Monarch Saved $16K/Facility with Apploi After Switching from UKG Hiring
Dan Strittmater has had one goal since joining Monarch Healthcare Management as Vice President of Innovation and Bench Strength in 2016: to reinvent nursing homes and senior living communities.
Considering that the rapidly-growing company has 62 facilities throughout Minnesota focused on both short and long-term senior care, it’s been no small task.
Which is why Strittmater brought on Apploi to do the heavy lifting of Monarch’s staffing. He’d previously worked with UKG, but wasn’t seeing the results he’d hoped for. “Finding candidates was one of our greatest challenges,” he says.
The partnership resulted in much more than just regularly out-hiring their turnover—Apploi has quadrupled their pool of qualified candidates, made hiring so much faster, and saved Monarch an impressive $1m per month. Here’s how it all happened seemingly “overnight.”
”Our biggest problem became, ‘How do you deal with all these applicants?’ But our problem was amazing.
Solving a Bad Problem, Creating a Good One
Prior to working with Apploi, Monarch wasn’t using a focused point-solution applicant tracking system, and UKG’s module wasn’t specialized enough for their high-volume needs. “With Apploi, it’s healthcare focused,” Strittmater says. “Apploi plugged in really well to the relevant job boards too.”
“From March to April, we quadrupled the number of applicants. It happened overnight.”
There’s some markets that are tougher than others, but our problem is not the same anymore and indefinitely, Apploi was a big part of that.”
Managing the New Candidate Flow
In 2024, Monarch received almost 27,000 applicants through Apploi.
”UKG might do some things very well…but it’s not really good for hiring and onboarding and finding applicants like Apploi is
“With Apploi, you see the hiring dashboard. People want to text. They don’t want a phone call. If you send them an email, you need to text them and let them know, and without an applicant tracking system that has everything in one place, including that communication, it’s problematic. Apploi solved that, and I don’t think we even knew that was the problem at the time.
This also led to creating new jobs within the company. “We did add some talent acquisition people,” Strittmater says. Instead of rushing to fill empty CNA, RN, and LPN roles, his hiring team’s time is freed up to dive deeper into the screening process. “Now we’re looking at doing a lot more pre-interview behavioral questions.”
The Undeniable ROI
The proof is in the numbers—
Apploi has saved Monarch one million dollars a month in external agency costs, or: roughly $4,800 per hire.
”We out-hire our turnover regularly
“Apploi draws in a lot of applicants and allows us to respond to them quickly, allows us to communicate well with them, and then everyone can see the current status and where they are in the workflow,” says Strittmater. “That’s been really helpful for us in terms of landing hires.
“We’ve grown from 3,900 to 4,800 employees.”
”But it's almost like it's not even a standout. It's in a different category.
How Apploi Outpaces the Competition
In comparison to their previously used platform UKG, Strittmater says Apploi has given them greater flexibility within their multi-facility setting. “It helps us push applicants between facilities,” he says. “Apploi really does a nice job helping us manage these multiple sites. And I definitely think on sourcing candidates, hiring, and pre-onboarding, Apploi has been a key tool for us.
A major factor in Monarch’s switch to Apploi was also that it’s the only hiring platform built specifically for healthcare. “I think that if Apploi wasn’t good at that, it wouldn’t have stood out from anybody else,” Strittmater says.
And you hear, ‘Oh, all these other providers are using it.’ You always hear that about software platforms. But after we started using it, we thought, ‘Oh, yeah, I can see why everybody would be using this. It makes sense.’”
”“Indeed is really a big player in the market. When it comes to these healthcare jobs, you find a lot more people through Indeed, whether you're sourcing or whether they're applying.”
Unlocking Apploi’s Status as a Platinum Indeed Partner
Thanks to Apploi’s platinum Indeed status, Monarch has unlocked the full potential of its exclusive tools and features. “Apploi has really been key in helping us understand how to capture the benefits,” he says of the platform’s recruitment reporting capabilities. “I can escalate an issue and go, ‘This is a facility we need to focus on.’ That’s been really helpful with Apploi. Everybody likes a roll-up report, and I think Apploi has some nice roll-up reports. Their easy-to-use analytics and reporting gives us some good information.”
”It’s really nice when you find a platform that just works.
Sharing the Platform Love
Strittmater would tell any provider to switch to Apploi. “I’ve seen the results,” he says. “Things in the platform have worked and are correct. And if we’ve asked for any changes or updates, we get a very appropriate, very timely response. It’s uneventful. The event is the results. I’ve worked with a lot of software platforms, and I think that it’s easy to over-promise. Apploi is there with the experience and over-delivers.
