LEAP Legal Software, a leading provider of cloud-based legal practice management solutions for small law firms, has fundamentally reshaped its global talent acquisition strategy through an eight-year partnership with Workable, a prominent applicant tracking system (ATS). This strategic collaboration has yielded remarkable efficiencies, including a staggering 100% internal referral rate for its US hires over the past year, substantial weekly time savings for its HR team, and the elimination of external recruiter expenditures for key roles. The move underscores a broader trend in the technology sector where agile, intuitive HR technology is becoming indispensable for scaling companies seeking to optimize recruitment processes, enhance candidate experience, and foster a diverse workforce across international borders.
Background: LEAP Legal Software’s Global Footprint and HR Challenges
Founded in Australia over three decades ago, LEAP Legal Software has evolved into a formidable global enterprise, extending its operations across the United Kingdom and the United States. With a workforce of approximately 900 employees worldwide, the company specializes in delivering innovative software solutions designed to streamline legal practices, demonstrating consistent growth in a competitive legal technology market. The US division, crucial for supporting client success, sales, implementation, and operational roles, faced the perennial challenge of rapid scaling. At the helm of its people, recruitment, and culture initiatives in the US is Susanne Poole, an experienced HR leader who, like many counterparts in fast-growing tech environments, has frequently operated as a lean "team of one." This context amplified the need for highly efficient and scalable recruitment tools to sustain the company’s expansion without overwhelming its human resources capacity.
Before the adoption of Workable in December 2018, LEAP’s recruitment efforts were managed through a module embedded within its existing Human Resources Information System (HRIS). While functionally present, this system was characterized by significant friction and operational bottlenecks. Its clunky and unintuitive interface severely hampered efficiency. A critical shortcoming was its inability to automate communications with hiring managers, necessitating manual follow-ups, repeated reminders, and painstaking tracking by Susanne Poole to gather candidate feedback and maintain process momentum. For a single HR professional managing the recruitment demands of a rapidly scaling global entity, this administrative overhead was not merely inefficient; it was unsustainable, diverting valuable strategic time towards mundane tasks. Furthermore, the previous system offered limited access to job boards, constraining LEAP’s ability to broadly distribute job postings and reach diverse talent pools, a particular impediment for a company operating across multiple countries with distinct labor markets. This limitation often meant higher reliance on costly external agencies or a narrower candidate funnel.
"I needed our recruitment to be much more efficient and I needed it to be able to talk to the recruiting managers around the business instantly," Susanne Poole reflected on the challenges. "We struggled with our previous system in doing that." The imperative was clear: LEAP required a recruitment platform that could automate routine tasks, facilitate seamless communication, and offer comprehensive job distribution capabilities to support its ambitious growth trajectory.
The Strategic Pivot: Identifying Workable as the Solution
In 2018, as LEAP embarked on evaluating alternative recruitment solutions, the organization was still largely in a startup phase within certain markets, necessitating a pragmatic approach to investment. Price was a significant consideration, leading the company to rule out some of the larger, more expensive enterprise platforms. However, the decision to partner with Workable was far from purely economic; it was a strategic alignment of technological philosophies. As a technology company itself, LEAP sought a hiring platform that mirrored its own identity: smart, innovative, and genuinely intuitive. The chosen system needed to be user-friendly enough to ensure rapid adoption by hiring managers across six countries, minimizing the need for extensive change management and training – a common pitfall with complex HR software deployments.
Workable distinguished itself from the initial demonstration. Its user interface, comprehensive feature set, and forward-thinking approach resonated deeply with LEAP’s requirements. Susanne Poole noted, "Workable felt like it had its finger on the pulse. It spoke to what we needed and it was just smart. And Workable has always really delivered on that." Key functionalities that cemented Workable’s appeal included its robust people search capabilities and its multi-board job distribution network. These features were particularly vital for LEAP, given its need to recruit across diverse geographies, each with unique talent landscapes and job market dynamics. The ability to centralize and manage both UK and US hiring – and subsequently, other global operations – from a single, unified platform eliminated the complexities and inefficiencies inherent in operating parallel, disparate systems. This consolidation offered a streamlined approach to talent acquisition, promising consistency and control across the organization’s global hiring efforts.
Seamless Implementation and Widespread Adoption
The transition to Workable across LEAP’s global operations proved remarkably smooth, defying the potential complexities often associated with implementing new enterprise-level software. Susanne Poole described the rollout as "remarkably straightforward," a testament to Workable’s intuitive design. To facilitate adoption, Susanne provided hiring managers with concise learning videos and conducted a limited number of targeted workshops. This lean training approach was highly effective, resulting in minimal disruption to ongoing operations. For a company that, at the time, had grown to between 500 and 600 employees, such a frictionless rollout is a significant achievement, highlighting the platform’s inherent user-friendliness.
