Solution: Talent Advisory

Transport for Wales: Growing the Workforce of a Newly-Created Organization

Posted on by akessler
Transport for Wales: Growing the Workforce of a Newly-Created Organization

Transport for Wales: Growing the Workforce of a Newly-Created Organization

Supporting the launch of Transport for Wales with recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) for specialist engineering, transportation, project management and support roles.

92 % of Candidate Rated the Experience as Excellent
Grew Workforce from 9 employees to 140 During the Initial Engagement
Grew Workforce from 9 employees to 140 During the Initial Engagement
2 Languages, English and Welsh

Situation

Transport for Wales (TfW) was created to drive forward the Welsh Government’s vision for a high quality, safe, integrated, affordable and accessible transport network that the people of Wales would be proud of. As a new rail franchise operator, their initial focus was to grow at speed, recruiting 100 or more key staff within challenging timescales, in preparation for a rail franchise switch over.

As a newly-created organisation, Transport for Wales had no recruitment expertise or talent technology to support their ambitious resourcing plans for roles at all levels, from apprentices and graduates to Directors with every level in between.

TfW selected PeopleScout as their sole RPO partner to build their workforce from just nine employees to over 140 and growing, most of which are permanent with some temporary staff and contractors. Another key requirement was to work in both English and Welsh.

Solution

A Unique Service Model

To establish the Transport for Wales recruitment strategy, we placed a senior recruiter on site with expertise and industry experience who could consult and provide solutions to market challenges and engage with hiring communities and other key stakeholders. The immediate challenge was to identify and hire for key senior positions, starting with the Directors. We then worked with these leaders to build their teams from the top down in order to deliver on their goals.

Best-In-Class Candidate Experience

Our off-site recruiting team provided full-cycle RPO, from sourcing to onboarding services, to ensure that candidates received a best-in-class experience right through to their first day and beyond.

Attracting a Wider Talent Pool

As an RPO provider with a creative flair, we were able to help TfW move away from a more traditional marketing style to something which attracted diverse talent. As leaders in employer brand and candidate experience, this extended into a go-to-market broadcasting strategy that encompassed social media, community management and talent pooling. It also maximized the TfW employer brand story and reduced pressure on budgets.

Results

  • 95% offer fulfilment across all levels of roles
  • Rapid identification and hiring of crucial roles
  • 92% of candidates rated their hiring experience as excellent
  • Talent pools created for future hiring
  • A developed and refined future-proof recruitment strategy

PeopleScout have been excellent in the delivery of the recruitment services into Transport for Wales. They are transparent, hardworking and qualitatively focused. All the team have been dedicated to our growth ambition and have represented our brand well to external candidates. I am delighted to work with the whole team as we share our continued success with our partners.

Recruitment Leader, Transport for Wales

At a Glance

  • COMPANY
    Transport for Wales (TfW)
  • INDUSTRY
    Public Transportation
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS
    Recruitment Process Outsourcing, Affinix
  • ANNUAL HIRES
    100+ roles across specialist engineering, transportation, project management and admin support
  • ABOUT TfW
    Founded in 2016, Transport for Wales (TfW) was set up by the Welsh Government to make sustainable travel a reality in Wales. Their multimodal, integrated transport network aims to increase the number of journeys on public transport by 40% by 2040.
Let’s Connect

Transport for London: DE&I Recruiting to Represent Modern London

Posted on by akessler
Transport for London: Early Careers Recruiting to Represent Modern London

Early Careers | DE&I

Transport for London: Early Careers Recruiting to Represent Modern London

Transport for London (TfL) worked with PeopleScout to boost diversity in their early careers program through an employer branding and talent attraction campaign.

2 x Double the Percentage of Minority Ethnic Graduates Hired
16 % Increase in Female Apprentice Hires

London’s population is projected to reach 10.5 million by 2041. Plus, 16 to 18-year-olds are experiencing rising youth unemployment with some of the most deprived areas in the country set in London. 

