National commercial landscape management leader, LandCare, has successfully revolutionized its talent acquisition (TA) processes through the strategic implementation of Workable, a comprehensive applicant tracking system (ATS). This pivotal shift has yielded measurable improvements in hiring velocity, candidate quality, and the overall strategic positioning of the TA function within the organization, according to recent reports from the company. The transition from an outdated, manual system to a streamlined, mobile-first platform underscores a growing industry trend towards leveraging advanced technology to overcome the complex challenges of managing a large, distributed workforce.
LandCare: A National Presence in Landscape Management
LandCare stands as a prominent force in the commercial landscape management sector, boasting an extensive operational footprint with 76 locations spread across 23 states. At its peak operational periods, the organization’s workforce swells to approximately 4,000 employees, solidifying its position as one of the largest field-based employers within its industry. This vast scale and geographic dispersion inherently present unique challenges for talent acquisition, requiring a robust and adaptable system capable of supporting diverse roles and regional hiring needs.
The talent acquisition efforts for this expansive enterprise are spearheaded by Alex Kline, Director of Talent Acquisition and Employee Services. Kline leads a dedicated team of six recruiters responsible for high-level exempt, corporate, and executive hiring. Beyond their direct recruiting duties, this team serves as crucial subject matter experts and strategic advisors to individual branches, which manage their own crew-level recruiting initiatives. The spectrum of roles LandCare recruits for is broad, encompassing critical branch-level positions such as administrators, production managers, account managers, and branch managers, alongside various corporate functions spanning finance, IT, human resources, marketing, and operations. Periodically, the TA team also conducts executive searches for Vice President and Director-level positions, demanding a sophisticated and versatile recruitment platform.
The Pre-Workable Era: Navigating an Antiquated System
Prior to adopting Workable, LandCare grappled with significant inefficiencies stemming from the absence of a dedicated, modern applicant tracking system. The company’s recruiting operations were primarily channeled through a plugin integrated with its UKG human capital management system. While this plugin facilitated certain processing tasks, it fundamentally lacked the comprehensive functionalities of a true ATS. This meant that much of the recruitment effort was managed manually, outside the system, limiting the scope for efficient, high-volume hiring—a critical requirement for an organization of LandCare’s size and growth trajectory.
Alex Kline vividly described the previous setup as “a very antiquated process,” emphasizing that "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 manual dependency created considerable bottlenecks, particularly in job posting and candidate management. The UKG integration could only automatically push job roles to LandCare’s internal careers page. Any additional desired exposure on external platforms, such as LinkedIn or Indeed, necessitated separate, laborious manual postings. As LandCare continued its expansion and the imperative for swift, effective hiring intensified, this inefficient and time-consuming approach became demonstrably unsustainable. The organization recognized an urgent need for a technological overhaul to support its strategic talent objectives.
The Quest for a Modern Solution: A Deliberate Selection Process
Recognizing the critical need for a transformative change, Alex Kline embarked on a rigorous and methodical evaluation process to identify a suitable ATS. His comprehensive search initially encompassed approximately ten different platforms, which were then systematically narrowed down to a shortlist of five, then three, and finally two finalists. This thorough due diligence underscored LandCare’s commitment to selecting a solution that would not only address immediate pain points but also provide long-term strategic value.
The selection process was not without its complexities. One of the competing finalists presented an array of features that initially appealed to the recruiting team, offering robust reporting capabilities and a wide range of tools typically favored by talent acquisition professionals. However, LandCare’s unique operational model presented a distinct challenge: a significant portion of its hiring managers are field-based, frequently operating on job sites, in company vehicles, or otherwise away from traditional office desks. Engaging these managers effectively in the hiring process demanded a platform that was intuitively easy to use, accessible from anywhere, and required minimal onboarding or training.
Workable ultimately emerged as the clear choice due to its unique combination of functional depth and unparalleled user-friendliness. Kline articulated the decisive factor: “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. Workable makes it so simple for them.” This insight highlighted Workable’s critical advantage: it offered the sophisticated reporting capabilities and comprehensive tools that the TA team required, while simultaneously delivering an exceptional user experience tailored to the practical realities of LandCare’s field-based hiring managers. The ability to provide powerful functionality without introducing unnecessary complexity proved to be the cornerstone of the decision.
