Luttrell Staffing Group had a “good enough” WOTC screening rate of 75% until a small workflow change, surfacing the form at both application and onboarding, pushed completion to 100% and unlocked thousands more in tax credits.
When Luttrell Staffing Group partnered with a WOTC provider and digitized its screening process inside AviontéBOLD through the Avionté+ Open API program, a 75% completion rate felt like a win. Only later did they discover that a few small changes could dramatically increase participation and unlock thousands of dollars in additional tax credits.
After implementing Experian Employer Services’ approach to WOTC screening — also integrated within AviontéBOLD —completion rates have consistently reached 100%. More than 30% of screened candidates are now identified as potentially WOTC-eligible, nearly double the industry average. And each eligible hire generates an average of $955 in tax credits.
So, what changed?
One of the biggest differences was how the WOTC form was integrated into the hiring workflow. Rather than appearing only once during onboarding, Experian surfaces the form during both the application and onboarding processes, giving candidates multiple opportunities to participate without duplicating effort.
Combined with shorter screening and a simpler form-completion process, those changes helped Luttrell Staffing Group capture significantly more value from hiring activity already underway.
The result is a faster candidate experience, higher participation, and a WOTC program that generates more tax credits without increasing recruiters’ workload.
Founded in 1993, Luttrell Staffing Group has spent more than three decades demonstrating that making people matter most is good business. Their core values of excellence, integrity, grit, and service have earned them 14 consecutive Best of Staffing wins and an NPS score approaching 80% in 2026, nearly double the industry average.
That same mindset has always shaped the company’s approach to growth, consistently seeking ways to improve efficiency, scale operations, and capture more value from existing processes.
From early on, Luttrell Staffing Group believed in WOTC. The credits made sense for a staffing agency: its workforce skews toward candidates in WOTC-eligible categories, and each eligible hire generates real tax credit value. But belief only goes so far when the process is paper-based. In those early days, getting 20 manually completed forms out the door in a month was considered a success, a ceiling defined by effort rather than a lack of eligible candidates.
That changed when Luttrell Staffing Group became an Avionté customer more than 15 years ago. Drawn to Avionté’s core platform and reputation for customer service, they quickly recognized additional value in its open ecosystem of integrated 3rd party partnerships through the Avionté+ Open API program, which enabled them to extend functionality as their needs evolved without rebuilding their tech stack.
When Luttrell Staffing Group first digitized its WOTC program through an integrated provider in the Avionté ecosystem, the process was embedded directly in AviontéBOLD. Candidates completed screenings as part of the standard application flow. Recruiters no longer had to manage paperwork or chase down incomplete forms, and completion rates rose significantly, stabilizing at 70–75%. The digitized process felt scalable and far more successful. It set a new baseline for what “good” looked like.
Luttrell Staffing Group’s first integrated WOTC provider delivered exactly what the team needed at the time, moving them from the paper era to an automated process that significantly improved completion rates and allowed the company to capture significantly more tax credits. It felt like success.
It wasn’t until Heather Yoakem, Director of Payroll at Luttrell Staffing Group, attended Avionté CONNECT, Avionté’s annual user conference that brings together hundreds of staffing leaders and technology partners, that she was introduced to a different approach during a conversation with Experian Employer Services.
Experian guided her to the idea of placing the WOTC form at both the application and onboarding stages of the hiring process. Candidates who miss it at the application stage can then encounter it during onboarding. If they’ve already completed it, the system recognizes this and doesn’t prompt them again.
This strategy made it harder for candidates to miss the form without duplicating effort.
“We were originally happy with our 70% completion rate. It was so much better than where we were on paper that we weren’t actively looking for a new WOTC partner. But when we saw that the form could be placed at two points in the process, my first reaction was that there was no way a candidate could miss it. The system is also smart enough not to require people to fill it out twice. I think I had already decided, before we even left CONNECT, that we were going to make the change.”
Heather YoakemDirector of Payroll at Luttrell Staffing Group
Yet, it wasn’t until they started making the switch that they also discovered additional benefits in how the experience worked for both candidates and staff.
These other advantages boiled down to three core elements to help achieve a stronger completion rate:
The WOTC screening stays fully within the application experience, so candidates never leave the system for a third-party site. There’s no context switching or separate browser window that can create hesitation or interrupt completion.
Heather Yoakem explains why that matters: “You lose people in that process. They either accidentally close out of your application and leave it incomplete, or they don’t finish the WOTC form and abandon it, or they have a pop-up blocker enabled. Then they start calling you, and you’re trying to get them back into the application. In the worst cases, they don’t complete the application at all. They’re frustrated or unsure whether the third-party redirect was even legitimate. For a staffing agency, that’s a double hit: a potential placement that never happens, and a WOTC credit that never gets claimed.”
Experian’s WOTC screening takes about one minute to complete and requires only 12 clicks, a significantly shorter experience than with their old provider, whose process could take several minutes to complete. Rather than presenting every possible question upfront, it uses a progressive flow that surfaces follow-up questions only when needed. If a candidate clearly doesn’t qualify for a WOTC target group based on their initial response, those follow-ups don’t appear.
Because Experian connects directly to AviontéBOLD, it pulls information captured during the application process and data stored in the system, automatically pre-populating key fields. Candidates aren’t asked to re-enter basic details like name or address, reducing friction and eliminating repetitive data entry that often slows completion or causes drop-off. If candidate information changes and the applicant manually edits a WOTC field, that information is also updated in the ATS database, keeping records consistent, accurate, and clean.
Together, these elements reduce both the complexity and time required to complete the form. The screening is so fully embedded within the application and onboarding experience that candidates move through it naturally, without it ever feeling like an additional step.
