the most out of the platform.
“PageUp came with a defined plan, but also flexibility. We had really great project leads and phenomenal implementation support who were experienced in working with other local councils, which was very helpful for us.”
The ease of use and new found control has allowed HR to take on feedback and implement changes that better support their users.
“The thing we really love about PageUp is we’re all skilled as superusers. So anytime we get feedback about improvements that could be made in the system, we can make them on the spot. This has really changed the narrative internally for our team and our users trust in the product we deliver.”
The enhanced workflow flexibility and seamless integration with Kingston’s HR systems have significantly saved time and boosted productivity across functions.
“Previously, it was just HR and the hiring managers who had access; now we have payroll and health and safety too. This has streamlined our workflow with less manual effort and a lot more automation.”
The improvements have received great feedback from existing employees, achieving high adoption rates. Within the first five months of implementation, over 200 new employees were hired.
“We’ve had teams that have been heavy recruiters for years and years, and from day one have gone ‘This is amazing. This is so much easier. We have much more visibility. It’s way more intuitive.’”
1,200 staff are now using the Learning solution for compliance training. With many staff working away from desks, the training is accessible on any device. Employees also have access to sufficient learning modules to support their development down the track.
“For us, having the onboarding solution meant that on day one our new starters got access to learning and compliance activities. That means employees can get out to the field work within their first couple of days, rather than waiting a week.”
The team now has visibility over the data and insights they need across the entire recruitment workflow and inform their talent acquisition strategy.
“The dashboards and reporting have been really helpful, and we can see where the gaps are. We’ve also been able to use analytics to see where we are getting stuck in the process and see if further training is needed or if system configurations need to be tweaked which we can do right away.”
City of Kingston users have praised the support received and prompt resolution of any roadblocks, while they continually learn about the system.
“The support team, knowledge portal, and live support have been invaluable. Lodging tickets is simple, and live support even educates users on fixes to empower them to resolve similar issues independently moving forward.”
With PageUp, City of Kingston has not only resolved their previous challenges but also set a strong foundation for future growth and innovation in People and Culture operations. This transformation underscores how the right technology can drive efficiency and elevate the employee experience.
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