Korn Ferry Forms Partnership With SAP

July 31, 2020 – Korn Ferry has joined the SAP PartnerEdge program. As organizations seek to compete, thrive and even just survive in today’s disruptive environment, Korn Ferry will collaborate with SAP to improve how organizations develop, engage, motivate and inspire their workforces. It is another recent move by the world’s largest search firm to move further beyond its core business.

By combining Korn Ferry’s IP and advisory work with Human Experience Management (HXM) solutions from SAP, the program allows organizations to access employee sentiment insights and take action to drive engagement and increase productivity.

According to Korn Ferry research, organizations with the highest levels of employee engagement generally have two times annual net profit and 2.5 times greater revenue growth than their equivalents with the lowest levels of engagement.

Korn Ferry is already expanding its employee experience (EX) capabilities by strengthening its ties across SAP. In addition to joining SAP PartnerEdge, it is an existing member of the Qualtrics Partner Network (QPN). The alliance between Korn Ferry, Qualtrics and SAP will help organizations listen to employees, understand sentiment, and take informed actions on what employees need and value in ways that fundamentally drive business performance.

Using technology, such as Qualtrics EmployeeXM, and expertise to collect and interpret what employees are thinking, Korn Ferry said organizations can identify what aspects of the employee experience must change to accelerate individual and organizational performance.

“Human experience management enables companies to look beyond the ‘what’ of talent management—such as turnover and employee absences—and understand the reasons ‘why’ employees may lack engagement or experience poor productivity,” said Byrne Mulrooney, Korn Ferry CEO, professional search, RPO and products. “Through this alliance, we are able to combine leading solutions and technology from Qualtrics and SAP SuccessFactors with Korn Ferry’s intellectual property and end-to-end talent solutions that drive individual and organizational performance.”

Virtual Recruiting Solution

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Korn Ferry is quietly entering new markets in a bid for enhanced sources of revenue. One area is outplacement – a field that would have been unheard of entering until COVID-19 struck. As it laid off and furloughed employees earlier this year, and cut pay for nearly every level of employee within its company, the talent leader was seen shifting gears. Instead of bringing people into corporate roles, it was tapping into ways to help businesses remove them. Conflicts are expected, according to several well-placed sources within the staffing giant.

Korn Ferry also recently launched Korn Ferry Recruit, Nimble, a fully integrated, virtual technology solution for high-volume hiring. It is part of the firm’s line of Nimble solutions. Nimble uses best-in-class AI, along with the proven recruitment intellectual property of Korn Ferry. The firm said that the new solution “is designed to leverage a client’s brand, shifting to a candidate-driven experience by sourcing, attracting, assessing and selecting the right people for the job at an affordable cost-per-hire.”

“Nimble is an efficient and effective tool for organizations that need to quickly ramp up high-volume hiring,” said Jeanne MacDonald, president, Korn Ferry global RPO solutions. “Nimble not only helps widen the net of qualified candidates, it creates success profiles that ensure the people with the rights skills are short-listed. Nimble offers a positive candidate experience in a virtual environment that increases the chances the candidate will accept an offer and stay on the job.”

“Nimble starts at the beginning of the high-volume hiring journey by first creating success profiles that identify candidate attributes needed to be successful in a particular job,” Korn Ferry said. “This ensures the right fit for a role and increases chances of longer tenure once the candidate is on the job.”

It then creates a sourcing strategy using AI to find internal and external candidates. There is a “text to apply” feature, and an AI assistant (a chatbot named Juno) provides 24/7 candidate support. Candidates are guided through each phase of the process, having their questions answered and being updated as to where they stand in the process.

Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief; Dale M. Zupsansky, Managing Editor; and Stephen Sawicki, Managing Editor  – Hunt Scanlon Media