Ascent Programs, a pivotal corporate organization overseeing a network of residential and wilderness treatment programs for teens and young adults across Utah, has revolutionized its hiring infrastructure through a strategic partnership with Workable. This initiative has transitioned Ascent from a fragmented, decentralized recruitment model to a unified, data-driven system, significantly enhancing operational efficiency, standardizing hiring practices, and providing critical corporate-level visibility across its six distinct program sites and workforce of over 600 employees. The implementation, initially piloted at Three Peaks Ascent, has demonstrated profound improvements in candidate quality, time-to-hire, and overall HR strategic capabilities, setting a new benchmark for recruitment in the demanding behavioral healthcare sector.
The Complex Landscape of Behavioral Healthcare Staffing
Hiring in the behavioral healthcare sector, particularly for residential and wilderness treatment programs, presents a unique confluence of challenges. Organizations like Ascent Programs are tasked with recruiting a diverse range of professionals, from admissions specialists and licensed therapists to direct-care residential staff and certified teachers. These roles often require specialized credentials, a profound commitment to client well-being, and the ability to navigate emotionally complex environments. The demand for mental health services for adolescents and young adults has been steadily increasing, intensifying the pressure on providers to recruit and retain highly qualified staff to meet growing client needs and maintain optimal client-to-staff ratios.
The inherent nature of direct care roles, which involve continuous interaction with clients, often contributes to higher turnover rates compared to other sectors. Industry reports frequently cite turnover rates for direct care workers ranging from 30% to 50% annually, a phenomenon exacerbated by the demanding nature of the work, potential for burnout, and often competitive compensation landscapes. For Ascent, residential staff represent the highest-volume hiring need and, consequently, the greatest turnover challenge. Furthermore, securing specialized professionals like licensed therapists and certified teachers adds layers of complexity, especially in a tight job market where specific credentials are non-negotiable. This dynamic environment necessitates a robust, adaptable, and efficient hiring system that can not only attract talent but also ensure consistency, compliance, and strategic oversight across multiple, geographically dispersed sites.
From Decentralized Chaos to Unified Strategy: Ascent’s Workable Journey
Prior to adopting Workable, Ascent Programs operated under an entirely decentralized hiring model, a common legacy structure in multi-site organizations that had grown organically. Each of Ascent’s six program sites, including the wilderness program Three Peaks Ascent, managed its own recruitment processes independently. This meant that individual HR directors at each location were responsible for everything from crafting and posting job advertisements—primarily through their own standalone Indeed accounts—to coordinating interviews, managing candidate communications, and processing new hires. The absence of a shared infrastructure resulted in a siloed approach where there was no unified data, no standardized practices, and critically, no overarching visibility at the corporate level.
This fragmented system led to predictable inefficiencies and strategic blind spots. The recruitment process was inherently slower, as the administrative burden for each hire fell squarely on a single individual. Interview questions and evaluation criteria varied significantly from one site to another, raising concerns about consistency, fairness, and potential compliance risks. Collaboration between HR teams and clinical or operational departments was limited, hindering a holistic approach to staffing needs. Perhaps most significantly, the lack of centralized data meant that when hiring challenges emerged—whether a specific role proved difficult to fill at one site or a broader trend affected the entire organization—there was no empirical data to diagnose the root cause or inform a strategic response. Jodi Levie, who oversees corporate HR operations for Ascent, succinctly captured this challenge, stating, "There was no visibility at the corporate level. We weren’t able to report on anything." This data vacuum made it impossible to develop the proactive, data-driven hiring strategies essential for an organization poised for growth and focused on scaling its critical services.
The decision to seek a unified hiring solution was driven by two overarching priorities: the imperative for enhanced visibility and improved accountability. Corporate leadership recognized the urgent need to present hiring performance to the board of directors not through anecdotal accounts, but through concrete, verifiable data. Concurrently, the organization required a platform capable of injecting consistency into a hiring process that, by its very nature, spanned multiple independent sites, each with unique immediate needs but shared overarching organizational goals.
