Category: Candidate Attraction

Virgin Media: Hiring More Women Technicians

Posted on by akessler
Virgin Media: Hiring More Women Technicians

Virgin Media: Hiring More Women Technicians

Virgin Media asked their RPO partner PeopleScout to improve diversity for their field technician roles.

2 x More Women Hired to Engineering Roles
20 % Early Attrition Reduction
20 % Reduction in Candidate Attraction Budget
376 Hours of Hiring Manager Time Saved

Situation

After publishing their gender parity report, Virgin Media set PeopleScout, their RPO partner, the challenge of recruiting more women technicians or Field Sales Advisors—a role which has 99% male incumbents.

The previous year we successfully hired 275 Field Sales Advisors. This year, Virgin Media increased that number to 450, but has less budget available for candidate attraction.

With requisitions up, budget down and a remit to hire more women, we met the challenge head on.

Solution

PeopleScout collaborated with Virgin Media to set up a “Women in Field” working group. We listened to existing female employees and involved them in the recruitment process, making sure they were present for female candidates attending assessments.

We wanted to be bold and disruptive in our approach, particularly around how the role was advertised and positioned. By exploring new avenues to tap into a demographic which previously wasn’t engaged with this opportunity including developing new channels. The PeopleScout social media team helped the client post across social channels such as Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Our Field Sales recruiters were then able to engage those interested and convert them into applicants. We streamlined the application process and introduced the option to register interest.

To improve the vetting experience, we used our existing partnership with Security Watchdog to identify ways to dramatically reduce the three-week clearance period. With better signposting and a clearer process, we reduced the clearance period to just 11 days.

“We’ve made more than 30% more hires this year, with a 20% smaller attraction budget.”

Results

The “Women in Field” campaign was launched in four key locations. In just two months, we received triple the number of applications from women that we received in the previous year. The client is now using a similar approach in order to increase their gender diversity in more regions across the UK.

We made more than 30% more hires Field Sales Advisors with a 20% smaller attraction budget compared to the previous year. Plus, we more than doubled the number of female employees.

The new vetting process has helped to reduce early attrition by up to 20% across sales channels.

Overall, we’ve dramatically improved our application to hire ratios across all of the UK, saving 376 hours in interview time for hiring managers.

At a Glance

  • COMPANY: Virgin Media
  • INDUSTRY: Telecommunications
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS: Recruitment Process Outsourcing
  • ABOUT VIRGIN MEDIA: Virgin Media is a telecommunications, providing telephone, television and internet services in the United Kingdom. It is owned by Virgin Media O2.
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Improving Retention and Diversity for Leading North American Tire Brand

Posted on by Kate
Improving Retention and Diversity for Leading North American Tire Brand

High-Volume RPO

Improving Retention and Diversity for Leading North American Tire Brand

A leading North American tire brand partnered with PeopleScout to facilitate more than 10,000 annual hires for automotive technician, management and sales positions and standardize its retail recruitment processes company-wide.

10,000 annual hires
40 percent improvement in hiring diverse employees
5 percent improvement in technician turnover

A leading North American tire brand was experiencing an alarming rate of attrition in key retail positions, making it difficult to provide the level of service excellence the brand’s customers have come to expect. To help solve its unsustainable employee attrition issue, the client partnered with PeopleScout to efficiently facilitate more than 10,000 annual hires of automotive technicians, management and sales positions and standardize its retail recruitment processes company-wide.

Scope and Scale

Full-life cycle recruiting services needed for 10,000 U.S. hires annually. Skills and positions included: technicians, customer service, sales and management.

Situation

The client was facing a 50% turnover rate at retail locations and lacked a uniform hiring procedure, resulting in a disjointed process and poor quality of hire. Without the appropriate staffing of technicians, customer care suffered, causing a reduction in the client’s revenue in their retail operations. 

Solution

SOLUTION HIGHLIGHTS

  • Screening & block interview scheduling efficiencies
  • 10,000 hires in the first year of the engagement
  • Reduced employee turnover
  • Hiring diversity
  • Transparent Reporting

A STANDARD HIRING MODEL

The partnership was designed to improve turnover rates for technician and retail positions, create a standardized retail recruitment model and provide consistent OFCCP compliance and standardization.

AN EFFICIENT PROCESS

PeopleScout deployed a time-efficient screening process focused on the quality of the candidate, with a guaranteed response from recruiting teams within 48 hours of application.

HIRING DIVERSITY

To help source and engage more diverse candidates for the client, PeopleScout developed a comprehensive network of community organizations for partnered recruitment. 

