Ascent Programs, a leading corporate organization overseeing a network of residential and wilderness treatment programs for teens and young adults across Utah, has successfully revolutionized its talent acquisition strategy through a comprehensive partnership with Workable, a prominent applicant tracking system. This strategic implementation has addressed critical challenges posed by a previously decentralized hiring model, delivering unprecedented visibility, standardization, and efficiency across its six distinct program sites and a workforce exceeding 600 employees. The journey began with a pilot at Three Peaks Ascent, the organization’s wilderness program, and rapidly expanded to encompass all operations, fundamentally reshaping how Ascent attracts, evaluates, and secures the specialized talent essential to its mission of providing quality care.
The Decentralized Labyrinth: Ascent’s Pre-Workable Recruitment Landscape
Before the advent of a unified solution, Ascent Programs grappled with a fragmented and inconsistent recruitment ecosystem. Each of its six program sites operated with near-total autonomy in their hiring efforts. This meant individual HR directors managed their own recruitment processes, primarily relying on standalone Indeed accounts for job postings, candidate sourcing, and initial screening. The administrative burden was immense, as each director independently handled payment for job advertisements, managed applications, coordinated interviews, and communicated with candidates. Crucially, there was no shared infrastructure to connect these disparate efforts, leading to a complete absence of unified data or corporate-level visibility into the organization’s overall hiring performance.
The consequences of this decentralized approach were profound and predictable, creating significant hurdles for an organization dedicated to specialized care. The recruitment process was inherently slower, as the entire weight of each hire, from initial posting to offer, rested on a single individual at each site. This lack of collaborative tools also meant that interview questions and evaluation criteria varied widely from one program to another, making it impossible to guarantee consistency or equity in candidate assessment. Collaboration between HR teams and critical clinical or operational departments was limited, further slowing down decision-making. Moreover, when specific hiring challenges emerged—whether a bottleneck at a particular site or a broader market shift impacting multiple programs—Ascent lacked the fundamental data necessary to diagnose the root cause, let alone formulate an effective, data-driven response. Jodi Levie, who oversees HR operations at the corporate level, articulated this challenge succinctly, stating, "There was no visibility at the corporate level. We weren’t able to report on anything." This critical insight gap meant that Ascent was effectively flying blind, unable to build the kind of scalable, strategic talent acquisition strategy required for an organization of its size and growth trajectory.
The complexity was further exacerbated by the diverse range of roles Ascent consistently needs to fill. Admissions teams are vital for client intake, licensed therapists and certified teachers are critical for delivering specialized clinical and educational care, and residential staff represent the highest-volume hiring need. The latter, given the demanding nature of direct client interaction, also presents the highest turnover challenge. Recruiting for specialized roles, particularly when market conditions tighten or specific professional credentials are mandatory, added an additional layer of complexity that a fragmented system was ill-equipped to handle. Without centralized oversight or data, identifying regional shortages for specific credentials or understanding the efficacy of different recruitment channels for various roles was nearly impossible, directly impacting the organization’s capacity to serve its clients effectively.
A Strategic Imperative: Driving Towards Visibility and Accountability
The decision to seek a unified hiring solution for Ascent Programs was driven by two overarching strategic priorities: enhancing corporate visibility and ensuring accountability across its distributed operations. Leadership recognized the imperative to transition from anecdotal hiring updates to a data-driven presentation of talent acquisition performance, particularly for its board of directors. Simultaneously, the organization needed a robust platform capable of bringing consistency and structure to a hiring process that, by its very nature, operated across multiple independent sites while still accommodating local nuances.
After a thorough evaluation, Workable was identified as the ideal partner. The implementation strategy began with a targeted pilot program at Three Peaks Ascent, designed to test the platform’s efficacy and gather initial feedback from an operational site. For Jodi Levie and her team, the most crucial criteria for selection were ease of implementation and the demonstrable organizational impact. Workable delivered on both fronts, proving its intuitive design and immediate benefits during the pilot phase.
The expansion from a single pilot program to all six sites within a year was not achieved through a top-down mandate but rather through the undeniable "demonstrated value" Workable offered. Early adopters within the HR teams quickly recognized the significant time savings and streamlined workflows the platform provided. As positive word-of-mouth spread across the different programs, adoption gained organic momentum. Jodi Levie observed, "Some people get set in their ways, and they don’t like change. 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." This rapid and widespread adoption underscores the platform’s user-friendliness and its immediate positive impact on daily HR operations.