The implementation of Workable commenced at Three Peaks Ascent, serving as a pilot program. The success and tangible benefits observed there quickly paved the way for a phased expansion across all other sites. For Jodi Levie and her team, the critical criteria for any new system were its ease of implementation and its demonstrable organizational impact. Workable delivered on both fronts. Early adopters within the HR teams almost immediately recognized the significant time-saving potential of the platform. As this reality spread through word-of-mouth and visible results, adoption across the programs followed organically, driven by demonstrated value rather than a top-down mandate. "Some people get set in their ways, and they don’t like change," Levie noted. "But as we talked about how much easier it was making our lives, it grew. Within a year, everyone was saying this is so much better." A key accelerator for this rapid adoption was the deliberate decision to extend hiring team access beyond just HR personnel. By involving more employees—granting them visibility into candidates for their own teams and a voice in selecting future colleagues—Ascent fostered a sense of ownership, transforming platform adoption from a policy requirement into a perceived benefit. Within a single year, all six Ascent Programs sites had fully embraced Workable, operating from a single source of truth for all recruitment activities.
Quantifying the Impact of Centralized Hiring
The integration of Workable has yielded a comprehensive suite of quantifiable benefits for Ascent Programs, fundamentally transforming its HR operations and strategic capabilities. The "Quick Results" table provided in the original analysis highlights these critical metrics:
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Time Savings: An estimated 3 to 5 hours are saved per hire. Considering Ascent’s substantial hiring volume, particularly for high-turnover residential staff, this translates into a significant reduction in administrative burden. If Ascent, for instance, makes an average of 150 hires annually across its programs, even at the conservative estimate of 3 hours saved per hire, this amounts to 450 hours of HR and hiring manager time reallocated from administrative tasks to more strategic endeavors like candidate engagement and talent development. This efficiency gain frees up valuable resources, allowing HR professionals to focus on higher-value activities that directly support the organization’s mission.
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Enhanced Visibility and Strategic Reporting: Workable introduced corporate-level reporting capabilities where none existed before. This transformative shift allows Ascent’s leadership and board of directors to receive data-driven updates on hiring performance. Key metrics such as time to hire, candidate source, and qualified applicant volume are now readily available, enabling informed decision-making. A board member, if surveyed, would likely commend the newfound transparency and the ability to align staffing strategies with organizational growth targets, moving beyond anecdotal discussions to evidence-based strategic planning. This elevation of HR reporting has positioned the HR function as a strategic partner rather than merely an administrative department.
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Standardization and Compliance: The platform facilitated the implementation of consistent interview workflows and question sets across all six programs. This standardization is crucial for reducing compliance risks and ensuring defensible, equitable hiring decisions. In a regulated sector like behavioral healthcare, maintaining fairness and avoiding potential discrimination issues are paramount. By "comparing apples to apples," as Levie noted, Ascent can confidently demonstrate that all candidates for the same role are evaluated against consistent criteria, fostering a more transparent and just recruitment process.
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Improved Candidate Quality and Reach: Hiring teams across Ascent’s programs consistently report an increase in the number of qualified applicants. This improvement is a direct result of Workable’s multi-board distribution capabilities, which automatically post job openings to a wide array of platforms, expanding the candidate pool without manual effort. Furthermore, structured evaluation processes, built into Workable’s workflows, help filter for fit earlier in the process, ensuring that hiring managers spend time with the most promising candidates. This leads to better matches and potentially lower turnover rates in the long run.
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Scalability and Unified Infrastructure: The successful expansion from a single pilot program to all six sites underscores Workable’s robust scalability. It has provided Ascent with a unified hiring infrastructure that seamlessly supports a workforce of over 600 employees. This consistent platform ensures that as Ascent continues to grow, its recruitment processes can expand efficiently without compromising quality or oversight, offering a strong foundation for future organizational development.
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High Adoption Rates: Full platform adoption across all sites within one year is a testament to Workable’s user-friendliness and demonstrable value. This rapid and widespread acceptance means that HR directors and hiring managers are operating from a single source of truth, fostering better collaboration, reducing confusion, and maximizing the benefits of the integrated system. The organic adoption, driven by user experience, underscores the platform’s intuitive design and its practical utility for diverse users.
Voices from Ascent’s HR Team
The success of Workable’s implementation at Ascent Programs is echoed in the positive sentiments and experiences shared by the HR team and hiring managers across the organization. Jodi Levie, the corporate HR leader, frequently emphasizes the strategic shift Workable has enabled. "Standardization was huge for us," she stated, highlighting how the platform ensures consistency in candidate evaluation, "making sure we avoid any potential discrimination issues by asking the same questions for the same group of people – comparing apples to apples." Her perspective underscores the platform’s role in elevating HR from an administrative function to a strategic contributor, capable of providing data-driven insights to the board of directors and guiding organizational growth.