As the government body responsible for the day-to-day operation of London’s public transport network, naturally Transport for London (TfL) plays a major role in contributing to the capital’s growth, and opening doors for people from disadvantaged areas was absolutely vital. Supporting this growth means recruiting, retaining, and developing a workforce of Londoners who will take part in the design of their city.

Transport for London (TfL) values the importance of diversity and inclusion and social mobility. Being representative of London is something their success is measured on, and the same standards apply to their apprenticeship and graduate schemes.

These early careers schemes had proven successful in the volume of applications received but weren’t reaching talent from all walks of life. TfL needed a diverse pipeline that truly represented modern London. It was time to rethink their entire student attraction activity. That’s where PeopleScout came in.

Situation

TfL needed to recruit 32 graduate roles and 109 apprenticeships. As their talent partners, our primary objective was to champion these fantastic opportunities to a broader apprentice and graduate talent pool in order to increase female applicants and those from minority ethnic backgrounds.

This meant removing barriers to recruitment, challenging stereotypes and overcoming negative perceptions. We needed to change TfL’s attraction process so that people from every pocket of society would be interested in the unique opportunities available. And we needed to re-position their early careers employer brand as a progressive organization in which everyone—regardless of background or financial situation—could excel.

Solution

A New Brand To Make Better Connections

Together, we transformed the way TfL recruit diverse talent. Ensuring skilled people from all walks of life have a chance to shine in the application and assessment process, our creative team used their audience knowledge to build a dynamic unexpected youth brand, “The Next Move”, which was designed to look different from other TfL communications, using vibrant, colourful graphics that would better connect with female and diverse applicants. We then shaped a comprehensive outreach program and a completely new assessment process with the aim of helping these candidates show TfL who they are and what they’re truly made of.

A More Targeted Approach

For Tfl’s apprenticeships, we designed a new strategy for our school outreach program, “Moving Forward.” We identified 251 of the poorest secondary state schools and ran over 50 events, with additional events in three of the most deprived boroughs in London: Newham, Tower Hamlets and Haringey.

Boosting Success in Assessment Centers

From experience, we know that young people often need to build their confidence by filling gaps in their knowledge. To address this, we created “Route-into-Work,” a pre-employment course for all candidates to fill gaps in their knowledge and provide them with the tools, insight and confidence to be successful at assessment centers.

Results

We achieved amazing results with the graduate recruitment campaign, comfortably filling all of the roles and meeting the social mobility criteria.

Doubling the Percentage of Graduate Hires from Minority Backgrounds

Most importantly we doubled the percentage of minority ethnic graduates from 27% to 54%, and we substantially grew the proportion of female hires from 18% to 29%.

Growing Female Apprentice Hires by 16%

Similarly strong results were achieved in the apprentice pool, as we dramatically grew the proportion of female hires from 20% to 36%. The Route-into-Work program delivered apprenticeship hires, of which 33% were female and 67% were minority ethnic.

At a Glance

  • COMPANY
    Transport for London (TfL)
  • INDUSTRY
    Public Transportation
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS
    Talent Advisory
  • ANNUAL HIRES
    32 graduate roles and 109 apprenticeships
  • ABOUT TfL
    Transport for London (TfL) is the government body responsible for the day-to-day operation of London’s public transport network and management of the capital’s main roads.
Let’s Connect

Positioning a National Healthcare Provider to Become a World-Class Leader

Posted on by nfuqua
Positioning a National Healthcare Provider to Become a World-Class Leader

Positioning a National Healthcare Provider to Become a World-Class Leader

PeopleScout partnered with Australia’s largest non-government community services provider to perform a recruitment diagnostic of their current recruitment function to help position them as a world-class leader.

PeopleScout partnered with Australia’s largest non-government community services provider to perform a diagnostic overview of their 1,600 sites across Australia that employ a network of 40,000 employees and 30,000 volunteers nationally.

Scope and Scale

The client provides services to children, young people and families, people with disabilities and older Australians in urban, rural and remote communities, including residential and community care, child care, homelessness prevention and support, family support, domestic violence and disability services.