IN-REGION RECRUITERS

Collaborative relationships between our retail recruiters and the client’s area managers were fostered by in-region placement of PeopleScout recruiters.  

TRANSPARENT REPORTING

Continuous improvement was driven through transparent reporting and analysis for the client’s executive and field leadership.

Results

REDUCED EMPLOYEE TURNOVER

The client’s technician turnover rate has improved by 5% and retail turnover by 6%. 

10,000 HIRES IN FIRST YEAR

PeopleScout hired 10,000 employees in the first year of the engagement.

HIRING DIVERSITY

Hiring diversity improved by 40%, including an increase of 2% for veterans and 6% for female hires.

At a Glance

  • COMPANY: Leading North American tire brand
  • INDUSTRY: Consumer Goods
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS: Recruitment Process Outsourcing
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A Higher Performing Recruiting Model

Posted on by Kate
A Higher Performing Recruiting Model

RPO for Telecommunications

A Higher Performing Recruiting Model

A major telecom provider faced multiple recruiting challenges as a result of its decentralized and fragmented recruitment processes. PeopleScout partnered with this provider to implement a first-generation RPO program to migrate to a higher-performing recruiting model.

13,000 annual hires in the first year
8 days average time-to-hire
1,400 Built a scalable, centralized process across 1,400 retail stores

Situation

The telecom provider wanted to reduce store-to-store inconsistencies and migrate from a highly decentralized recruitment into a high-performing recruitment model. The provider wanted to improve response times to seasonal demands and decrease poor candidate quality and below-average customer experiences.

PeopleScout established the foundation for an RPO program that today supports more than 1,400 stores and nearly 13,000 hires. 

Solution

SOLUTION HIGHLIGHTS

  • Centralization and standardization of the recruitment process
  • Scalable recruitment model to address changes in hiring needs
  • Targeted and innovative grassroots and digital sourcing strategy

At a Glance

  • COMPANY: Telecom provider
  • INDUSTRY: Telecommunications
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS: Recruitment Process Outsourcing
  • ANNUAL HIRES: 13,000
  • LOCATIONS: 1,400 stores
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INNOVATIVE, TARGETED SOURCING

PeopleScout implemented a consistent workflow for the company’s businesses and initiated digital interviewing with additional screening. Adding additional screening reduced the hiring manager’s overall effort in the process and created efficiencies. PeopleScout also facilitated “same day interview, next day offer” practices to qualified candidates.

BRANDed PARTNERSHIP

The telecom provider provided a library of images for use in digital and advertising campaigns that greatly enhanced recruitment marketing. PeopleScout and the telecom talent acquisition team collaborated closely to make sure outbound marketing was targeted to their talent audiences.

Results

A targeted and innovative sourcing strategy and a solid branding partnership were influential in the program’s evolution. In the first year, PeopleScout hired nearly 13,000 employees for this telecom provider and improved average time-to-clear from 11 days to eight days. The scope of work also expanded into a strategic partnership with one of the world’s largest pharmacies where the telecom provider’s products could be sold at additional retail locations.

Sellafield: Transforming an Employer Brand to Engage Emerging Talent

Posted on by akessler
Sellafield: Transforming an Employer Brand to Engage Emerging Talent

Sellafield: Transforming an Employer Brand to Engage Emerging Talent

PeopleScout’s Talent Advisory revamped Sellafield Ltd’s employer brand for early careers talent.

Situation

As part of an ongoing transformational journey, Sellafield Ltd had redefined its values and strategy for the future. In response to this, they also needed to expand their schemes to attract and hire more graduates and placement students than ever before. They engaged PeopleScout to develop a new employer brand and visual identity that told their story across a range of channels—one that significantly increased applications.

Sellafield needed to hire 55 graduates and 50 students for placement. They were keen to reimagine their employer brand to reflect the opportunities that their organizational changes would bring.

Solution

The client agreed with us that a relaunch of the graduate and industrial placement schemes was required, to tell the story of their transformation and engage candidates across the breadth of disciplines.

We worked with Sellafield to develop an engaging employer value proposition (EVP). Using the EVP as a platform, our employer brand messaging and design conveyed the new vision and strategy, and what that meant for our target audiences, across a range of attraction materials.

This included careers fair materials, such as stands, leaflets and posters, and collateral for their online attraction strategy—social media, search engine pay-per-click ads and digital content for their careers website. We also supported our client with their approach to media channels and advertising on relevant job boards.

Results

The new Sellafield EVP has had just under 1 million views across all channels. With almost 30,000 people clicking to their careers website from social media, Sellafield now has a higher number of visitors to their website—up 8% from the previous year. And, with around 1,500 applications, they’ve gained greater interest across all disciplines.

