IBM Kenexa Room for Improvement

Karan Grover - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

BrassRing needs improvement in a few areas. First, it should update how it tracks where candidates come from and avoid duplicate entries. Right now, it is not very flexible. Also, its way of making reports feels old-fashioned. It would be better if it could make reports with graphs and charts more easily from our questions. When it was with IBM, it had plans for innovation, but it seems that's not happening with the current company. So, it needs to update its reporting and analytics tools.

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it_user512955 - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Manager of Employee Services at Best Buy

We have about 50 requests for enhancements in the system right now. We're a little anal. To be honest, it's smaller things. It's making sure that the responsive recruiter experience includes all the functionality that the non-responsive recruiter experience has today, before we transition to it. It's just simply continuing to see that evolution, without loss of functionality.

I also do want to see more robust reporting capabilities. Not getting into talent insights necessarily, but the embedded tools offering a little bit more dashboarding capability, tables, that type of thing, is something that I'm chomping at the bit for, because if I have to do another pivot table in Excel, I'll go mad. I would love it if you could set them up in the reporting tool to happen automatically and deliver. I know from the feedback I've gotten from the Kenexa development team that they're working on it.

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it_user512949 - PeerSpot reviewer
HRIS Business Process Manager at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

I think additional features or improvements will be all about mobile and responsive design, continuing to see what the possibilities are there and anticipating what could be next. I don't know what's next, and it's great because they help us try to all get together and brainstorm about what could be next.

Maybe there's some room for improvement in the functionality around the actual tools that we build with. I'm looking forward to them continuing to make improvements on that, on the back end of the house, where we use it most of our time. I’m looking forward to process improvements with that and with ease of functionality; I think we'll look forward to those as well.

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Talent Management
March 2024
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it_user512943 - PeerSpot reviewer
HRIS Analyst at Lockheed Martin

Being in a silo of my own world, my wish would be that everything that's available in their legacy views would be moved into their new Talent Suite products, so we could move over to that. We have certain features and functions that we cannot move away from due to government regulations and compliance needs, and some of those are not available yet in the newer UI.

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it_user104193 - PeerSpot reviewer
Partner - Digital People Practice at Digital Works Group

I would say that it could likely be made slightly easier to consume and work with - less scientific or engineering oriented - but IBM Kenexa Talent Insights is about the most powerful and useful tool I've seen. You quickly get used to the interfaces, features and functions, as it only takes about a few days training before you are able to wiz around it and master its capabilities, which I've still not found the bottom of yet!.

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it_user512973 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Manager, HRIS at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees

I think a lot of the things that are already on IBM's roadmap are what we're looking for: better candidate engagement tools, better social media tools, the responsive platforms, making the candidate experience that much better.

If there was one thing that I would love to see, it's improvement in the back-end tools, what the sys ads and the configuration leads engage with. Those seem to be trailing the front end development.

The reason I’m not rating it with five stars is because of its sheer size. Some of its time-to-market enhancements are slower than I would like, but that's the nature of the business I guess.

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it_user512928 - PeerSpot reviewer
Program Manager at T-Mobile

I think IBM is working with a lot of analytical tools and with Watson and analytics, diagnosing system pain points, problems, queues, those types of issues to enhance the system. I really like the roadmap where they’re going. Also, the enhancements they are doing to gateway questionnaires, those types of things, to improve the mobile process is really good, things that we're trying to implement at T-Mobile.

I think there is some administrative things that could be easier in terms of Workbench and streamlining that process; configuration of different things. I think the overall experience is great. Branding is something that I think can always be worked on. It seems to be really hard on the marketing side to keep up, to be honest with you, but I think overall in terms of an ATS, it's a great tool. There's a few things there that could always be improved with anybody. It's really hard to give a perfect rating.

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it_user512958 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager at a transportation company with 1,001-5,000 employees

We're about to launch the Talent Suite, so we're excited about that. Just the ease of use of setup for implementing new regions would be really helpful; if they would get that more templatized and make it easier to launch in new parts of the globe.

My rating is not higher because of the support, honestly; the global service center model. We have 20 hours per month and we're a big, giant company. It's a struggle, honestly. The ticketing system works great, but it's a struggle sometimes to get changes fixed with their model: You create the system and then hand it to the customer.

