Main Facts: Modernizing Recruitment in a High-Stakes Sector In the landscape of modern healthcare, few challenges match the complexity of recruiting specialized talent for behavioral health. For nonprofit mental health provider New Oakland Family Centers, staffing is not merely an operational necessity—it is the direct lifeline determining whether vulnerable patients receive critical care. Operating 16 offices across Michigan, New Oakland employs 319 staff members. Its workforce is a hybrid ecosystem of specialized clinical professionals and essential operational staff. The roster includes outpatient therapists, psychiatric nurse practitioners, registered nurses, behavioral health technicians, call center representatives, and medical transport drivers. However, scaling and sustaining this workforce has historically been an uphill battle. Directed by HR Coordinator Kathleen Kubiak—who manages the entirety of the organization’s talent acquisition—the human resources department faced a compounding crisis: a severe talent shortage of licensed clinical professionals, exacerbated by fragmented, outdated recruitment technology. The turning point arrived in mid-2024 when New Oakland Family Centers implemented Workable, an advanced applicant tracking system (ATS) and talent acquisition platform. Over the course of its first full operational year, the platform has fundamentally reshaped the organization’s hiring architecture, driving down turnover rates in 2025, streamlining multi-location onboarding, and closing critical communication loops with applicants. Chronology of a Recruitment Evolution: From Spreadsheets to Automation The Early Era: Manual Scrambling and Spreadsheets When New Oakland Family Centers began its operational expansion, its talent acquisition methods were rudimentary. The HR infrastructure relied heavily on manual spreadsheets, individual job postings manually pushed to platforms like Indeed, and time-consuming cold outreach to prospective candidates. As the organization expanded its geographical footprint across Michigan, this decentralized approach proved unsustainable. The HRIS Integration Trap Seeking a more centralized solution, the nonprofit adopted the applicant tracking system (ATS) add-on offered by its Human Resources Information System (HRIS) provider. Unfortunately, the software was still in its infancy. It presented structural barriers, rigid workflows, and integration gaps that forced the HR team to continue performing heavy administrative workarounds. Recognizing the platform’s limitations, New Oakland transitioned to another specialized ATS. While this second platform served the organization for one to two years, persistent operational bugs and a lack of scalable features ultimately forced a new search for a robust, enterprise-grade recruitment ecosystem. The Mid-2024 Implementation of Workable In mid-2024, New Oakland Family Centers migrated its entire recruitment apparatus to Workable. The selection was driven by a need for broader candidate reach, native calendar integrations, advanced candidate relationship management (CRM) tagging, and streamlined document automation. This transition marked a cultural and operational shift from an HR-dependent bottleneck model to a decentralized, collaborative hiring process where hiring managers took active ownership of talent acquisition. Supporting Data & Metrics: The Quantitative Impact The integration of Workable brought immediate, measurable improvements across New Oakland’s recruitment lifecycle. The transformation is highlighted across several key performance indicators: Category Metric / Outcome Business Impact Hiring Reach Multi-board job distribution across 16 Michigan locations Expanded candidate visibility in a mental health field with a limited clinical talent pool Pipeline Standardization Customizable workflows per role type and department Therapists, nurses, and nonclinical staff each move through tailored interview stages Document Management Offer letters and contractual agreements for both employees and contractors managed in Workable Full-time and contract staff processed through a single, unified platform Time to Hire Improved through templated documents and structured HR deadlines Recruiting, onboarding, and credentialing segmented into distinct stages that accelerate candidate progression Candidate Communication Every applicant acknowledged; every disqualification triggers a notification Closed a communication loop that had gone unaddressed through two previous systems Retention Turnover trending downward in the first full year after implementation Referrals portal actively engaging existing staff in the broader hiring process Official Responses and Perspectives: Inside the HR Transformation The human element of recruitment remains paramount, especially in a mission-driven nonprofit sector. Kathleen Kubiak, HR Coordinator at New Oakland Family Centers, offers direct insights into how the platform transformed daily operations. Expanding Reach in a Talent-Scarce Market Recruiting clinical professionals who hold master’s degrees and specialized state licenses is a notoriously difficult undertaking. This challenge is magnified in specific regions of Michigan where geographic and demographic factors create severe clinical droughts. Through Workable’s multi-board distribution system, a single job posting is automatically broadcasted across a vast network of job boards simultaneously. This maximized visibility has yielded tangible benefits, particularly in high-density regions like Metro Detroit. "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," explains Kubiak. "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." Streamlining the Onboarding and Offer Workflow Previously, initiating background checks required navigating multiple disparate software tools, drafting manual emails one by one, and chasing candidates when authorization forms stalled. Offer letters demanded an entirely separate workflow. Today, background check templates, full-time employment offer letters, and specialized contract agreements for independent contractors all live natively within Workable. They can be dispatched in a single, streamlined action alongside pre-saved communication templates. "It’s kind of like a one-stop area, which is nice to have it all saved in there," says Kubiak. "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." Closing the Communication Loop One of the most profound cultural shifts for New Oakland has been the systemic elimination of "candidate ghosting." In previous eras, the sheer volume of applicants meant that communication frequently fell through the cracks, leaving unhired candidates without closure. Workable automated this critical touchpoint. Every applicant now receives an instant, automated acknowledgment upon submission—routed cleverly through an assistant’s no-reply inbox to protect HR bandwidth. Furthermore, candidates who are disqualified are automatically notified when moved out of the pipeline. "Closing that loop is something we haven’t been able to do before, which has been really great," Kubiak notes. Implications: Building a Sustainable Future for Behavioral Healthcare The migration to Workable extends far beyond administrative convenience; it holds profound strategic implications for the long-term viability and growth of New Oakland Family Centers. 1. Decentralization and Shared Ownership Under legacy systems, HR served as an absolute gatekeeper and administrative intermediary for every hiring action. Workable’s intuitive interface altered this dynamic. Departmental leaders and hiring managers now log directly into the platform to review candidate profiles, leave internal notes, evaluate AI-driven match scores, and participate collaboratively in hiring decisions. This shared ownership has distributed the weight of recruitment naturally across the organization without increasing HR headcount. 2. Tailored Workflows for Diverse Roles A one-size-fits-all recruitment pipeline fails when an organization hires wildly different profiles—from licensed clinical therapists and psychiatric nurses to administrative schedulers and commercial drivers. Workable enabled New Oakland to construct bespoke, role-specific pipelines. When a new regional office opens, its customized hiring workflow is pre-built and ready to deploy instantly. 3. Mitigating Turnover Through Strategic Engagement Perhaps the most critical bottom-line implication is talent retention. By tightening the time-to-hire window, ensuring thorough candidate-to-environment alignment via mandatory on-site visits, and utilizing built-in referral portals to engage existing staff, New Oakland Family Centers witnessed a downward trend in staff turnover throughout 2025. By solving the mechanics of recruitment, New Oakland Family Centers has ensured that its administrative foundation remains as strong, reliable, and compassionate as the clinical care it delivers to communities across Michigan every single day. Post navigation The Regulatory Labyrinth: Navigating the Fragmented Landscape of AI Hiring Compliance Hospitality Sector Pledges 100,000 Jobs for NEET Youth as Government Combats Economic Inactivity
