In 2021, Forterra had less than 100 employees. After securing $200 million in funding, the driverless vehicle systems company quickly grew its workforce and found itself in need of a recruiting system to source top talent and a performance management system to retain it. 

At the time, Forterra was using Lever for recruiting and Lattice for performance management. But Taylor Baisey, Forterra’s Head of People, found that piling on more software solutions ballooned software costs and slowed employees down. 

“We were experiencing tool fatigue. The organization as a whole wasn’t open to learning new solutions,” Taylor said. “Because we were spread across different solutions, we were paying more and utilizing less.”

What’s more, the patchwork of systems made it difficult to align recruiting and onboarding processes, which caused offer letters to slip through the cracks. 

“Once we verbally offered a candidate a position and it was time for a formal offer letter, that’s where the HR handoff should have happened. Yet, with offers firing from Lever, it was the recruiter who was responsible for drafting and sending them. It was such a pivotal moment,” Taylor said. But Forterra’s reliance on a separate applicant tracking system led to a disjointed process that didn’t maximize the team, leading to incomplete employee records and the team hunting for offer details after the fact. 

“The best recruiter in the world may close better than anyone else but not have the immensely high attention to detail to go through the gruesome offer letter process,” Taylor said. “And HR people needed to have all this access in Lever but didn’t want to play in that system because that’s talent’s world. It was rough.” Talent and HR playing in two separate systems led to error-ridden offers and incomplete employee records that slowed down the team and negatively impacted the new hire experience.

To find stellar candidates and keep current employees engaged, Forterra needed less software sprawl and more automations.

Forterra was already using Rippling to streamline most HR processes across payroll, time and attendance tracking, and benefits enrollment. 

A fan of the platform, the company saw an opportunity to manage the entire employee lifecycle under one unified system. Taylor decided to switch from Lever to Rippling Recruiting and from Lattice to Rippling Performance Management. 

The result: one unified system to seamlessly handle recruiting, HR, and employee engagement. “Rippling force-multiplied our team, created a better, more efficient employee experience, and enabled data-rich decision-making,” Taylor said.

According to Taylor, Forterra’s employees preferred using Rippling for multiple processes instead of navigating a scattered tech stack. 

And while recruiting and HR teams used to work in silos, Taylor said Rippling unified Forterra’s hiring process to become “seamless, automated, and error-free.” 

Bungled offer letter handoffs are now a thing of the past; Rippling’s ATS automatically transfers recruiting data into a locally compliant offer letter. Once the letter is signed, Rippling’s HRIS automatically triggers an onboarding workflow that sets new hires up for day-one success. 

What’s more, by unifying talent and performance management, Forterra has the newfound bandwidth to think about how short-term recruiting strategy impacts long-term company goals. 

“I stress all the time: If we can get recruiting right, it makes performance management way easier,” Taylor said. “As we build out job requisitions, interview strategies, onboarding plans, and 30-60-90-day engagement surveys, the fact that all of these pieces are housed within the Rippling system makes it so much easier to get employees to buy in.”

Another crucial benefit of consolidating systems: “Rippling provided us with per-employee cost savings for all of the same features and more,” Taylor said. “I truly believe the actual solution is far superior as well.”

Rippling provided us with per-employee cost savings for all of the same features and more. I truly believe the actual solution is far superior as well.

Taylor Baisey

Head of People at Forterra

According to Taylor, Lever had a clunky interface that admins and employees struggled to learn. “For me, it was stark in contrast to the Rippling solution,” Taylor said. “The only equivalent for me is the first time I used an iPhone. It was impossibly intuitive.”

While hiring managers and interview teams were hesitant to toggle through Lever’s workflows, “they’re extremely comfortable in the Rippling system,” Taylor said. “Now they can go in and help us cut through the noise in recruiting.” Forterra’s hiring teams use Rippling to integrate external job boards to the company’s LinkedIn account, quickly open new job reqs, and post different variations of that similar req for different postings. 

Taylor also said that the user-friendliness of Rippling Performance Management makes employees feel more comfortable providing feedback about their experiences and engagement.

While Taylor was unimpressed with Lever’s reporting capabilities, Rippling gives Forterra more visibility into hiring data, helping the company develop concise interview strategies and effective headcount plans.  

“Rippling runs reports in minutes—highly customized and automated for regular distribution,” Taylor said. “We’re able to access data to enable faster, more informed decisions that not only impact the employee experience by the company’s operations.”

While Forterra had trouble leveraging its past solution’s customer support, Taylor said Rippling is quick to address any questions that come up. “I love that I can jump into the in-app chat feature and get an answer,” she said, also highlighting the bevy of technical support managers on standby and online resources ready to lend a hand. 

And even though support is always available, Taylor is astounded at how infrequently she needs it. “We work in software; bugs are going to happen. They don’t in Rippling, almost ever. It’s incredible,” she said. “When they do, the support team is always right on it.”

We work in software; bugs are going to happen. They don’t in Rippling, almost ever. It’s incredible.

Taylor Baisey

Head of People at Forterra

Lastly, Rippling lets Forterra grow its workforce with a small back office. “I like to run a lean team,” Taylor said. Despite the company having a four-person HR & Talent team, compared to nine when she first joined the team, “there hasn’t been an ounce of slowdown in terms of the services we provide or the company feeling like it’s missing something,” she said. 

“I attribute so much of my ability to run the team the way I do to Rippling,” Taylor added. “We have the right system for us without a question.”

• Cost savings: By consolidating hiring, HR, and performance management systems, Forterra spent less per employee with Rippling. 
• Efficiency gains: “Since switching to Rippling, the efficiency of our hiring and onboarding processes has improved tenfold,” Taylor said.
• Better recruiting: With Rippling, Forterra sources quality candidates without costly hold-ups or manual errors.