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it_user512952 - PeerSpot reviewer
Program Manager, Talent Acquisition at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

We're really looking forward to what Kenexa has in store for data analytics in the future with their Talent Insights tool. We're also really looking forward to some of their enhancements to their onboarding portal, specifically for recruiters and hiring managers.

We just recently upgraded to their Talent Suite, which is their latest version of the software. Their onboarding portal saw the most change, and I would say it's been really improved from a new-hire or a candidate experience. We are looking forward to some additional enhancements from a hiring manager perspective.

There's always more work to do. There's always improvements that can be made, but overall, we're very happy with the product.

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it_user512976 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head Of Culture & Engagement at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Looking at IBM, it's working really well at the moment and we're just about to embark on another kind of agreement or contract with them as well that will take us up until the time at which the workplace would have changed again. It's right that we've got in place that kind of short-term contract as well. I think it keeps us and IBM on our toes in terms of making sure that we've got the best possible partner for where we are in our journey, but also understanding where we want to get to. I think IBM has taken a lot of time to really understand Lloyd's in a way that other providers possibly wouldn't have. We really, really value that.

In terms of where it can improve, as of late summer 2016, we had two large surveys running at the moment. We've got a culture survey, which we introduced in 2014, which enables us to be able to assess and measure company culture to the extent to which an individual is connected to the purpose, vision and values of the group. It's a big survey. It's almost like what you compare with an annual company-wide survey. Later in the autumn, we were about to launch our engagement survey back in the UK. That's also another big event as well. I think the challenge for us as well is that we know that the external market is changing. If we think about what's happening from a consumer or customer experience, we see that they are getting feedback at the moment. There's constant feedback, constant dialogue, and there's more transparency around the data.

The organizations are then having to respond back whether it be through social, through mobile or some other form of giving back, giving feedback or giving a response back as well. I think we've got these two main vehicles in our organization. I think they work really well. Where we need IBM's help is to understand. We don't need to identify. We understand the value of social, mobile and now cognitive. It's been really important for me to hear over the last few days what the era of cognitive will now look like; what are the opportunities that are now opening up for us.
I think the challenge for me is that we've got to use social more. We've got to use mobile more, but I need it to be connected. I think this is a challenge for IBM. These tools and products and solutions are great, but I think from a partner's perspective, we've got to make sure that we have that connected view because what we don't want to do is introduce, get more into the ecosystem. What I want to be able to do is look at what I've got so far, understand how I can move from data to insight, and I think I'm kind of getting there, but it's now from insight to answering the 'so what' questions that I get asked all the time. For me, it's about deriving even more value from what I've got already and then to be able to connect social, mobile and somewhere in there, build cognitive into it into creating a kind of connected environment which enables me to do data, analysis and insights in a more transformational way.

I argue that we're doing that already, but I think we've got loads more to do. Where I'm looking is, for example, retailers; how they work and the extent to which retailers know about their customers and their customer behaviors. It comes back to the science behind it as well. I'd argue that they are light years ahead. I get a real sense of frustration when you see the kind of customer insight teams and what they can do and then you look at the colleague insights teams, which I'm leading on as well, and seeing there's a gap and we need to close that gap. What I don't need are more solutions. What I need is more of a connected view and have an ecosystem that enables me to be able to measure the colleague experience at the key moments of truth, but to join those dots up to then answer the 'so what' stuff.

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it_user512931 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Manager, Recruitment Technology & Infrastructure at a media company with 1,001-5,000 employees

The lead manager tool is still very new. We are excited to see where that goes. Right now, it's not advanced enough to meet our needs, but we would hope that at some point in the future, it can advance to the point where we could have one platform of systems in that area.

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it_user529197 - PeerSpot reviewer
Recruiter at a engineering company with 10,001+ employees

In regards to the requisition search function there is a ton of filter options, of which need exact matches. The other thing that is missing here is the Business Title option. For example a position will have the HR Job Title “environmental scientist 1” but the real business title field is “Biologist.” If I want to search for a biologist requisition, I have a tough time doing that because nothing comes up if I put it in the job description which really is my only other option of a field to use.

