These are a few of my favorite (Workday® 2020R1 Recruiting) things...

As a kid, I loved that song. It always made me feel happy remembering the things that made me happy. Now as a grown man, I can still appreciate rainbows and whiskers - but I also have a job. Part of that job is to make sure my organization continues to reap it's investment in its HCM system! So - here's a list of my top 6 favorite recruiting "things" about 2020R1.

Let's start with the name: 2020R1. The name just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? In all seriousness, Workday® did decide to change it's naming convention - and for good reason. Workday® is more than HCM these days, and it is definitely beneficial to make sure everyone is talking about the same release across products. So my first favorite thing will be: Everyone deciding how to pronounce the new naming convention. I've heard "2020R1", "2020 Round 1", "2020 Release 1". I'm guessing it's going to be a little bit before we all settle on a name.

Now, let's get to the meat and potatoes here. You come to this blog to hear about Workday® recruiting, so I'll deliver for the next 5 items.

# 2 is Prevent Duplicate Records During Hiring and Contracting. For my organization, this has been a huge struggle. We've added condition rules to block Duplicate SSNs, but there's always been a loophole. I think Workday's done a nice job in giving us a task in hire to search and return possible duplicates in the Hire Business Process. It's worth a look to see if it will work for your organization.

#3 - Autocomplete Staffing Processes. Previously, workday allowed an autocomplete of the Propose Compensation Hire Step, if it came from recruiting, but several other key sub-processes didn't get the same love. Things have changed with 2020R1. You'll be able to configure autocompletion of:

• Add Additional Job

• Contract Contingent Worker

• One Time-Payment

• Stock Grant

• Propose Compensation Hire

• Assign Pay Group

This is great for my organization, as we have been wishing to autocomplete the One-Time Payment and Stock Grant sub-processes, and I can remove some condition rules that I had in those sub-processes that skipped approvals when the business process was launched from Recruiting.

#4 - Suggested Skills for External Candidates. It's no surprise that Workday® has lept into Machine Learning with both feet. Dave and Aneel have been talking about it the last two years at Rising. Recruiting's first dive will be through skills. You will have to opt-in to innovation services in order to get this feature, but an external resume will be parsed, and skills suggested. Getting skills for candidates only helps talent down the road, so consider this feature as you look at how machine learning is going to shape your tenant down the road.

#5 - Task Consolidation for Review Offer. If you have any high volume recruiting, you know when your inbox gets into the 3 (sometimes 4) digits, things can get a little scary. Workday® has been focusing on High-volume recruiting for several releases now, but this one may be my favorite. Approvals now get the workbook treatment! Your high-volume managers and HR Partners can consolidate those offer steps into a workbook and review/approve up to 200 in a single workbook. When you are testing, remember, proxy doesn't work with workbooks, so be prepared to do some password changes in that preview tenant.

#6 - Regenerate Candidate Offer Documents. This one is my fav. It's always been a pain to change something simple like a start date on an offer letter. This new Business Process will allow you to correct that Offer and regenerate the doc for those changes that you used to end up processing an Undo Move From Hire. Make sure you read the What's new for this, as there's lots of things to consider when choosing this feature, but I believe it will be a true game-changer for recruiter efficiency.

There you have it - my favorite things for 2020R1 - now, how are you going to pronounce the new naming convention?