Situation

PeopleScout performed a recruitment diagnostic of the client’s current recruitment function including a review of recruitment tools and technology, recruitment team structure, process and allocation of recruitment costs.

The purpose of the review was to provide the client with a road map to transform the current transactional recruitment function into one that reduced risk and cost while increasing quality and efficiency.

We were also tasked with providing a recommendation on a future-state recruitment model that positioned this
client for aggressive growth targets.

Solution

PeopleScout’s solution addressed the provider’s core objectives and embraced their values of challenging convention, exploring new possibilities and daring to dream for a better future.

The recommended model combined a dedicated service line with the latest technology and sophisticated recruitment processes to source market-leading talent.

The model viewed talent holistically – including both internal and external talent – creating pipelines that increased the speed and access to talent, leveraged talent across business units, facilitated internal mobility and retained core talent while reducing the time-to-hire.

The solution addressed these key recruitment and sourcing challenges into six core deliverables that underpinned their critical success factors:

  • Quality of talent
  • Quality of service
  • Innovation
  • Process efficiencies
  • Analytics and reporting
  • Cost

At a Glance

  • COMPANY
    Australia’s largest non-government community services provider
  • INDUSTRY
    Healthcare
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS
    Talent Advisory
  • LOCATIONS
    1,600 sites across Australia
Let’s Connect

Staying COVID-Safe: Are You Ready to be a Health Business?

Posted on by akessler

Joe Mongon, Head of Recruitment Delivery, EMEA

This week in the UK, many businesses are considering how to safely return their employees to construction sites, field work and offices in larger numbers. Schools, nurseries and—dare we hope—shops, bars and restaurants may follow in June and July.

What does your workplace look like today? Is it an empty office or a packed manufacturing facility? Wherever your employees and colleagues are, their health and safety have never been more important.

Post-pandemic, the vigilance around employee care will move from wellness to health. I don’t want to downplay a strong wellbeing policy, and it’s cool to have a yoga studio, but it’s essential to provide protection from harm. Government guidelines will likely mean it’s not a matter of choice, but it’s not legislation alone that will drive this cultural change. 

Some new examples of business responses are highlighted in a recent article from the BBC, from onsite medical teams to implementing temperature checks for employees and customers.

“We used to say every business will be a digital business. But today we say every business will be a health business.”

Gianfranco Casati, Chief Executive for Growth Markets, Accenture

Businesses with high-risk environments have recognised the importance of keeping employees safe and healthy for a long time. I worked with an offshore drilling company who set ‘Safety’ as a cultural objective for all employees. It’s  sound reasoning—a payroll clerk doing their job with unerring accuracy gives someone on the drilling platform one less distraction on the job.

So, how does this impact recruitment and talent acquisition?

Candidate Experience 

In your communications plan, information on health and wellbeing should be mandatory information, not just positioned as a benefit. Recruiters and interviewers must demonstrate higher levels of responsibility and care to candidates, including guidance on safely accessing your sites.

Technology 

Implementing virtual hiring solutions can help to protect your employees and candidates by eliminating face-to-face interactions while allowing you to continue moving forward with your recruiting needs.

Employer Brand 

In late 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, prospective employees who wanted to understand a company’s culture and values asked their interviewers how they and their colleagues were treated, and how well they were cared for.

In a way, that shouldn’t feel new. People and culture are most companies’ greatest assets. Leading organisations recognise this and demonstrate it to their employees and candidates. Protecting your people must be more serious now, but it’s likely always been a priority.  

Haven’t you always been a health business?

Kent County Council: A Social Media Campaign Promoting a Career in Care

Posted on by edyson
Kent County Council: A Social Media Campaign Promoting a Career in Care

Social Media Recruitment Campaign

Kent County Council: A Social Media Campaign Promoting a Career in Care

PeopleScout developed a social media campaign for Kent County Council (KCC) to attract more home social care and healthcare workers.