In regards to the errors - sometimes the HR Status will freeze, or the communication option.
The tool functions inconsistently. In the past year, there has been a significant increase in the amount of “internal errors” that are displayed.
Other errors include when you click to add a form for example it will come up with an error and you have to exit and try it again. What I was trying to capture here is that a lot of our recruiters have had problems with errors and having to do the same command/clicking the same thing multiple times before it works. In addition, the search function is a bit complicated in terms of requisition searches.


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it_user512970 - PeerSpot reviewer
Vice President, Talent at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees

I think for us it's still really early days. We're getting the survey settled in. At a recent conference, I was looking forward to the employee voice regional user group because I really wanted to understand the employee voice piece. Once-a-year engagement kind of seems to be a little bit lagging in terms of how we can actually shape and improve organizations, so I was looking forward to understanding a bit more where IBM Kenexa's thinking is going in terms of pulsing with the employee voice and how that kind of integrates and works with tell-it-as-it-is, and the other two applications we have; it's just too early to know.

I think the only opportunity maybe we have is to be more intuitive on the tell-it-as-it-is survey side for end users; for leaders to be able to kind of run the data and cut it the way they want to. Right now, we still run it out of our C of E for engagement, who actually does training with the HR business partners. It would be nice if that could be simplified into a way whereby it's really intuitive for our leaders and make it really super easy for them just to go in and pull what they want. That's an additional piece of administrative work that we still do. It's important work that we do, but if there was a way to simplify that, so that leaders can just directly go in and manipulate that, that would be great.

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RL
Associate at a hospitality company with 10,001+ employees

IBM Kenexa has a lot of room for improvement. The solution is not advancing anymore in terms of the user experience and in the workflows. It's pretty outdated right now.

We won't be expecting any further enhancements because we won't be investing in the solution anymore.

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it_user512937 - PeerSpot reviewer
HR at a hospitality company with 1,001-5,000 employees

As with pretty much anything, it could be more efficient.

No solution's perfect but in the same token, that's not for me to decide. I'm just looking at it being user friendly for what I'm doing, and that's providing great talent to our company. As far as being a user of it, I don't see any problems as of right now.

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ER
Manager, Human Resources at a non-profit with 11-50 employees

The reporting tool is helpful, but it is not as user friendly at the recruitment tool. 

Their Workbench site, which is the administrator site that you use to update your website, is not user-friendly. When updates are required, it is not easy to manage, mostly because Workbench is not user friendly. Their virtual Workbench training was lengthy (about 8 hours) and ultimately did not help end users become pros at using Workbench. 

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JB
Assoc. Specialist Talent Acquisition Solutions at a consumer goods company with 5,001-10,000 employees

We're still on a pretty old version of it. I'm looking forward to using the mobile - the Responsive Apply – and upgrading to the Talent Suite. I think that's what I'm looking forward to mostly. I’m unable to really comment further without actually trying that out first, because that's mostly what we're aiming towards: getting that Responsive Apply, some of those more mobile friendly options.

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it_user512925 - PeerSpot reviewer
People Systems Partner at Biogen

I would like to see them continue to make things easy and quick for the recruiting partners internally, or any recruiters who use the system. Faster load times would be great, instead of waiting for the little load window to close out.

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it_user512985 - PeerSpot reviewer
Human Resource Business Systems Administrator at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

I’d say the things that we’re most looking forward to that are on the roadmap are the mobile abilities that they’re coming out with and always improving on. We’re excited for those. When they have all the features we need with it, we’ll definitely implement it.

Some of the analytics that we heard about, we’re excited to see some of those and how we can implement and maybe use those in our business.

The reporting feature currently is our biggest struggle point. Getting the data we need and in the fashion that we need it is a current struggle point for us.

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it_user504219 - PeerSpot reviewer
Specialist, Talent Acquisitions Systems at a engineering company with 10,001+ employees

Enhancement releases can't come fast enough, and you only know what is being released a week at most in advance. The documentation of the changes and configuration requirements are often following months after the initial release.

If you happen to be an early adopter of enhancements, it can be a frustrating process, as it is hard to decipher together with their support whether an issue is a bug or working as intended (a change in the way something works).

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YD
HR Operations Manager at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

It does not synchronize well with other ERP tools, such as SuccessFactors or Workday.

I would like to have a better and more user-friendly interface. It needs to be a bit more intuitive. It's not as intuitive as SuccessFactors.

