Swedish municipality performs corona-safe robot recruitments

Starting on May 11th, Upplands-Bro municipality will be using automatic robot interviews, to support and speed up important recruitment processes. By implementing the next generation of the Tengai robot, they will be able to interview more candidates in a safe environment, which is important in this Coronavirus crisis, without the risk of contamination and achieve higher quality hiring results.

The Upplands-Bro municipality, which is located outside of Stockholm, was the first to use the first version of the Tengai robot after the product launch at the beginning of 2019. When they implemented robot interviews to their recruitment process and successfully hired a strategic digital coordinator, based on Tengai’s assessment. This made them the first establishment in the world to use a social and physical robot in a recruitment process and now they will be the first to use the new, and completely automatic version.

Tengai AB is now launching the next generation of the Tengai robot, which conducts automatic interviews, completely data-driven and free from human influence. The new version is validated by psychometric experts and proven to make the recruitment process more objective. This is giving clients the option to lease robots to conduct interviews at their preferred location. In addition to speeding up the recruitment process, and achieve higher quality results from the interviews, the robot offers a safe way to meet candidates in person without any risk of contamination.

An efficient and safe way of recruiting healthcare professionals

Today, Upplands-Bro is facing new recruitment challenges and difficulties because of the Corona pandemic. One challenge is the substitute pool for care and welfare positions, where the need is continuing to increase. Starting on May 11th, the municipality will have robots available to conduct automated job interviews, to meet their high recruitment needs.

By leasing Tengai, Upplands-Bro can provide a safe interview experience for candidates that are crucial for our health care, without the risk of contamination throughout the process. As well as, speeding up their process and freeing up time for hiring managers, since the HR-tech tool can deliver seven times more interviews than a human recruiter. The robot will also provide data-driven candidate assessments to support quality hiring decisions and increase the overall efficiency within the organization, which contributes to diversity hiring.

“Because of the global Coronacrisis, we need to secure our access to competent personnel, for instance in elderly care. Using the Tengai robot, I believe that we can meet this challenge in an effective way. I’m looking forward to starting the process and it’s exciting knowing we will have the robot available to start interviewing very soon.”, says Havva Ilhan, deputy head of human resources at UpplandsBro municipality.

She continues “When it comes to the interview, I haven't found another solution on the market that can ensure a completely bias-free process, which is something we continue to strive for at Upplands-Bro. By using robot interviews we have successfully been able to upgrade our recruitment process to be focused on competency.”

It’s great to see the interest from the public sector and the Upplands-Bro municipality is really an innovative client, according to Elin Öberg Mårtenzon, CEO at Tengai AB:

“We are thrilled to be working with Upplands-Bro again and it feels good to be able to help and support them through challenging processes. In the new version of Tengai, the interview is completely automated and this will help them to meet their high expectations on efficiency and objectivity. During these critical times, we want to do everything we can to support the care and welfare sector by ensuring a safe environment for both recruiters and candidates.”