In a significant operational overhaul, LandCare, a prominent national commercial landscape management company, has successfully transformed its talent acquisition processes through the strategic implementation of Workable, a leading applicant tracking system (ATS). This transition, initiated in the fall of 2023, has yielded measurable improvements across key recruitment metrics, including a substantial reduction in time-to-hire and a notable increase in hiring volume, while simultaneously elevating the strategic importance and visibility of the talent acquisition function within the organization.
LandCare’s Expansive Footprint and Unique Talent Challenges
LandCare stands as a formidable entity in the commercial landscape management sector, boasting an extensive network of 76 locations spread across 23 states. At its peak operational periods, the company commands a substantial workforce of approximately 4,000 employees, positioning it as one of the largest field-based employers in its industry. This vast, geographically dispersed operational model presents inherent complexities for talent acquisition, necessitating a robust, agile, and user-friendly system capable of supporting high-volume hiring for a diverse array of roles.
Leading this critical function is Alex Kline, Director of Talent Acquisition and Employee Services, who oversees a dedicated team of six recruiters. This team is responsible for exempt-level, corporate, and executive hiring, while also providing crucial guidance and expertise to individual branches managing their own crew-level recruitment efforts. The roles LandCare seeks to fill are broad, ranging from essential branch administrators, production managers, and account managers to corporate positions in finance, IT, human resources, marketing, and operations, alongside periodic executive searches for Vice President and Director-level roles. The unique challenge lies in effectively managing this spectrum of roles, many of which require candidates with specific technical skills, local market knowledge, and an understanding of the demands of field-based work. The need for a system that could streamline processes, enhance candidate reach, and empower hiring managers – many of whom operate remotely from traditional office settings – was paramount for LandCare’s continued growth and operational excellence.
The Pre-Workable Era: A System Strained by Growth and Inefficiency
Prior to the adoption of Workable, LandCare’s talent acquisition infrastructure was characterized by significant limitations. The company did not utilize a dedicated applicant tracking system, instead relying on a plugin integrated with its UKG human resources information system (HRIS). This setup, as described by Alex Kline, functioned more as a rudimentary processing tool rather than a comprehensive recruitment management platform. It lacked the advanced functionalities necessary for efficient, high-volume hiring, particularly as LandCare experienced sustained growth and increasing talent demands.
"It was a very antiquated process," Kline stated, reflecting on the previous system. "There was really nothing about it that allowed us to manage our recruitment effort through that system. We were managing it kind of outside and then just processing everything through it." This meant that critical recruitment activities, such as candidate tracking, communication, and workflow management, were largely manual and disjointed. Recruiters and hiring managers often resorted to spreadsheets, emails, and informal methods, creating inefficiencies, increasing the risk of human error, and severely limiting visibility into the recruitment pipeline.
A particularly acute pain point was the process of job posting. The UKG integration could only automatically push job roles to LandCare’s internal careers page. To reach a broader pool of candidates on popular platforms like LinkedIn and Indeed, recruiters were forced to undertake a laborious, separate, and manual posting process for each platform. As the organization expanded and the velocity of hiring became increasingly critical to meeting operational demands, this inherent inefficiency became unsustainable, directly impacting LandCare’s ability to attract and secure top talent in a competitive market. The lack of automation not only consumed valuable recruiter time but also delayed the time-to-market for critical job openings, potentially causing LandCare to miss out on qualified candidates who were quickly scooped up by competitors.
The Strategic Search for a Modern ATS: Prioritizing User Experience and Reach
Recognizing the urgent need for a more sophisticated and integrated solution, Alex Kline embarked on a comprehensive evaluation process. This meticulous search involved assessing approximately ten different platforms, which were systematically narrowed down to a shortlist of five, then three, and finally two finalists. The selection criteria were rigorous, focusing on core functionalities, integration capabilities, scalability, and, crucially, user experience.