A key factor in accelerating this adoption was the deliberate decision to expand access to hiring teams beyond just HR personnel. By empowering more employees—including clinical directors, program managers, and team leads—with visibility into candidates for their own teams and a direct voice in the selection process, Ascent fostered a powerful sense of ownership. This collaborative approach transformed platform adoption from a mere policy directive into a tangible benefit, integrating Workable deeply into the operational fabric of each program and making it an indispensable tool for team leaders. This move also aligns with modern HR best practices that emphasize shared responsibility in talent acquisition to improve hiring quality and cultural fit.
Achieving Unprecedented Standardization Across Diverse Programs
One of the most profound and impactful transformations enabled by Workable was the establishment of structured and consistent hiring practices across all six Ascent Programs. Prior to this, the evaluation of candidates for critical roles, such as licensed therapists, could vary significantly between different program sites. There was no guaranteed uniformity in the assessment criteria, leading to potential inconsistencies in hiring quality and fairness.
With Workable, Ascent has successfully implemented role-specific workflows and standardized interview question sets for every position type. This ranges from high-volume residential staff roles to complex clinical positions that necessitate multiple stages of evaluation and specialized assessments. Now, every candidate applying for the same role, regardless of the program site, navigates an identical application and interview process, is asked the same set of predetermined questions, and is evaluated against the same objective criteria. This "comparing apples to apples" approach, as highlighted by Jodi Levie, has far-reaching implications.
Beyond mere efficiency, this standardization significantly reduces the risk of inconsistency-driven compliance issues. In the sensitive field of behavioral health, ensuring equitable and defensible hiring decisions is paramount. By removing subjective variations in the interview process, Ascent mitigates potential biases and strengthens its position against any claims of discrimination, aligning with legal and ethical standards for fair employment practices. "Standardization was huge for us. We’re making sure we avoid any potential discrimination issues by asking the same questions for the same group of people – comparing apples to apples," Levie affirmed.
Furthermore, Workable’s flexibility allowed Ascent to customize these standardized workflows to accommodate the nuanced requirements of different roles. For instance, more complex clinical hires might include additional screening steps, peer interviews, or specific credential verification stages, while the process for higher-volume residential roles can be streamlined for speed and efficiency. This intelligent customization ensures that standardization does not flatten the unique demands of each position but rather enhances the rigor and relevance of the evaluation process, ultimately leading to better-matched hires and a stronger, more compliant workforce across the entire organization. This strategic balance between consistency and flexibility is a hallmark of effective modern talent acquisition systems.
Transforming HR into a Data-Driven Strategic Partner
Perhaps the most transformative shift for Ascent Programs, moving beyond operational efficiency, has been the elevation of its HR function from administrative support to a strategic contributor, largely powered by Workable’s robust reporting capabilities. In the pre-Workable era, the corporate HR team operated without any centralized data, making it impossible to generate meaningful reports on hiring performance. Now, Ascent leverages Workable to meticulously track key metrics such as time to hire, the volume of qualified candidates, and the source of applicants across all six programs. This wealth of data provides actionable insights that inform decisions at both the operational and strategic levels.
The reporting features within Workable are, according to Jodi Levie, "easy to use," facilitating rapid data extraction and analysis by the HR team. Beyond historical reporting, the team has also discovered significant value in Workable’s predictive reporting functionality. This advanced capability allows Ascent to identify patterns and trends in application flow, providing foresight into potential hiring challenges. For example, if a particular site experiences difficulty in filling a specific role, HR can now consult historical data to determine whether the challenge is indicative of a temporary market dip—a short-term fluctuation in candidate availability—or a more systemic issue that warrants a targeted, strategic intervention, such as revising job descriptions, exploring new recruitment channels, or adjusting compensation.
The ability to provide concrete, data-backed insights has fundamentally altered Ascent’s interaction with its leadership and board of directors. "We can now report to our board of directors. We can show them areas of improvement, areas that have improved, and explain why we’re having a challenge in a specific area. We have data to drive our strategies now," Levie explained. This capability empowers HR to present hiring performance not as subjective observations but as objective, quantifiable metrics, fostering greater confidence and transparency. It allows the board to understand the true state of talent acquisition, allocate resources more effectively, and align recruitment strategies with broader organizational goals and growth initiatives. This strategic shift from instinct-based decision-making to evidence-based strategy represents a significant maturation of Ascent’s HR function, positioning it as a vital partner in the organization’s ongoing success and expansion.
Accelerated Hiring: Speed and Quality Without Compromise
For an organization like Ascent Programs, where staffing levels directly dictate client capacity and the ability to provide essential care, the speed and efficiency of hiring are not merely desirable but an operational necessity. When new clients are admitted into a program, Ascent must rapidly scale its workforce to meet the increased demand while upholding the highest standards of care. Workable has provided the robust infrastructure to achieve this critical balance, enabling rapid hiring cycles without sacrificing the quality or integrity of the recruitment process.
