Bridging the Mental Health Talent Gap: How New Oakland Family Centers Revolutionized Recruitment with Workable

By the Corporate Features Editorial Desk

Executive Summary & Main Facts

In an era defined by a chronic shortage of behavioral health professionals, Michigan-based nonprofit mental health organization New Oakland Family Centers has achieved a breakthrough in talent acquisition. Operating 16 offices across the state and employing a dedicated workforce of 319 individuals, the organization provides essential care levels ranging from outpatient therapy to critical crisis intervention for high-acuity patients.

However, scaling and sustaining this workforce presented monumental administrative hurdles. Competing for scarce clinical talent—professionals requiring advanced master’s degrees and specialized clinical licensures—left the organization’s human resources infrastructure strained.

The turning point arrived in mid-2024 when New Oakland Family Centers implemented Workable, an advanced applicant tracking system (ATS) and talent acquisition platform. In its first full year of operation, the partnership delivered tangible results:

• Expanded Hiring Reach: Multi-board job distribution broadcasts listings across 16 Michigan locations simultaneously, maximizing visibility in talent-scarce regions.
• Standardized Pipelines: Customized workflows successfully segment hiring processes for therapists, nurses, and nonclinical operational staff.
• Streamlined Document Management: Centralized generation of background checks, full-time offer letters, and independent contractor agreements.
• Accelerated Time-to-Hire: Clear deadlines and templated communications expedite recruitment, onboarding, and credentialing stages.
• Closed Communication Loops: Automated candidate acknowledgments and status updates ensure zero applicants are left in the dark.
• Improved Retention: Employee turnover trended downward in 2025, supported by an active internal staff referrals portal.

Chronology: The Evolution of New Oakland’s Hiring Strategy

Phase 1: The Grassroots Era of Manual Outreach

For decades, New Oakland Family Centers operated as a growing network without a centralized digital recruitment backbone. In its early iterations, talent acquisition relied heavily on disparate spreadsheets, isolated job postings on platforms like Indeed, and tedious cold outreach to prospective candidates. As the organization expanded to meet surging community demands for mental health services, this manual approach proved unsustainable. Administrative bottlenecks slowed recruitment cycles and limited the organization’s ability to engage top-tier clinicians promptly.

Phase 2: The HRIS Add-On and the Search for Scalability

Seeking automation, the organization initially adopted the basic ATS add-on integrated into its Human Resources Information System (HRIS). Because this software was still in its relative infancy, it introduced frustrating technical barriers and restrictive functional limits.

Prompted to look elsewhere, New Oakland transitioned to a secondary recruitment platform. While this alternative sufficed for a brief period, continuous operational issues, limited visibility features, and clumsy scheduling workflows made it clear that a more sophisticated, purpose-built talent acquisition ecosystem was required.

Phase 3: The Workable Implementation (Mid-2024)

In mid-2024, New Oakland Family Centers officially onboarded Workable. The transition marked a philosophical shift away from centralized administrative gatekeeping toward a collaborative recruitment framework. By empowering hiring managers to directly engage with candidate profiles, review resumes, and leave feedback within a unified dashboard, the organization transformed its human resources department from a transactional bottleneck into a strategic engine.

Supporting Data: Operational Metrics & Impact

The integration of Workable altered every key performance indicator tied to New Oakland’s human resources department.

Official Responses and Perspectives

The HR Coordinator’s Viewpoint

Kathleen Kubiak, HR Coordinator at New Oakland Family Centers, oversees the entirety of the organization’s talent acquisition strategy. She points to clinical roles—which demand specialized educational degrees and state licensures—as the organization’s steepest hiring challenge, particularly in rural or underserved pockets of Michigan.

Reflecting on the broad multi-board advertising capabilities unlocked by Workable, Kubiak notes:

"The amount of people who are getting to see our ads has definitely been impactful for us, especially in a field where there are not as many candidates. We want as many people getting eyes on our ads. Even if one job board hasn’t resulted in a mass amount of hires, we’re still getting our name out there."

Before Workable, managing background checks, drafting complex offer letters, and fielding candidate emails required navigating multiple isolated applications and drafting text from scratch. Today, Kubiak emphasizes the efficiency of centralization:

"It’s kind of like a one-stop area, which is nice to have it all saved in there. The email templates, having those all saved, it’s definitely helpful to be able to just click and send and not have to spend time drafting an email."

Furthermore, Kubiak highlights the profound relief of finally addressing applicant communication shortcomings:

"Closing that loop is something we haven’t been able to do before, which has been really great."

Operational Implications: How Workable Transformed Daily Workflows

1. Overcoming the Clinical Talent Shortage via Multi-Board Distribution

Mental health remains an exceptionally competitive candidate market. By deploying Workable, New Oakland leverages automated multi-board distribution, ensuring that a single job advertisement is pushed across a diverse ecosystem of niche and general boards concurrently. This strategy significantly elevates application volume, particularly within the densely populated Metro Detroit area.

2. Streamlining High-Stakes On-Site Assessments

Given the sensitive nature of acute mental health care, New Oakland enforces a strict hiring policy: no formal job offer is extended without an in-person site visit. Prospective hires must evaluate the working environment firsthand before committing to a role.

By integrating Workable with Microsoft Outlook, the HR team eliminated the tedious phone tag and manual calendar coordination that once plagued the transition between initial phone screens and on-site interviews. Scheduling now takes place seamlessly inside the platform.

3. Unified Document and Contract Management

Managing a mixed workforce comprising both full-time employees and independent contractors requires rigorous legal and administrative precision. Workable houses all critical paperwork—including background check authorization triggers, full-time employment offer letters, and specialized contractor agreements—in one centralized location. HR personnel can execute multi-step onboarding tasks with a single click.

4. Tailored Workflows for Diverse Departments

The hiring lifecycle of a licensed clinical therapist differs drastically from that of an administrative scheduler, registered nurse, or behavioral health technician. Workable’s customizable pipeline structures allow department-specific interview stages to function autonomously. When a new regional office opens, its hiring template is pre-configured and ready for immediate deployment.

5. AI-Driven Screening and Auto-Disqualification

To combat applicant volume fatigue, hiring managers utilize Workable’s AI candidate matching scores to instantly gauge profile relevance before conducting deep-dive resume reviews. Simultaneously, auto-disqualification questions screen out unqualified applicants who lack mandatory state licensures or educational prerequisites before manual labor is wasted.

Conclusion: Sustainable Growth Without Headcount Expansion

The transformation of New Oakland Family Centers from a spreadsheet-dependent operation into a streamlined, multi-location healthcare provider underscores the power of modern HR technology. By overcoming historical communication gaps, structuring clear onboarding deadlines, and engaging existing staff through an internal referral portal, the organization has achieved remarkable stability.

Crucially, New Oakland has achieved these operational gains while maintaining its existing HR headcount. By replacing administrative friction with automated workflows, Kathleen Kubiak and her team can focus on what matters most: connecting vulnerable Michigan families with the compassionate mental health professionals they desperately need.