51,000 impressions
1,000 click-throughs
75,000 views on YouTube in just 2 weeks

Support workers make a genuine difference to real lives, yet Kent County Council (KCC) was finding it hard to attract the right people to fill these vacancies. They approached PeopleScout to develop a campaign to reach an audience that may not realize they had the skills and attributes to become care workers and show them they could have a meaningful career, just by “being you.”

Scope & Scale

Kent County Council, along with over 1,400 partner organizations, are committed to providing essential care and support, working with some of the most vulnerable members of the community. Their need to recruit was based on the requirement to alleviate pressure on nursing homes and hospitals by providing care in the clients’ own homes, therefore freeing up valuable beds elsewhere.

It was also important to demonstrate to the wider Kent population that KCC was taking positive and supportive action in what was a high profile and often criticized area for all local authorities.

Situation

With job openings that aren’t clearly defined by specific skills or experience, it’s often challenging to convince potential recruits that a role is right for them. With “unskilled” (in terms of qualifications) positions such as these, the lure of other opportunities, including retail, is often more appealing and the lack of visibility or explanation of support roles, alongside a misunderstanding of what is entailed, compounds this issue. In addition to this, there was a lack of clarity about the genuine career potential that these jobs could offer potential candidates. KCC aimed to raise the profile of the work they do in an area that is both sensitive and one that touches most people at some stage in their lives.

Solution

To fully understand why existing support workers do what they do, we ran a focus group to investigate the motivators and to hear real-life stories. Our creative team then set to work to produce a personal and appropriate creative identity; one that would put empathy and natural caring skills needed for these roles at the very heart of the campaign. We concluded the best way to communicate this was through video, showing everyday situations where people made a difference, doing everyday things and how this translated into a care workers’ job.

This was driven by the central campaign message of, “You’d be surprised how qualified you are to be a support worker – just by being you.” With a small promotion budget and to ensure that the power of the video’s visuals were maximized, we used social media to push the video out to the target audience using geographic and behavioral targeting methods.

Results

The social media campaign ran for just over two weeks and in that time delivered over 51,000 impressions, converting to over 1,000 click-throughs – an impressive rate of 2.1%. Equally impressive, YouTube delivered almost 172,000 impressions and over 75,000 views.

At a Glance

  • COMPANY
    Kent County Council
  • INDUSTRY
    Government & Public Sector
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS
    Talent Advisory
  • ABOUT KCC
    Kent County Council is a county council that governs the county of Kent in England including 1.6 million residents. Amongst its many services, the council provides health and social care for adults and children.
Let’s Connect

Sainsbury’s: Getting More Vans on the Road

Posted on by edyson
Sainsbury's: Getting More Vans on the Road

Recruitment Media Campaign

Sainsbury’s: Getting More Vans on the Road

Grocery retailer Sainsbury’s turned to PeopleScout to hire drivers to support their growing online business.

6,200 annual hires
5 weeks to fill most roles
analytics informed approach resulted in reduced marketing spend
analytics informed approach resulted in reduced marketing spend

With online grocery shopping becoming increasingly popular, Sainsbury’s looked to PeopleScout to maximize the number of delivery slots that they could offer to customers. In a saturated marketplace, it wasn’t enough just to target existing drivers, we also needed to find those with transferable skills and encourage them to apply. The resulting strategy enabled Sainsbury’s to go to market with a number of highly targeted and locations-specific attraction campaigns.

Situation

Before engaging with PeopleScout, the client struggled to meet its hiring goals. Approximately two-thirds of candidates dropped out of the hiring process between the first two steps of the screening process. Many candidates couldn’t complete screening during traditional recruiting hours.  

In response to these challenges, PeopleScout provides a highly scalable delivery team to meet the client’s fluctuating hiring needs and address regional and cultural preferences during the screening process. PeopleScout’s centralized recruitment support ensures compliance and streamlines the process through innovative technology solutions. Positions in scope include 6,200 annual hires for warehouse and truck driver positions.