Strategic Implementation and Rapid Rollout
The implementation of Workable at LandCare was meticulously planned and executed, led personally by Alex Kline, who functioned as the project manager for the entire rollout. This involved close collaboration with Workable’s dedicated implementation partner, Kashaw, ensuring a seamless and effective transition. Rather than attempting a simultaneous overhaul of all components, Kline opted for a phased rollout strategy, delegating specific responsibilities to optimize efficiency and minimize disruption.
The TA team, for instance, took charge of developing and refining candidate communication templates, ensuring consistency and professionalism across all interactions. Concurrently, the HR team focused on aligning LandCare’s complex organizational structure within Workable, meticulously mapping it to the company’s existing HRIS. This crucial step ensured that candidate flow and data synchronization were logical and efficient across both critical systems. This collaborative and modular approach fostered a highly productive relationship, which Kline described as "very symbiotic." He noted, “We’d bring things to their attention in the afternoon and come back the next morning to viable solutions,” illustrating the responsiveness and effectiveness of the partnership.
This phased strategy paid significant dividends, facilitating a remarkably swift and successful implementation. The core TA team achieved full operational capability on Workable within a mere six weeks. Following a two-week period of internal use, dedicated to fine-tuning workflows and documenting edge cases, the platform was officially launched to the broader business. Impressively, full company adoption of Workable was achieved within just eight weeks of the initial implementation, a testament to the platform’s intuitive design and the effectiveness of the rollout strategy.
Tangible Outcomes: Quantifiable Success in Hiring Metrics
The strategic investment in Workable, implemented in the fall of 2023, has translated into immediate and compounding positive impacts on LandCare’s hiring performance, demonstrating a clear return on investment. Analyzing data for four core branch-level positions, the company recorded 122 hires in 2023—the last full year utilizing the UKG plugin. Following the Workable implementation, this number saw a notable increase to 136 hires in 2024, further climbing to 138 hires in 2025. This upward trend in hiring volume signifies an enhanced capacity to attract and secure talent essential for the company’s growth.
Equally critical is the improvement in efficiency. The "time to hire" metric, a key indicator of recruitment agility, moved in a significantly positive direction. Between 2024 and 2025, LandCare experienced a substantial 23% decrease in its time to hire. This acceleration in the recruitment cycle means more candidates are being brought on board faster, without compromising the quality of individuals reaching hiring managers. Such efficiency is paramount in a competitive labor market and for an industry with seasonal demands.
Furthermore, LandCare has observed an improvement in employee turnover rates since the Workable implementation. While Alex Kline cautiously noted that the reduction cannot be attributed to a single factor, he affirmed that the combined benefits of Workable—including the ability to move candidates through the pipeline more quickly, expand reach to a broader candidate pool, and provide hiring managers with genuine, real-time visibility into their recruitment efforts—have collectively contributed to better hire quality and, consequently, stronger retention outcomes across the organization. This holistic improvement points to the strategic value of an integrated and efficient talent acquisition system.
Elevating Talent Acquisition: A Seat at the Strategic Table
Beyond the quantifiable improvements in hiring metrics, one of the most significant and perhaps unexpected outcomes of Workable’s implementation has been the enhanced clarity and recognition it has brought to the talent acquisition function within LandCare. The platform’s transparent design, which grants hiring managers direct access to their own job pipelines, has provided an unprecedented view into the intricate efforts involved in every hire.
A particularly illustrative anecdote involves LandCare’s marketing director, who posted a graphic designer role and was astonished to receive 2,000 applications within a single month. This experience profoundly altered her understanding and appreciation of the TA team’s extensive work. Kline recounted the director’s realization: “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.”
This newfound transparency has not only fostered a deeper understanding but has also significantly strengthened the collaborative relationship between the TA team and the various departments they serve. Crucially, it has elevated the function’s credibility and strategic importance with executive leadership. By making the often-invisible work of talent acquisition visible and quantifiable, Workable has effectively given the TA team "a lot of street credit in the business," transforming their role from a purely operational one to a recognized strategic partner.
Operational Excellence: Key Workable Features in Action
Workable’s suite of features has demonstrably streamlined LandCare’s recruitment operations, addressing long-standing pain points and introducing new efficiencies.