"People weren’t confused by what we were trying to get out of it. They embraced it quickly. I don’t recall this giving us any hiccups," Poole recounted. This rapid and widespread adoption was not accidental; it was a direct consequence of Workable’s design philosophy, which prioritizes usability for individuals who are not professional recruiters. Hiring managers, who often juggle demanding primary responsibilities, require software that is easy to navigate and integrate into their existing workflows. Workable successfully met this need, enabling swift integration into LEAP’s operational rhythm and ensuring consistent engagement from all stakeholders involved in the hiring process.
Quantifiable Successes: Driving Efficiency and Strategic Talent Acquisition
The adoption of Workable has translated into a suite of impressive, measurable outcomes for LEAP Legal Software, significantly enhancing its talent acquisition capabilities and strategic HR functions.
Significant Time Savings: Reclaiming Valuable HR Hours
One of the most immediate and impactful benefits observed was a dramatic reduction in administrative burden. During LEAP’s peak scaling period in 2018, the previous system necessitated an enormous amount of manual chasing, reminding, and coordinating of feedback, consuming a substantial portion of Susanne Poole’s week. With Workable’s automated communications, intelligent pipeline reminders, and real-time candidate status updates, this overhead largely vanished. Poole estimates reclaiming "easily about 20 hours a week back in 2018." This substantial time saving freed the lean HR team from tedious, repetitive tasks, allowing them to pivot towards more strategic, higher-value work. This included focusing on refining candidate quality, engaging in more strategic hiring discussions with leadership, and proactively building robust talent pipelines, rather than merely keeping the recruitment engine running through sheer manual effort. The regained capacity proved crucial for a rapidly expanding company operating with limited HR resources, enabling a shift from reactive administration to proactive talent strategy.
Mastering Internal Referrals: A Deliberate Talent Strategy
Perhaps the most striking achievement is LEAP’s success in leveraging internal referrals. Over the past 12 months, an astonishing 100% of the company’s US hires have originated from internal referrals. This remarkable figure is not a coincidence but the outcome of a deliberate and highly effective talent strategy, powerfully supported by Workable’s dedicated referral functionality. Instead of broadly advertising positions and sifting through thousands of applications for operational and support roles, Susanne Poole implemented a more focused approach: trusting the existing employee network. By managing the referral pipeline meticulously within Workable, LEAP has been able to consistently hire individuals who come recommended by current employees who already understand the company culture and operational demands.
"To the point where I don’t even post the role on the job boards at the moment. We took a very deliberate approach to do the referral piece," Poole stated. This strategy not only ensures a higher quality of candidates, who are often pre-vetted for cultural fit and relevant skills, but also significantly reduces recruitment costs. Industry data frequently indicates that referred employees tend to have higher retention rates (often by as much as 25% longer than those hired through other channels) and perform better, making this a sustainable and highly effective long-term talent acquisition model. Workable has proven instrumental in facilitating this strategy, providing the tools to track, manage, and optimize the referral process efficiently, turning a valuable employee perk into a core talent acquisition pillar.
Optimized Time-to-Hire and Time-to-Fill: Consistent, Predictable Hiring Cycles
LEAP has achieved an average time-to-hire of 4 weeks and an average time-to-fill of 6 weeks. These metrics are critical indicators of recruitment efficiency and predictability. A consistent time-to-hire signifies a well-oiled recruitment machine, capable of quickly moving candidates through the various stages from application to offer acceptance. Time-to-fill, encompassing the entire candidate journey from job posting to the new employee’s start date, demonstrates LEAP’s ability to swiftly staff open positions. For a global organization like LEAP, maintaining such consistency across different regions is a significant operational advantage, enabling better workforce planning and ensuring that business critical roles are filled without unnecessary delays, thereby minimizing productivity gaps. Workable’s comprehensive platform allows for the management of this entire journey within a single system, providing end-to-end visibility and control, a factor that can reduce average time-to-hire by up to 20% compared to manual systems.
Elimination of External Recruiter Costs: Maximizing Budget Efficiency
For operational and support roles, LEAP has successfully eliminated the need for external recruiter spend. This achievement represents a substantial cost saving, particularly for a growing company that might otherwise incur significant fees to agencies for sourcing candidates. External recruiter fees can range from 15% to 30% of an employee’s first-year salary, making this elimination a direct and significant boost to LEAP’s financial efficiency. Workable has consistently delivered a sufficient pool of qualified candidates through its various sourcing channels and, crucially, by enabling the highly effective internal referral program, reducing dependency on third-party recruitment services. This financial efficiency compounds over time, directly contributing to LEAP’s bottom line and allowing resources to be reallocated to other strategic areas of the business.
