Award Staffing Case Study: From System Band-Aids to Scalable Growth

03 Apr

This staffing software case study explores how Award Staffing replaced legacy system “band-aids” with a unified staffing platform, reducing onboarding time from over two hours to just minutes while improving data integrity and operational control.

The transition highlights how an all-in-one staffing solution can streamline workflows, enhance visibility, and enable scalable growth for modern staffing agencies.

About Award Staffing

Award Staffing is a Minnesota-based light industrial staffing firm with 38 years of experience serving employers and job seekers across the Twin Cities. At its core, the company is driven by the belief that work matters and that industrial hiring can be done better, more humanely, and more effectively.

That means helping employers build stronger teams while creating opportunities for people to find work that is meaningful, reliable, and aligned with their lives. As Award grew in a high-volume staffing environment, leadership recognized that achieving this mission at scale required more than hard work alone.

It required a stronger technology foundation that could improve data accuracy, create consistency across workflows, and better connect recruiting, onboarding, sales, and back-office operations.

This led to the adoption of Aqore’s all-in-one staffing platform in June 2025, giving Award a more unified system to support its process-driven approach, reduce manual inefficiencies, and strengthen its ability to deliver a better hiring experience for both clients and candidates.

Company

Award Staffing

Employees

51-200 associated members

Industry

Staffing and Recruiting

HQ

Edina, MN

Website

awardstaffing.com

The Challenge: The Hidden Costs of Legacy "Band-Aids" in Staffing Operations

For a firm with 38 years of history, software isn’t just a tool; it’s the backbone of the business. However, the Award Staffing’s legacy system had become a liability. The firm felt trapped in a cycle of “system band-aids”; manual processes created solely to fix software shortcomings.

Derek Freese, Ed.D., and Executive Vice President at Award Staffing, described a pattern of customer service issues and internal finger-pointing, in which problems were bounced between departments instead of being resolved quickly. For a company that values accountability, that was a serious problem!

Chanda Romain, CFO of Award Staffing, pointed to an even bigger issue: data integrity. The team found processing errors in the legacy system that posed potential compliance and payroll risks and created unnecessary stress for the finance team.

“We had a clear vision for how our processes should support our mission, but the software we were using was falling short of that vision.
Instead of enabling the way we wanted to work, it forced us to create internal band aids around its limitations. We needed a partner who could grow with our business, not just a vendor providing a tool.“
– Derek Freese, Ed.D and Executive Vice President, Award Staffing

What was broken?

Manual workarounds had become normal.
Onboarding was handled outside the system in too many cases.
Teams had to audit the platform just to make sure records were accurate.
Recruiting and sales lacked the clean process visibility the leadership team needed.

Why Award Staffing Chose Aqore

Award Staffing needed a platform that could align with its process-driven approach rather than forcing operational compromises. For Derek Freese, Ed.D., the decision came down to flexibility and fit, Aqore’s ability to design the system around how Award Staffing operates, not how generic staffing software expects companies to operate.

In an industrial staffing environment where consistency and discipline are critical, that level of alignment was essential.

For Chanda Romain, CFO of Award Staffing, the decision was more direct: control and confidence in the data. With Aqore, that uncertainty was replaced with reliability and autonomy, allowing the team to manage system changes, permissions, and structure without constant vendor dependency.

“I need accountability in my software. With Aqore, I have peace of mind that when I put data in, it stays accurate.” – Chanda Romain, CFO, Award Staffing

Why Aqore’s All-in-One Staffing Platform stood out

Unified recruiting, sales, and finance into a single platform
Built around Award Staffing’s workflow
Delivered real-time visibility across operations
Reduced reliance on manual processes and external fixes

This shift gave Award Staffing something it needed: a platform that supports speed, accuracy, and control, without trade-offs.

Migration: Challenging, But a Strategic Reset

The transition to Zenople by Aqore was executed on a compressed timeline, which added complexity to the migration process. Chanda noted that the limited time for detailed data mapping led to some structural inconsistencies, requiring post-launch cleanup.

Additionally, unexpected delays in documentation transfer meant certain records had to be reprocessed after go-live. Despite these challenges, the migration delivered something far more valuable than a clean data transfer; it created a rare opportunity to reset.

Derek Freese, Ed.D., described the transition as a pivotal moment to reevaluate and streamline nearly four decades of accumulated processes. The team simplified overly complex workflows, including reducing an inflated number of candidate statuses into a more focused and efficient structure.

“A lot of people are scared to change because of the work involved, but you have to put the business first. We used this migration to clarify our processes, cleaning up 38 years of ‘the way we’ve always done it’ into a high-performance machine.” – Derek Freese, Ed.D and Executive Vice President, Award Staffing

What the migration unlocked

Eliminated outdated and redundant processes
Simplified system structure for better usability
Improved clarity on operational priorities
Built a stronger, scalable foundation for future growth

The takeaway is clear: while migration requires effort, it also creates an opportunity to rebuild operations with intention, something legacy systems rarely allow.

