PeopleScout has been working with a large telecommunications company for more than seven years. The company supplies telephone, television and internet services to customers throughout the UK.

PeopleScout provides RPO services for volume hiring to the client’s front-line workers. In the highly competitive telecommunications industry, the client needs to ensure the company attracts the very best talent, particularly across their sales and technician functions. PeopleScout manages up to 16 different volume vacancy types or about 60% to 70% of all external hiring. This fast-paced market requires an agile partner who can respond to quickly changing requirements.

Situation

The client had recently decided to reduce the number of sub-contractors and outsourcers for front-line jobs. PeopleScout had been briefed to replace these workers with permanent employees.

As the UK started restrictions for COVID-19, some of the company’s outsourced overseas contact centers were threatened with the risk of closure due to lockdown in those countries. To maintain excellent service, the client created more than 550 new contact center jobs in the UK, to help keep customers connected during this critical time.

The task was to find 550 new starters within two months of the project launch, using a completely redesigned process while taking into account social distancing measures. Candidates would not be able to attend assessment centers and interviews onsite, contact center managers would not have the capacity to interview while maintaining stringent service levels and right to work/onboarding checks could not go ahead using a visual review of original documentation as normal.

Additionally, the client introduced a number of protocols to ensure its people remained as safe as possible while continuing to help answer customer calls and queries. This included providing remote working capabilities where possible and flexible working patterns.

Solution

An agile working group was formed and met twice daily to track project implementation and delivery progress. A new virtual hiring process was designed and implemented in less than two weeks. PeopleScout fast-tracked application and assessment by using video interviews, dramatically reducing processing time and allowing candidates to be selected within days and start within weeks.

To generate candidates, PeopleScout built a new page on the client’s careers site and created an enhanced attraction plan to drive applicants there. This included diverting existing candidates (whose roles had been cancelled) into the new process and creating two microsites to improve quality of applications and speed-up hiring – a hints-and-tips site and a site illustrating the overall application process.

Hiring capacity was ramped up, using PeopleScout’s global delivery centers to score nearly 5,000 video interviews and to support the onboarding of successful candidates without delay.

Results

• Delivered 5,550 new applications
• Conducted more than 1,800 online video interviews
• Completed 400 final stage qualification calls
• Made nearly 300 offers within four weeks
• Created a hiring manager audit step with 95% of qualified candidates approved for hire

Process Improvement

Throughout this agile process, PeopleScout continually used data to understand where interventions could be made to improve the recruitment journey. We created two microsites to help prepare candidates for each step of the process.

The sites were created, signed-off and live within the first three weeks of go-live. They enabled candidates to find out more about key steps in the process such as getting access to an onboarding site which outlines what they need to do prior to starting, as well as what happens on day one.

“Due to the COVID-19 situation, we needed a new hiring process in an extremely short period of time. In less than two weeks, PeopleScout had candidates moving swiftly through the process. PeopleScout’s agility ensured candidates could start within one month of applying.

As the situation continued, we found that we needed additional onboarding support. PeopleScout created microsites to educate and move people through the process which, at the same time, reduced email traffic to our teams.

Most importantly, PeopleScout has helped us build a new level of trust with our hiring managers, enabling us to work in a far more efficient and safe way. The success of this project means that we now have a new way of recruiting to build on in the future.”

Head of Resourcing, Telecommunications Company