HR directors embedded at individual program sites have also expressed significant relief and satisfaction. Prior to Workable, these directors bore the full brunt of recruitment, managing disparate systems and manual tasks. An HR Director at one of Ascent’s residential programs, perhaps one focused on adolescent care, might note, "Before Workable, I was juggling multiple spreadsheets and individual Indeed accounts. Now, everything is in one place. It’s saved me countless hours each week, allowing me to focus more on onboarding and employee development, which directly benefits our clients." This sentiment reflects the profound reduction in administrative burden and the ability to reallocate time to more impactful HR initiatives.
Hiring managers, such as clinical directors or residential program supervisors, who are directly responsible for building their teams, have also become strong advocates. A clinical director overseeing therapists might comment, "The quality of applicants we’re seeing has definitely improved. The structured interview guides ensure we’re asking the right questions, and the collaborative features mean my team can provide feedback on candidates easily. This leads to better hires, which is crucial for delivering high-quality therapeutic care." Expanding access to Workable beyond HR to these hiring managers fostered a sense of ownership, making the recruitment process a truly collaborative effort and contributing to smoother adoption. The ability for candidates to apply seamlessly through various platforms, with all their information feeding directly into Workable, has also been a major advantage. "It’s great that it’s all in one place," Levie confirmed. "Someone can apply from Indeed or another platform and it feeds right through to us. Candidates can do what they want, and we still get the information." This streamlined candidate experience further enhances Ascent’s employer brand and attraction capabilities.
Broader Impact and Implications: Redefining HR in Behavioral Healthcare
Ascent Programs’ successful implementation of Workable transcends mere operational efficiency; it signifies a profound redefinition of the HR function within the demanding behavioral healthcare landscape. This transformation elevates HR from a reactive, administrative support role to a proactive, strategic contributor capable of directly impacting organizational growth and mission fulfillment.
The strategic role of HR is now firmly established within Ascent. With comprehensive reporting capabilities, the HR team can analyze trends in time-to-hire, identify effective candidate sources, and understand where recruitment challenges are most acute. This data-driven approach enables them to anticipate staffing needs, allocate resources more effectively, and proactively address potential shortages. For an organization where staffing levels directly correspond to client capacity and the quality of care, this strategic insight is invaluable. The ability to present this data to the board of directors reinforces HR’s position as a critical partner in long-term planning and sustainability.
Crucially, the improvements in hiring efficiency and candidate quality have a direct and tangible impact on client care. When Ascent can quickly and effectively hire qualified therapists, residential staff, and other professionals, it ensures that programs are adequately staffed to meet the needs of teens and young adults seeking treatment. Faster hiring means fewer delays in admitting new clients, while higher quality hires contribute to more effective therapeutic interventions and a safer, more supportive environment. In a sector dedicated to the well-being of vulnerable populations, the commitment to continuous improvement in staffing is not merely a business imperative; it is a moral one. Ascent’s ability to "hire to match" when new clients are coming into a program directly translates to better service delivery and ultimately, better outcomes for those they serve.
Ascent’s journey also serves as a compelling case study for the broader behavioral health industry, which often grapples with similar staffing challenges. The success demonstrates the power of integrated Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) and recruitment platforms for complex, multi-site organizations. It underscores that even in sectors with unique regulatory requirements, high turnover, and a diverse range of specialized roles, technology can provide the necessary foundation for scalable, compliant, and highly effective talent acquisition. By adopting a unified platform, other providers can learn from Ascent’s experience in streamlining processes, improving data visibility, and empowering hiring managers.
Looking ahead, Ascent Programs is not resting on its laurels. The organization is actively exploring and expanding its utilization of Workable’s more advanced capabilities, particularly around automated messaging and AI screening. This deliberate move aims to make existing workflows even more intentional, further optimize the candidate experience, and maximize the return on the robust infrastructure already in place. Automated messaging can ensure consistent, timely communication with candidates, while AI screening can help efficiently filter large volumes of applications for key qualifications, particularly for high-volume roles like residential staff. This commitment to leveraging technology for continuous improvement is central to Ascent’s mission. Workable has provided Ascent with a strong foundation of visibility, standardization, and speed. What the Ascent team is now building upon this foundation is a hiring function that is truly strategic, adaptable, and capable of not only supporting the organization’s growth but also profoundly enhancing its core mission of providing life-changing care to teens and young adults.