At a Glance

  • COMPANY: Sellafield Ltd
  • INDUSTRY: Industrial
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS: Recruitment Process Outsourcing
  • ANNUAL HIRES: 55 graduates and 50 students
  • ABOUT SELLAFIELD LTD: A pioneer for the UK’s nuclear industry, Sellafield Ltd is a global center for nuclear engineering management. They set international standards in high-hazard reduction as they work to create a clean and safe environment for future generations.
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Bombardier: Moving the World’s Engineering Talent with a Global Employer Brand

Posted on by akessler
Bombardier: Moving the World's Engineering Talent with a Global Employer Brand

Bombardier: Moving the World’s Engineering Talent with a Global Employer Brand

PeopleScout helped Bombardier Transportation with a global employer brand and toolkit to help them recruit hard-to-fill roles and meet diversity objectives.

Situation

A worldwide leader in rail technology, Bombardier Transportation had no global employer brand presence. They approached PeopleScout and our in-house creative to develop a employer value proposition (EVP), not only to be used to push out the overall brand message, but also to underpin specific propositions for, and support recruitment activity in, each of their territories around the world. Launched initially in the UK, and now rolling out to other territories,

The new employer brand needed to tackle a negative market misperceptions of redundancies and lost orders. The truth was that they had a full order book and some new and exciting contracts to deliver in the future. With this positive story to share, they realized they had a great opportunity to enhance their position within the market.

Solution

Research & Discovery

We began with extensive research in all key Bombardier Transportation global territories. We conducted interviews with a mixture of senior stakeholders and employees from the main talent groups they needed to recruit from and also carried out external sessions with relevant talent groups.

Foundation & Framework

Using the insights we’d gained, we developed a set of EVP pillars capturing the key themes from the research. This provided the framework for creating our global messaging platform and design.

Guidelines & Toolkit

Working closely with Bombardier Transportation’s Branding and Communications teams, we produced a set of guidelines and a toolkit of materials that could be used globally and tweaked for each individual territory.

Results

Initially launched within the UK, the EVP was rolled out to other territories around the world.

Bombardier Transportation launched its first-ever media campaign using the EVP, using a combination of digital and outdoor media in key hiring locations in the UK. Across the whole campaign, they received over 500 applications and made hires into critical roles that they had struggled to recruit for previously. They were also able to recruit several women into these positions addressing their global diversity objectives.

At a Glance

  • COMPANY: Bombardier Transportation
  • INDUSTRY: Manufacturing
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS: Talent Advisory
  • ABOUT BOMBARDIER: Bombardier Transportation is a global leader in rail technology, with headquarters in Berlin, Germany. They specialize in rail vehicle and equipment manufacturing and servicing.
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Virgin Money: An Executive Search Experience Like No Other

Posted on by akessler
Virgin Money: An Executive Search Experience Like No Other

Executive Search

Virgin Money: An Executive Search Experience Like No Other

Finding a Head of Innovation through “the world’s most creative job interview,” an immersive executive assessment experience.

Situation

Virgin Money turned to PEopleScout and our industry-leading creative team to find them a new Head of Innovation.

Their brief to us:

Find us Harry Potter, a creative genius who can come along and change banking. Someone from outside the financial services sector that we wouldn’t attract through the normal processes.

Solution

How do you recruit an executive from a completely different sector? And how do you reach them in the first place?

Above all, by making the front pages, just not in the finance section.

So we set out to create a headline-grabbing experience that would generate publicity and noise in the right places.

And that experience was, “The world’s most creative job interview,” a hybrid of immersive theater and robust job assessment. Building on psychological principles, it set candidates tasks that engaged as thoroughly as they tested.

Results

Alongside coverage in the usual HR publications, we earned high-profile media coverage in The Evening Standard, City A.M., Campaign, Marketing Magazine, Brand Republic and more, reaching a combined circulation of around 30 million people.

Ten outstanding candidates were chosen for the “interview,” which led to the discovery of the successful applicant, Dhiraj Mukherjee, a founder of the music application Shazam, and a truly creative entrepreneur.

The new assessment approach has ushered in a legacy beyond a new Head of Innovation. From one niche role, we’ve now scaled up the approach to be used nationally across all volume hiring.

“The thing I love about PeopleScout is they have that really interesting blend of a robust approach to assessment and the creative ability to think differently.”