Aqore Features That Drove Award Staffing’s Transformation

Unified Portal: Seamless integration between sales, recruitment, and payroll.
Mobile-First Candidate Onboarding: Secure, rapid document completion on any device.
Advanced Permission Management: Giving CFOs and Admins total control without needing external support.
Compliance Hard Stops: System-enforced logic that prevents un-credentialed placements.

Customer Support That Took the Ownership

For Award Staffing, customer support was not just a service layer; it was a deciding factor in the overall experience.

During implementation and beyond, the Aqore team demonstrated a level of responsiveness and accountability that stood out.

Chanda highlighted the consistency and reliability of the support team, noting that issues were addressed promptly without unnecessary delays.

Derek emphasized what truly set Aqore apart: ownership. The Aqore team stepped in, took control, and worked toward resolution, leaving Award Staffing out of the middle

For a staffing firm managing multiple integrations, removing the burden of acting as a middleman is a meaningful operational advantage.

What Strong Support Looked Like

Fast and consistent response during implementation and post-go-live
Direct ownership of issues without shifting responsibility
Proactive collaboration with third-party vendors when needed
Reduced dependency on internal teams to troubleshoot system gaps

This level of support allowed Award Staffing to stay focused on its core business instead of managing software issues. The shift was clear, the system and the support behind it were working with the business, not against it.

The Results: Operational Clarity at Scale

The impact of Aqore was not incremental; it was immediate and visible across core operations. Award Staffing moved from time-consuming, manual workflows to a system where execution is structured, visible, and repeatable.

What is used to slow teams down is now built into the process, allowing recruiters and leadership to focus on outcomes instead of administration.

Onboarding became a defining proof point. What once required hours of coordination, checks, and manual steps is now completed in minutes, without compromising accuracy or compliance.

“We had a recruiter come up to me and ask, ‘I onboarded someone in 7 minutes, did I do everything correctly?’ After going through their process, they did. And that moment felt like a gamechanger for our recruiting team.” – Chanda Romain, CFO, Award Staffing

That moment was more than a speedy improvement. It validated that the system could deliver both efficiency and reliability at the same time.

Where the Impact Shows Up

Recruiting & Onboarding

From hours to minutes with structured, in-system workflows

Reduced dependency on manual coordination and external tools

Faster turnaround without sacrificing accuracy

Sales & Pipeline Visibility

Real-time visibility into opportunities and deal stages

No reliance on delayed or manual reporting

Stronger accountability across the sales team

Documentation & Workflow Automation

Seamless document flow across departments

Elimination of duplicate entries and scattered records

Cleaner, more controlled data environment

Operational Efficiency

Less time spent on admin, more time on revenue-generating work

Standardized processes across teams

Reduced internal friction and rework

Measurable Business Outcomes

94% faster onboarding – reduced from 120+ minutes to ~7 minutes

Consistent data accuracy – elimination of critical classification errors

Full operational control – finance manages system changes without delays

Simplified workflows – significant reduction in process complexity

Award Staffing’s journey shows what happens when a staffing firm stops accepting inefficiency as standard practice and starts demanding more from its technology.

If your system creates compliance risks, slows onboarding, or limits visibility, it is not supporting growth; it is holding you back.

Adoption: From Skepticism to Standard Practice

As with any major system change, adoption depended on people. Early engagement from leadership set up the tone, but real momentum came when the team experienced the system firsthand. Once recruiters saw how quickly and cleanly tasks could be completed, resistance dropped.

What changed was not just speed; it was confidence. The team no longer had to question whether the system would hold up. It simply worked.

Looking Ahead: AI, Automation, and the Future of Staffing

Award Staffing is clear on one thing: technology should make teams better, not replace them. As automation and AI continue to shape the staffing industry, Derek emphasized a balanced approach: the goal is to enhance human decision-making, not create dependency, or reduce accountability.

That philosophy aligns with where Aqore is heading. By investing in AI-driven capabilities that improve efficiency, visibility, and control, the platform is evolving to support smarter workflows, while keeping the human element at the center of staffing operations.

For Award Staffing, the real shift was not just adopting new technology but changing how the business operates. Moving to Aqore allowed the team to build a more structured, scalable, and reliable system, one that supports growth instead of slowing it down.

Derek’s advice to other agencies is simple: take the jump. Hesitation is rarely about the platform; it is about the effort required to change. But for businesses serious about scale, that effort is necessary.

Chanda reinforced this by noting that Aqore is gaining momentum across the industry through real customer experience, not marketing claims. In staffing, trust is built through results, and those results are now visible.

Stop managing software limitations, start building a system designed for scale!

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