One-Click Multi-Platform Job Distribution: A major operational shift has been the transformation of job posting. The antiquated UKG plugin limited automatic distribution to LandCare’s careers page, requiring tedious manual reposting to every other platform. Workable, by contrast, enables distribution to over 15 job boards with a single click. While LinkedIn and Indeed remain primary candidate sources, this broader, effortless distribution carries a significant brand awareness benefit. As Alex Kline noted, "Just having your brand out there in all the different areas ultimately drives applicants to you in other ways as well," reinforcing LandCare’s presence in the talent market.
The Mobile App: Designed for the Field: For an organization like LandCare, where a significant portion of hiring managers are consistently in the field—on job sites, in vehicles, and away from traditional office setups—the Workable mobile app has proven to be an indispensable tool. It serves as the primary interface for these managers, enabling them to remain actively engaged in the hiring process regardless of their physical location. When a candidate progresses to a new stage in the workflow, the hiring manager receives an immediate notification on their phone. From there, they can click directly into the Workable app, review resumes, provide feedback, and signal approval or rejection instantaneously. This eliminates the need for a laptop or any delay waiting to return to a desk. Alex Kline himself utilizes the mobile app daily, frequently approving offer letters on the go. He emphasizes its profound impact: “That is probably one of the biggest highlights of the system. Our hiring managers — that’s all they use.”
Flexible Reporting and Data Integration: Workable’s built-in reporting features provide LandCare with quick, actionable operational insights, including hiring velocity and time-to-hire metrics, offering an immediate pulse on recruitment performance. However, for more in-depth strategic analysis, the team leverages Workable’s robust data export capabilities. They seamlessly pull Workable’s raw data directly into their Power BI environment, enabling them to run highly customized reports through their internal data warehouse. This adaptability is crucial for a large organization. Kline highlighted this flexibility: "It’s easy to communicate with the internal mainframe of Workable. We’re able to pull that data into Power BI and run very custom reports.” This dual approach—using native reporting for daily oversight and integrating data for sophisticated analytics—underscores Workable’s capacity to meet diverse reporting needs.
Self-Scheduling and Custom Questions for Enhanced Candidate Experience: Workable’s self-scheduling links have garnered consistent praise, particularly from candidates. The ability to receive a stage-advancement email and immediately book a Teams interview without the typical back-and-forth communication has significantly improved the candidate experience, making the process smoother and more efficient. Additionally, the platform’s custom application questions feature adds a layer of precision vital for scale. LandCare utilizes this to gather crucial sourcing attribution data from LinkedIn messaging campaigns and to allow intern candidates to specify their preferred region of interest. This practical information helps route and prioritize candidates effectively, eliminating manual administrative steps and further enhancing efficiency.
Broader Strategic Implications and Future Outlook
LandCare’s successful adoption of Workable signifies more than just an operational upgrade; it represents a strategic pivot in how the company approaches talent acquisition. In a competitive labor market, particularly within a field-based industry, the ability to recruit efficiently and effectively directly impacts an organization’s growth potential and competitive edge. By empowering hiring managers with an intuitive, mobile-first platform, LandCare has fostered greater engagement and accountability throughout the hiring process, leading to better-quality hires and improved retention.
The enhanced visibility of the TA function has transformed it into a strategic partner, capable of demonstrating its impact with concrete data. This shift allows LandCare to proactively address talent gaps, optimize recruitment strategies, and align hiring efforts more closely with broader business objectives. The ability to quickly adapt to market demands, reach a wider candidate pool through multi-platform distribution, and provide a superior candidate experience positions LandCare as an attractive employer in its sector.
The measurable improvements—a 23% faster time to hire, a sustained increase in hiring volume across critical positions (138 hires in 2025 across four core branch roles), and the elevated credibility of the TA team—collectively demonstrate the profound impact of this technological investment. These outcomes contribute directly to LandCare’s operational stability, capacity for expansion, and overall long-term success.
A Resounding Endorsement
When asked if LandCare would recommend Workable, the response is unequivocally positive. For field-based organizations managing complex, distributed hiring operations across numerous locations, Workable’s ability to foster genuine hiring manager engagement without extensive training is a distinct competitive advantage. The platform has enabled LandCare’s TA team to evolve from a manual, limited system to a nationally coordinated, data-driven recruiting function. This transformation allows them to move candidates faster, broaden their talent reach across more than 15 platforms with a single action, and, crucially, demonstrate their strategic impact with verifiable data. The numbers speak for themselves, confirming Workable as a critical catalyst in LandCare’s ongoing success.