The evaluation process highlighted a common dilemma: many advanced ATS platforms offered robust features and extensive reporting capabilities that appealed directly to talent acquisition professionals. However, LandCare’s unique operational model, with a significant proportion of its hiring managers frequently in the field – on job sites, in vehicles, or at remote branch locations – presented a distinct challenge. Engaging these field-based managers in the hiring process required a platform that was intuitive, accessible from anywhere, and demanded minimal onboarding or technical proficiency.
Workable’s Winning Proposition: Simplicity Meets Sophistication for a Distributed Workforce
Ultimately, Workable emerged as the clear and compelling choice. While one of the competing finalists boasted features that initially excited the recruiting team, offering extensive reporting and specialized tools, Workable’s differentiating factor lay in its unparalleled user experience for the company’s distributed workforce.
"If we would have put the other platform in front of our hiring managers, we would have never been able to get the buy-in from them that we have now," Kline explained. "Workable makes it so simple for them." This ease of use was critical. The platform’s intuitive interface and streamlined workflows meant that field-based hiring managers could engage meaningfully with the recruitment process without needing extensive training or disrupting their demanding schedules. Workable successfully bridged the gap between functional depth, offering the necessary reporting capabilities and advanced tools for the TA team, and a simplicity that ensured widespread adoption across the entire organization, from corporate offices to remote branch locations. This combination of powerful functionality and user-centric design proved to be the decisive factor in LandCare’s selection.
A Phased Implementation Built for Scale and Seamless Integration
The implementation of Workable was a carefully orchestrated project, personally led by Alex Kline, who served as the primary project manager. Working in close collaboration with Workable’s dedicated implementation partner, Kashaw, LandCare adopted a phased rollout strategy designed to ensure a smooth transition and minimize disruption. Rather than attempting a monolithic, simultaneous deployment, Kline strategically delegated components of the implementation, leveraging the expertise of various internal teams.
The talent acquisition team, for instance, took charge of developing and customizing candidate communication templates, ensuring consistency and professionalism across all interactions. Concurrently, the HR team focused on meticulously aligning LandCare’s intricate organizational structure within Workable to its existing HRIS. This critical step ensured that candidate flow and data synchronization between the two systems were seamless and logically consistent, preventing bottlenecks and data discrepancies.
This collaborative and iterative approach fostered a highly symbiotic relationship between LandCare’s internal teams and Workable’s implementation specialists. Kline noted, "The relationship was very symbiotic. We’d bring things to their attention in the afternoon and come back the next morning to viable solutions." This responsiveness and proactive problem-solving were instrumental in the rapid and successful deployment. As a result, the core TA team was fully operational on Workable within a remarkably short six-week timeframe. Following an additional two weeks of intensive internal use, dedicated to fine-tuning workflows and documenting edge cases, the platform was confidently launched to the broader business. Impressively, full company-wide adoption was achieved within just eight weeks of the initial implementation, a testament to the system’s intuitive design and the effectiveness of the phased rollout strategy.
Quantifiable Success: Metrics of a Transformed Talent Acquisition Function
The impact of Workable’s implementation, which commenced in the fall of 2023, has been immediate and demonstrably positive, compounding year over year. The operational data clearly illustrates a significant uplift in LandCare’s hiring capabilities and efficiency.
Focusing on four core branch-level positions, a critical segment for LandCare’s operations, the numbers tell a compelling story of growth and improved performance:
- 2023 (last full year on UKG): LandCare hired 122 individuals for these positions.
- 2024 (first full year with Workable): This number increased to 136 hires, representing an 11.5% increase.
- 2025 (continued optimization with Workable): The hiring volume further grew to 138 individuals, indicating sustained positive momentum.
Beyond raw hiring volume, a crucial metric, time-to-hire, also saw a dramatic improvement. From 2024 to 2025, LandCare’s average time-to-hire for these critical roles decreased by a remarkable 23%. This reduction is particularly impactful in a competitive industry like commercial landscaping, where skilled labor can be scarce. A faster time-to-hire means critical roles are filled more quickly, reducing operational strain, minimizing project delays, and ultimately contributing to higher productivity and client satisfaction. This efficiency gain also translates into significant cost savings by reducing the duration of vacancies. Crucially, these improvements were achieved while maintaining, and in many cases enhancing, the quality of candidates reaching hiring managers, underscoring Workable’s ability to streamline processes without compromising talent standards.