Global Cohesion and Scalability: A Unified Platform for International Operations
Workable’s platform has been adopted across LEAP’s operations in Australia, the UK, and the US, supporting hiring efforts across six countries and its entire 900-employee base. This global reach from a single solution is a profound benefit. It standardizes recruitment processes, centralizes candidate data, and provides a unified reporting framework, which is invaluable for a multinational organization. It eradicates the complexities of managing disparate systems for different regions, fostering consistency in employer branding and candidate experience across all markets. This scalability ensures that as LEAP continues its global expansion, its talent acquisition infrastructure is robust and ready to support future growth seamlessly, overcoming common hurdles like varying compliance requirements and talent pool dynamics in different territories.
Elevating the Candidate Experience: Building a Strong Employer Brand
Beyond internal efficiencies, Workable has profoundly improved the candidate experience at LEAP. Automated messaging ensures that every applicant receives timely, professional communication at each stage of the hiring process, regardless of the outcome. This reliability matters significantly in today’s competitive talent market, where the candidate experience is intrinsically linked to an organization’s brand reputation. LEAP, as a technology company, understands the importance of maintaining a positive brand image, even for unsuccessful applicants, recognizing that positive interactions can turn candidates into future customers or referrers.
One feature particularly favored by Susanne Poole is the self-scheduling tool. This functionality allows candidates to select interview times that best suit their availability from a range of options, directly integrating with the hiring managers’ calendars. This eliminates the cumbersome back-and-forth email exchanges typically involved in scheduling, dramatically speeding up the process and enhancing convenience for both parties. "Self-scheduling is brilliant. It connects your calendar, you push it out to candidates, they pick a time that suits them. It stops so much unnecessary back and forth. It is a huge time saver and it always works," Poole enthusiastically shared. This efficiency not only saves time but also conveys a sense of respect for the candidate’s time, contributing to a more positive and professional interaction, an element critical for attracting top talent in a candidate-driven market.
Championing Diversity Through Candidate Anonymization
LEAP Legal Software views diversity not merely as a compliance requirement but as a fundamental competitive advantage and a "superpower." In line with this philosophy, Workable’s candidate anonymization feature has become a strategically vital tool. This functionality allows for the removal of identifying information from candidate profiles before they are reviewed by hiring managers, a proactive measure to mitigate unconscious bias.
Unconscious bias is an inherent human tendency, and even well-intentioned hiring managers can inadvertently gravitate towards candidates who share similar backgrounds or demographics. Anonymization disrupts this pattern, compelling decision-makers to evaluate candidates primarily on their skills, qualifications, and experience, rather than superficial characteristics such as gender, ethnicity, or age, which are often subtly conveyed through names, addresses, or educational institutions. "It takes out that unconscious bias thing that we all have, much as we don’t want to have it," Poole explained. "Our diversity is definitely our superpower. By anonymizing candidates, you’re just finding the people that have what you need. It is so smart and it was so easy to set up." This structural fairness mechanism ensures that LEAP’s hiring decisions are based on merit and potential, reinforcing its commitment to building a diverse and inclusive workforce that truly reflects its global clientele and fosters innovation, a key driver of business success according to numerous studies on corporate diversity.
A Partnership Built on Continuous Innovation: Eight Years and Counting
A crucial aspect of Workable’s value proposition, as highlighted by Susanne Poole, is its commitment to continuous innovation. The platform LEAP adopted in 2018 is "completely different to the Workable we have now," a testament to the ongoing development and introduction of new features and improvements. "The innovation that has come out of Workable, I can’t keep up with it," Poole remarked, underscoring the dynamic nature of the partnership.
For a technology company like LEAP, choosing a hiring platform that consistently evolves is not merely a preference; it is a strategic imperative. The rapid pace of technological change demands that supporting systems, especially those critical to talent acquisition, remain at the cutting edge. Workable’s ability to adapt, incorporate user feedback, and integrate new functionalities ensures that LEAP’s recruitment processes remain efficient, competitive, and aligned with best practices in the ever-changing HR technology landscape. A Workable spokesperson, commenting on successful client partnerships, might remark on the importance of evolving alongside their customers’ needs, stating, "Our commitment is to empower organizations like LEAP with tools that not only meet today’s challenges but anticipate tomorrow’s. This long-standing collaboration is a testament to shared