“100% of folks who come through the application process complete our screening because it’s so simple, quick, and efficient. Most vendors ask for a lot of details in their initial question set. We don’t. We streamline the questioning process to achieve a faster turnaround in determining whether a candidate even warrants additional questions. If it turns out there’s a specific category someone is potentially eligible for, a follow-up question will pop up. But if they’re not, we don’t waste their time.”
Jennifer FlorieClient Development Executive at Experian Employer Services
And the same automation that streamlines the candidate experience also drives the back-end workflow, making the process nearly seamless for Luttrell Staffing Group recruiters and staff. Payroll data, including job start dates, hours worked, and wages, flows directly from Avionté to Experian without any file transfers.
That information is used to prepare and submit WOTC applications to state agencies within 28 days of hire, calculate credit values based on hours-worked thresholds, and distribute credits monthly. None of this requires Luttrell Staffing Group to compile files, request documentation, or manually verify eligibility data.
And when additional documentation is needed to support a credit claim, Experian’s direct relationships with government agencies allow Experian to go to the source rather than back to the client. Most follow-up occurs between Experian and the relevant government agency, not between Experian and Luttrell Staffing Group.
The result is a program that requires almost no intervention from the internal team. Over the past year, Luttrell Staffing Group received fewer than five action requests from Experian, compared with five or six per month from their previous provider.
“In the past year, I think we’ve only received two notifications from Experian asking us to take any action. With our previous provider, we’d get that many requests in a week — at least five or six every month. Switching to Experian has dramatically reduced the administrative workload and taken the pressure off our staff,” said Heather Yoakem.
The switch to Experian was fast and low lift, with the transition from their previous provider to go-live taking less than two weeks. However, that speedy transition led to remarkable improvements in their WOTC status.
The headline number is 100% WOTC screening completion. But the more important question for any staffing agency is: what does that actually mean?
For Luttrell Staffing Group, it means every candidate who moves through the application or onboarding process is screened, and roughly 30% are identified as potentially eligible for WOTC credits, nearly double the industry average. In a workforce where WOTC-qualifying groups, such as veterans, SNAP recipients, and long-term unemployed individuals, are well represented, that higher capture rate translates directly into more tax credits and greater long-term value from the program.
As Heather explains: “You don’t earn WOTC credits from eligibility—you earn them from completed forms. At Luttrell Staffing Group, with roughly 50% of candidates qualifying, 100 completed forms translate to about 50 eligible hires captured. At 500 completions, that becomes roughly 250, each worth an average of $955 in tax credits. Eligibility didn’t change. The completion rate did. And when the process is simple enough, 100% completion stops being aspirational and becomes achievable.”
The credits represent real business capital. For Luttrell Staffing Group, each eligible hire generates an average of $955 in tax credits, and that adds up quickly at scale across a high-volume staffing operation.
“Any money we saved or earned back goes right back into the company — into staying current with technology, adapting to change, and keeping us moving forward. Seeing that return come back and get reinvested into Luttrell Staffing Group, our staff, and our associates has meant a lot.”
For Luttrell Staffing Group, the value extends far beyond the technology itself. Even after implementation, Experian continues to communicate regularly with the Luttrell Staffing Group team to review program performance, forecast credit opportunities, and identify ways to improve results. Rather than simply processing claims, the team helps ensure that Luttrell Staffing Group captures the program’s full value.
Between those touchpoints, Experian’s client portal gives Luttrell Staffing Group everything they need at a glance. The interface is straightforward and user-friendly. Logging in surfaces a snapshot overview of program performance without having to dig for it. Reports are easy to pull, data is current, and the day-to-day experience of managing the program mirrors the same simplicity Experian built into the candidate-facing side.
One example is what Heather calls her “hot list,” a report that shows which employees are close to crossing WOTC hour thresholds that unlock higher credit values. She uses it to help branch managers identify candidates who are just short of a higher credit tier, giving recruiters another tool to maximize the program’s value.
As Heather explains: “If you have a job opening and five people are equally qualified, but you have somebody on that hot list, you know you’re going to earn greater credit with them. It’s just another tool to use. If somebody was five hours short of getting that credit, it’s going to show on that report. The next time you have an assignment open, we’re going to send them right back to work.”
That proactive approach paid off unexpectedly. By using payroll data already flowing through the system, Experian identified additional Federal Empowerment Zone credits that Luttrell Staffing Group had never captured with previous providers. In exchange for roughly 20 minutes of the payroll team’s time, Luttrell Staffing Group unlocked an entirely new source of tax credits they hadn’t known they were eligible for.
For Luttrell Staffing Group, the move to Experian wasn’t about overhauling a broken process. Their WOTC program was already digitized, integrated, and delivering results. The opportunity was recognizing that a few small adjustments, like surfacing the form at both application and onboarding, streamlining the candidate experience, and simplifying administration for staff, could significantly increase participation and, ultimately, tax credit capture.
Today, Luttrell Staffing Group maintains a 100% WOTC screening completion rate, identifies potentially eligible candidates at nearly twice the industry average, and generates an average of $955 in tax credits per eligible hire. Just as importantly, the program requires virtually no day-to-day involvement from recruiters or payroll staff.
As Heather puts it: “WOTC is a great program. If a staffing agency isn’t leveraging it, they’re leaving money on the table. It comes from the hiring that staffing agencies are already doing. There are no major process changes, no extra work —just tax credits they’re not capturing. With a strong integration like the one we have with Experian and Avionté, it fits right into the workflow, and you’ll see results. Even if only 25% of your employees qualify, wouldn’t putting a simple automated process in place be worth it?”
WorkN is now Avionté Mobile. Building on the power and functionality of WorkN’s talent mobile app, Avionté Mobile is built for the high-volume staffing and recruiting industry.