Furthermore, LandCare has observed an improvement in employee turnover rates since the implementation of Workable. While Alex Kline acknowledges that retention is influenced by a multitude of factors and cannot be attributed solely to a single system, the enhanced ability to move faster through the recruitment process, reach a wider pool of qualified candidates, and provide hiring managers with genuine, real-time visibility into their pipelines has undeniably contributed to better hiring decisions and stronger overall retention outcomes. This suggests a virtuous cycle where efficient and effective talent acquisition leads to a better fit between employees and roles, fostering greater job satisfaction and longevity.
Enhanced Visibility and Elevated TA Credibility
One of the more profound, and perhaps unexpected, outcomes of Workable’s implementation has been the unprecedented clarity it brought to the entire business regarding the intricate work performed by the talent acquisition team. By granting hiring managers direct access to the platform, they can now independently monitor their own job pipelines, gaining a transparent view of the effort invested in every single hire.
A particularly illustrative anecdote involved LandCare’s marketing director. After posting a graphic designer role, she was astonished to receive 2,000 applications within a single month. This direct exposure to the sheer volume of inbound interest, and the subsequent meticulous sifting process, profoundly altered her perception of the TA team’s workload and expertise.
Kline elaborated on this newfound appreciation: "For her to understand that yes, you may only be seeing five candidates you like to talk to, but this is the level of effort that went into it. Out of 400 candidates, we disqualified 350, scheduled calls with 50, only 30 showed up, we liked 15 of those, 10 made it through the behavioral assessment, and those are your top five. It really gave the TA team a lot of street credit in the business." This transparency demystified the recruitment process, transforming it from an opaque "black box" into a visible, data-driven operation. It fostered a deeper understanding and appreciation for the strategic value that talent acquisition brings, strengthening the collaborative relationship between the TA team and the various departments they serve, and significantly elevating the function’s credibility with senior leadership across the organization.
Operational Efficiencies: From Manual Posts to Multi-Platform Reach
The operational shift in job posting alone represents a monumental leap in efficiency for LandCare. Under the previous UKG plugin, roles were automatically pushed only to the company’s internal careers page. Any additional reach to external platforms like LinkedIn and Indeed necessitated separate, time-consuming manual posts. Workable entirely eradicated this bottleneck. With a single, streamlined action, the platform now automatically distributes job openings to over 15 leading job boards and niche platforms, dramatically expanding LandCare’s candidate reach with minimal effort.
While LinkedIn and Indeed continue to serve as primary candidate sources, the broader distribution facilitated by Workable carries a significant brand awareness benefit that Alex Kline values beyond mere application numbers. "Just having your brand out there in all the different areas ultimately drives applicants to you in other ways as well," he noted. This omnipresence across various job platforms not only increases direct applications but also enhances LandCare’s employer brand, positioning it as an active and attractive employer of choice in the competitive landscaping industry.
Empowering the Field: The Critical Role of Mobile Functionality
For a company like LandCare, where a significant portion of its hiring managers operates from job sites, within vehicles, or away from conventional office desks, the Workable mobile application has proven to be an indispensable tool and a primary interface. In fact, hiring managers at LandCare utilize the mobile app almost exclusively for their recruitment tasks, a testament to its design and utility for a truly field-based workforce.
The mobile app streamlines the entire candidate progression workflow. When a candidate advances to a new stage, the hiring manager receives an immediate email notification on their phone. From there, they can directly click into the Workable app, swiftly review the candidate’s resume, and provide immediate approval or rejection. This eliminates the need for managers to return to a desk, log into a laptop, or delay critical decisions, ensuring that the recruitment process remains fluid and responsive. Alex Kline himself uses the mobile app daily, regularly approving offer letters directly from his phone, highlighting its pervasive utility even at the executive level.
"That is probably one of the biggest highlights of the system," Kline emphasized. "Our hiring managers – that’s all they use." This mobile-first approach is not merely a convenience; it is a fundamental enabler for LandCare’s operational model, ensuring that geographical dispersion does not translate into recruitment delays or disengagement.