In the next release, I would like to see a better user interface, better speed, and a bit more customization without having to reach out to IBM.

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it_user512967 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Director Of Human Resources at a hospitality company with 1,001-5,000 employees

If you look at Kenexa's direct competitors – and we always look at the landscape of who's doing what in the ATS space – for a company like ours that does high volume hires of relatively low skilled workers, simplification's important; simplification for the hiring manager, simplification for the applicant. I think the more we can incorporate engineered ease of use, I think that's better. Same thing on the system admin side; the more we can engineer ease of use so that you don't have know HTML, you don't have to really go through days of training to be able to easily configure pages, I think all of that is an important thing for Kenexa to continue to make progress on.

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it_user512940 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director, People Intelligence at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

We're still putting our notes together on where we’d like to see improvements. We haven't got a detailed list yet, but the cool thing is we've got a process to document what we want changed, to promote that and show it to IBM. Most cases when we did that in the past, they've been able to say it was on the roadmap already. There are no examples right now, but we do have a list that we're gathering right now.

The price can always be better. I'm not saying the price is high, but of course I work with a budget. Bottom line is it's basically fine.

We're looking at ways to, for instance, to be able to get outputs, and drop it into Excel, if we want to. Right now, we can only do part of that, but not as much as I want to.

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it_user512946 - PeerSpot reviewer
HRIS Sr at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Improved integrations: There are all kinds of issues with integrations, hires failing. It's on us as much as IBM, but we need to work together to figure out how to make integrations work better.

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it_user532572 - PeerSpot reviewer
Talent Systems and Operations Analyst at a tech company with 1,001-5,000 employees

The user interface could do with an overhaul. Also, some screens that are not configurable should be opened to clients for customization.

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it_user501270 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director of HR Operations and HRIS at a tech company with 1,001-5,000 employees

There are tremendous opportunities for improvement. Unfortunately, it would require a total scrapping of the existing system and completely building a new system from the ground up. Kenexa BrassRing (2xB) is a completely mediocre system that does an outstanding job of being completely average at doing all the basic applicant tracking activities. If you want cutting edge 1997 technology, then 2xB is definitely the tool you're looking for.

Configuring 2xB is painfully difficult. Changing the initial setup is even more difficult after you go live. Customer support is some of the worst I've ever encountered. In some ways, it is like a case study in how to provide world-class terrible, awful, slow customer and technical support.

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it_user512979 - PeerSpot reviewer
SVP Organizational Development at a non-tech company with 501-1,000 employees

I don't know if the issue is what can be improved upon in upcoming releases. It's about understanding how we can adapt and be more flexible, because the survey that we've been doing is one of those point-in-time surveys and not real time. The minute we roll it out, the organization changes, and then all of a sudden there are issues such as, “This isn't my team. How am I supposed to manage this data?” There’s probably a solution that exists already with IBM or Kenexa. I'm just not that familiar with it.

The team didn't find the reporting tool that easy to use, in terms of pulling their own data, slicing and dicing it, combining groups. Some of them did, but for the most part, it felt like a bridge too far. With regard to our managers using it, the minute we saw that some of the HRBPs were having an issue with it, we didn't even dare suggest that our managers run their own reports.

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it_user512961 - PeerSpot reviewer
HR Business Analyst at a mining and metals company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Improvements can be made from the back end, with the workbench.

Even though I know lots of people have mentioned issues with publishing from staging to production, and I know that's something that IBM said they're aware of and they might be working on already, that's one of the bigger things that would be helpful.

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it_user512982 - PeerSpot reviewer
Global Employee Engagement Lead at a tech company with 51-200 employees

There are tools that actually are not there where clients need them, especially the survey analytics to analyze verbatim in different languages. We survey in 14 different languages and analyzing the verbatim other than English is not possible and that is a downside for us, absolutely. I would like them to offer that in more languages. Especially those at the global companies need that.

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it_user687192 - PeerSpot reviewer
Experienced Full Cycle Remote at a healthcare company with 5,001-10,000 employees

I felt like we could have customized it better for our business.

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Buyer's Guide
Talent Management
March 2024
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM, SAP, Oracle and others in Talent Management. Updated: March 2024.
765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.