The platform has delivered significant time savings, with an estimated three to five hours saved per hire across various administrative tasks such as research, candidate outreach, and coordination. This cumulative saving across hundreds of hires annually translates into substantial operational efficiency. A key feature contributing to this speed is Workable’s multi-board job distribution capability, which allows Ascent to post open roles to numerous job boards and platforms simultaneously from a single interface. This eliminates the laborious and time-consuming manual posting process on individual sites, dramatically expanding candidate reach while reducing administrative overhead.
Further enhancing efficiency, Workable’s self-scheduling features empower candidates to book interview slots at their convenience, minimizing back-and-forth communication and accelerating the interview phase. Candidate texting functionalities have also streamlined communication, allowing for quick updates and reminders. Ascent is actively in the process of expanding its use of automated messaging workflows, which will bring even greater consistency and speed to candidate communication, ensuring timely engagement and a positive applicant experience.
Crucially, this acceleration in hiring has not come at the expense of quality. Hiring teams across all six programs consistently report seeing a higher volume of qualified applicants. This improved candidate quality is a direct result of broader job distribution reaching a more diverse talent pool and the more structured evaluation processes that filter for role-specific fit earlier in the recruitment pipeline. By moving faster and attracting better-matched candidates, Ascent can quickly scale its operations in response to client demand, ensuring that its mission to provide critical treatment services remains uninterrupted and of the highest caliber. This symbiotic relationship between speed, quality, and mission fulfillment underscores the strategic value Workable brings to Ascent Programs.
A Seamless Candidate Journey: Enhancing the Applicant Experience
In today’s competitive talent market, providing a positive and seamless candidate experience is paramount, reflecting directly on an organization’s brand and its ability to attract top talent. Workable has enabled Ascent Programs to offer an exceptionally smooth and user-friendly application journey, irrespective of how a candidate initially discovers an open position. Whether an applicant comes through a major job board like Indeed, navigates directly to Ascent’s careers page, or is referred through internal channels, their information is consistently and automatically routed directly into the Workable platform.
This centralized intake system eliminates the need for HR teams to manage multiple platforms or reconcile candidate data across disparate systems, a common pain point in decentralized recruitment models. Everything, from initial application to interview notes and offer letters, now resides in one unified place. This not only streamlines the internal HR process but also ensures that no candidate falls through the cracks and that their journey through the recruitment pipeline is consistent.
Jodi Levie emphasized this benefit, stating, "It’s great that it’s all in one place. 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 highlights the system’s flexibility in accommodating various candidate preferences for application channels while maintaining an organized and efficient backend for Ascent’s HR professionals. The application process itself has been designed to be intuitive and free of unnecessary friction. Ascent reports no significant complaints from candidates regarding their experience, which is a strong indicator of a well-designed and effective system. In an industry where attracting empathetic and skilled professionals is crucial, a positive candidate experience contributes significantly to Ascent’s employer brand, helping them stand out as an employer of choice for those dedicated to helping teens and young adults.
Looking Ahead: Continuous Improvement and Strategic Growth
The implementation of Workable has laid a robust foundation for Ascent Programs, but the organization’s commitment to continuous improvement in its talent acquisition strategy remains unwavering. Three Peaks Ascent and its sister programs are experiencing ongoing growth, and Ascent is actively engaged in deliberately expanding its utilization of Workable’s advanced capabilities. Future plans specifically target enhanced use of automated messaging workflows and exploring the potential of AI screening functionalities. These initiatives aim to make existing workflows even more intentional, efficient, and data-driven, thereby maximizing the return on the significant infrastructure investment already in place.
For an organization managing clinical hiring at scale, where the quality and suitability of every single hire directly impact the well-being and therapeutic outcomes of the vulnerable teens and young adults they serve, this commitment to refinement is not merely an operational nicety; it is central to Ascent’s core mission. The direct correlation between skilled, compassionate staff and the efficacy of treatment programs underscores the strategic importance of a sophisticated and continuously optimized hiring function.
Workable has provided Ascent Programs with the essential pillars of modern recruitment: unparalleled visibility into hiring operations, rigorous standardization across diverse sites, and accelerated speed in talent acquisition. Building upon this solid foundation, Ascent’s team is now developing a hiring function that is not only highly efficient but also genuinely strategic. This evolved capability enables the organization to proactively support its ambitious growth objectives while simultaneously ensuring the highest quality of care, directly fulfilling its critical mission in the community. The journey with Workable represents a paradigm shift, transforming HR from a reactive administrative unit into a proactive, data-informed strategic partner essential for Ascent’s sustained success and impact.