Head of Resourcing, Virgin Money

At a Glance

  • COMPANY: Virgin Money
  • INDUSTRY: Telecommunications
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS: Talent Advisory
  • ABOUT VIRGIN MONEY: Virgin Money is a financial service company disrupting retail and business banking with a digital-first model.
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IMI: Delivering a Tech-Charge Early Careers Recruitment Solution

Posted on by akessler
IMI: Delivering a Tech-Charge Early Careers Recruitment Solution

Early Careers Recruitment

IMI: Delivering a Tech-Charge Early Careers Recruitment Solution

Delivering an end-to-end RPO solution for early careers engineering talent.

Situation

IMI is an engineering company, specializing in the design, manufacture and service of highly engineered products that control the movement of fluids. They employ some 11,000 people, have manufacturing facilities in more than 20 countries.

When they needed a comprehensive global recruitment campaign to support their early careers talent strategy, IMI approached PeopleScout.

Solution

We delivered an end-to-end talent solution, covering everything from website design, attraction and sourcing, through to candidate management. The resourcing procedure included online application, a detailed qualification screen, sifting of written motivational responses, online verbal and numerical reasoning testing and a telephone interview.

Knowing just how valuable human contact is in the recruitment process, our recruiters in the delivery center were always accessible to candidates by phone. For email enquiries, applicants could expect responses within 24 hours. Meanwhile, assessment centers were regionally administered.

Results

We supported IMI’s graduate recruitment program for over two years with a global end-to-end talent solution designed to deliver an excellent candidate experience, maintaining consistently high satisfaction levels for our client and their candidates.

“Moving to PeopleScout was the best decision I ever made.”

Mari Docker, Global Graduate Development Manager, IMI

At a Glance

  • COMPANY: IMI
  • INDUSTRY: Manufacturing
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS: Recruitment Process Outsourcing
  • ABOUT IMI: IMI is a global specialist engineering company headquartered in Birmingham, England.
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SSE: Recruiting Engineers with Project RPO

Posted on by akessler
SSE: Recruiting Engineers with Project RPO

SSE: Recruiting Engineers with Project RPO

PeopleScout helped SSE hire hundreds of engineers with project RPO.

Situation

As part of the UK government’s smart meter rollout, energy company SSE needed to hire 1,500 Smart Meter Engineers in a short time-frame—in direct competition with all the other energy companies looking for the same talent. SSE turned to their RPO partner PeopleScout to help with this project.

Time was of the essence. The hiring process needed to be transformed, streamlined and made more consistent, as the existing process was time-consuming for hiring managers and candidates alike. Hiring managers were incredibly busy so we needed a process that required minimal commitment.

The next challenge we faced was the limited talent pool of candidates. So it was essential that SSE made an impact with highly targeted communications.

Solution

The occupational psychologists on our Assessment Team designed a new online application process that removed the need for SSE hiring managers to interview candidates. Now they would only need to meet the candidates on their first day of training. Our newly designed online 3D model and multiple-choice tests allowed us to assess candidates much more efficiently. And along the way, our Bristol-based delivery center supported candidates at each stage, ensuring that they remained engaged and satisfied.

“We’ve been really pleased with the speed of project set up, the PeopleScout team and the value that they continue to provide.”

Lee Newbold, HR Business Partner – Metering and Smart Transformation, SSE

Results

In the first year, PeopleScout recruited over 900 Smart Meter Engineers with the number of women hired into these roles increasing by 800%.

The average time-to-offer was reduced to 69 days, and new joiners now start after 104 days on average.

We have also increased the quality of the candidates, with 90% of trainee candidates attending the assessment center and 64% passing. 

The application process was nominated for an Innovation Award by the Association of British Psychology.

At a Glance

  • COMPANY: SSE
  • INDUSTRY: Energy & Utilities
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS: Recruitment Process Outsourcing
  • ANNUAL HIRES: 1,500 engineers
  • ABOUT SSE: SSE is a FTSE 100 energy company operating in the United Kingdom and Ireland. SSE energy services became part of OVO Energy in 2020.
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High-Volume Global RPO Solution for International Hospitality Brand

Posted on by Kate
High-Volume Global RPO Solution for International Hospitality Brand

Global RPO

High-Volume Global RPO Solution for International Hospitality Brand

An international hospitality brand—and longstanding PeopleScout client—was experiencing growing pains after an acquisition. The client needed to source, screen and hire an additional 20,000 staff for both corporate and on-site positions at hotel properties across multiple continents—bringing the annual headcount to 65,000 new hires. PeopleScout’s global RPO solution proved agile enough to seamlessly scale up to absorb the increased hiring volume, while hitting target service levels across regions.