Data-Driven Decisions: Reporting and Custom Analytics
Workable provides LandCare with a dual approach to recruitment analytics, catering to both immediate operational insights and sophisticated custom reporting needs. The company leverages Workable’s built-in reporting features for quick, at-a-glance operational views, monitoring essential metrics such as hiring velocity, time-to-hire, and other core indicators that provide an instant pulse on recruiting performance. These native reports offer accessible, real-time data for day-to-day management and performance tracking.
Beyond the native capabilities, LandCare’s team possesses the flexibility to extract Workable’s comprehensive recruitment data and integrate it directly into their Power BI environment. This capability allows them to run highly customized reports through their own internal data warehouse, enabling deeper analytical dives and tailored insights that align with specific strategic objectives. "It’s easy to communicate with the internal mainframe of Workable," Kline noted. "We’re able to pull that data into Power BI and run very custom reports." This adaptability, allowing for both immediate operational oversight and detailed strategic analysis, reflects Workable’s suitability for an organization with diverse data requirements and a commitment to data-driven decision-making.
Streamlined Candidate Experience and Precision Sourcing
Workable’s features extend beyond internal operational efficiencies to significantly enhance the candidate experience and optimize sourcing strategies. Self-scheduling links, in particular, have garnered consistent praise, with positive feedback directly from candidates. The ability to receive a stage-advancement email and immediately book a Teams interview, without the traditional back-and-forth of availability coordination, has dramatically improved the professionalism and efficiency of the candidate journey. This seamless experience not only reduces administrative burden for recruiters but also projects a positive, modern image of LandCare as an employer.
Custom application questions add a crucial layer of precision to the recruitment process, especially valuable at LandCare’s scale. The company utilizes these custom fields to gather essential information, such as sourcing attribution data from LinkedIn messaging campaigns, allowing them to accurately track the effectiveness of various outreach efforts. Additionally, custom questions enable intern candidates to specify their preferred region of the country, providing practical information that helps route and prioritize applications efficiently without introducing manual steps or delays. This intelligent use of custom fields ensures that candidate data is actionable and directly supports LandCare’s strategic talent placement.
Broader Implications and Future Outlook
The transformation of LandCare’s talent acquisition function through Workable carries significant broader implications for the company’s strategic positioning and future growth. By streamlining recruitment, reducing time-to-hire, and increasing hiring volume, LandCare is better equipped to meet the demands of its expanding operations and maintain its competitive edge in the commercial landscaping market. The ability to quickly staff critical field positions directly impacts service delivery, client satisfaction, and the company’s capacity for new projects.
The elevation of the TA team’s credibility, driven by the transparency Workable provides, means that talent acquisition is now recognized as a strategic business partner, rather than just an administrative function. This newfound respect and visibility foster greater collaboration between TA and other departments, leading to more aligned hiring goals and better talent outcomes. The data-driven insights enabled by Workable’s reporting capabilities also empower LandCare’s leadership to make more informed decisions about workforce planning and talent investments.
A Resounding Recommendation
Without question, LandCare unequivocally recommends Workable. For field-based organizations managing distributed hiring across dozens of locations, the capacity to genuinely engage hiring managers in the recruitment process, without the need for extensive training, represents a profound competitive advantage. LandCare’s talent acquisition team has successfully transitioned from a manual, constrained system to a nationally coordinated recruiting function that can tangibly demonstrate its impact with concrete data. The ability to expedite candidate movement, reach a broader talent pool across more than 15 platforms with a single click, and foster greater organizational understanding of the recruitment effort underscores Workable’s transformative power.
The compelling numbers unequivocally tell the story: a remarkable 23% faster time-to-hire, 138 hires achieved across four core branch positions in a single year, and a talent acquisition team that has not only met but exceeded operational expectations, earning significant credibility with leadership through the invaluable visibility and efficiency the Workable platform provided. This strategic investment has not only optimized LandCare’s recruitment processes but has also fundamentally strengthened its human capital foundation for sustained future success.