65,000 Annual Hires
90 % Customer Satisfaction Scores Among Hiring Managers
84 % Time-to-Fill Targets Achieved for In-Market Roles
100 % Time-to-Fill Targets Achieved for Corporate Roles

Situation

PeopleScout facilitates more than 65,000 hires annually for the hospitality brand, delivering RPO through a 350-member team across continents. Roles include management and hourly hiring needs in both corporate and in-market environments, including sales, accounting, technology, e-commerce, infrastructure, risk management, engineering, architecture, property management, customer service, housekeeping, culinary and more.

In addition to corporate hiring in the U.S. and Canada, we’ve recruited for their operations centers in the UK and India and hospitality properties spanning North America, Latin America, EMEA and APAC.

Solution

Starting with a small pilot in 2007, our relationship has developed into a strategic partnership over 15 years. At the start, the client had disjointed hiring processes across regions. PeopleScout’s RPO team streamlined their recruitment processes and developed robust, standardized compliance practices across the entire recruiting program.

Following an acquisition in 2017, the client gained nearly 1,300 properties across over 100 countries. PeopleScout scaled our global talent acquisition program to ensure the established standardized processes and compliance practices were applied to the newly acquired properties, while keeping costs down.

PeopleScout seamlessly absorbed a 20,000-position increase and easily increased resources to meet a 50% increase in the scope of services. This included scaling our RPO solution to cover the end-to-end recruitment process for management positions for all hotel locations and the U.S. and Canadian headquarters. This allowed the in-house HR team to focus on training, workforce planning and employer branding.

PeopleScout also supported the client through three talent technology transitions over the course of the partnership, creating new levels of efficiency through automation. Plus, our in-house creative agency TMP assisted the client with their recruitment marketing efforts, creating attraction content in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Turkish.

Results

In just two months, PeopleScout was able to achieve the same level of performance at the newly acquired locations as they had at the legacy locations.

  • Created standardized recruitment processes and robust compliance practices across all in-market locations resulting in significant cost savings through efficiency
  • 84% time-to-fill targets achieved for in-market hires
  • Nearly 100% time-to-fill targets achieved for corporate hires
  • 90%+ customer satisfaction scores hit for both in-market and management hires
  • Achieved nearly 100% consistency in SLAs thanks to standardized operations across PeopleScout’s global delivery centers.

At a Glance

  • COMPANY: International hospitality brand
  • INDUSTRY: Hospitality, Travel & Tourism
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS: Recruitment Process Outsourcing
  • ANNUAL HIRES: 65,000
  • LOCATIONS: Hospitality properties, corporate offices and operational centers across North America, Latin America, Europe and APAC
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Legal Services Recruitment with Full-Cycle RPO

Posted on by akessler
Legal Services Recruitment with Full-Cycle RPO

Legal Services Recruitment with Full-Cycle RPO

How we helped this long-term legal services client revamp their talent acquisition program

Solution

PeopleScout has been RPO partner to this client for over 10 years. The relationship started as a co-sourced solution, where our recruiters partnered with the client’s internal talent acquisition team. As our partnership deepended, PeopleScout has taken responsibility for fully outsourced recruitment program and now also acts in a talent advisory capacity.

The onsite PeopleScout team is responsible for managing the end-to-end recruitment process for all fixed term and permanent hires. This includes strategic and innovative sourcing approaches, competitor mapping for key job groups, process enhancement through technology automation, candidate and hiring manager engagement and satisfaction, onboarding and induction.

PeopleScout achieved some key business-critical initiatives including:

  • Reducing turnover through improved quality-of-hire
  • Delivering a positive candidate experience and employer brand reputation
  • Taking over the end-to-end recruitment campaign for graduates and early careers from a different outsourced provider
  • Building talent pipelines for hard-to-fill positions including auditors, economists and lawyers
  • Recruiting senior executive and specialist roles
  • Project recruitment for recruitment intake following new law reforms

Talent Advisory Services

As part of this solution, PeopleScout has delivered a number of additional services in order to drive continuous improvement. The following is a summary of some of the services that have been successfully implemented:

  • Redesigned and promoted the employee referral program (ERP)
  • Developed hiring manager interview guides and conducted interview training
  • Developed microsites for a recruitment campaign for lawyers
  • Conducted D&I consulting
  • Supported the client’s internal mobility program leveraging the Affinix talent acquisition suite
  • Automated recruitment reports
  • Developed a company LinkedIn profile and alumni page to promote candidate attraction

Results

The solution continues to achieve positive results for the business including:

  • Reducing agency spend by over $3 million
  • Achieving an average time-to-fill of just 29 days including for senior level positions

At a Glance

  • COMPANY: Law firm
  • INDUSTRY: Legal Services
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS: Recruitment Process Outsourcing, Talent Advisory
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