Sainsbury’s business strategy is to respond to the changing needs of their customers, enabling them to shop whenever and wherever they want. Seven days a week, Sainsbury’s delivers fresh food, groceries, general merchandise and clothing from suppliers around the world, via 33 distribution centers, to their store and online customers, meeting their requirements for flexible, convenient shopping.

Drivers are a vital part of this strategy, ensuring that Sainsbury’s can make deliveries to millions of customers at a time that suits them.

The online grocery department is a fast-growing business for Sainsbury’s. When we started this project, one in five employees worked in the department, but with changing consumer habits, this was soon to become one in three.

Despite being one of the company’s largest employee populations, it experienced high turnover in line with the challenging driver recruitment market. Some locations, for example, inner-city areas and affluent suburban locations, found it particularly hard to recruit.

The level of attrition made it hard for the department to grow, and driver availability became the limiting factor when it came to processing orders. It was vital for the business to hire more drivers immediately, but also have a robust strategy for the future too.

Solution

SOLUTION HIGHLIGHTS

  • Marketing Intelligence & Market Analysis
  • Persona Development
  • Process Design
  • Creative Development
  • Integrated Media Campaign

AT A GLANCE

  • COMPANY
    Sainsbury’s
  • INDUSTRY
    Retail
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS
    Recruitment Process Outsourcing, Talent Advisory
  • ANNUAL HIRES
    6,200 annual hires for warehouse and truck driver positions
  • LOCATIONS
    33 distribution centers
  • ABOUT SAINSBURY’S
    Sainsbury’s is a British supermarket and the second largest grocery chain in the United Kingdom. Since opening their first store in 1869, Sainsbury’s in focused on providing great value food and convenient shopping, whether in-store or online—as well as through their other brands Argos, Habitat, Tu, Nectar and Sainsbury’s Bank.
Contact Sales

Our first step was to leverage interviews and focus groups to understand the recruitment proposition for drivers at Sainsbury’s.

In addition to interviews, we utilized market mapping techniques to understand the labor force, reporting on salary benchmarks, competitor activity, and the socio-demographics of hard-to-fill locations.

Using the data collected from interviews and focus groups, we developed distinct driver personas, each with its own messaging framework and channel strategy. We used these to develop highly targeted comms for each group, responding to their motivations and behaviors.

Secondary messaging included: flexible shifts where we knew there was a high student population and non-monetary benefits such as child-care vouchers in areas that had a high density of families.

Results

The campaign was so successful that the majority of roles were filled within the first five weeks of the 12-week campaign, meaning that Sainsbury’s could cut back on their marketing spend. More impressively, seven locations needed to pause their recruitment due to high application numbers including two of the locations that were identified as hard-to-fill areas.

After speaking to hiring managers, existing employees, and those working for competitor organizations, we found that the majority of people eligible to be a Sainsbury’s delivery driver didn’t realize that they already had the skills to do the job. In fact, the role required skills like good customer service, time management, and self-motivation which we found to crossover with a number of different sectors.

This led us to design a creative route that focused on the core messaging of “All you need is a license” and “Where will your license take you?” educating the audience around the training and development new joiners received. This sat in contrast to another creative route which we used in locations that had high competitor activity. There we led with the messaging around the fact that Sainsbury’s offered guaranteed hours where other organizations did not.

Before the campaign, Sainsbury’s was engaging with candidates across multiple channels with different communications, which meant they ended up talking to the same audience in different ways, about different things. By taking this insight-driven segmented approach, Sainsbury’s could instead talk confidently about the things that mattered to candidates, using the channels that they were most likely to respond to.

“The success of the campaign so far has been unprecedented and as such after five weeks we are already in a place where most of our stores in the trial have filled all driver hours required. In total, we have received over 2,000 applications. We’ve extended 131 offers, and 106 have been accepted so far.”

Client Testimonial

Openreach: Recruiting for Hard-to-Fill Engineer Roles at Scale

Posted on by skatz
Openreach: Recruiting for Hard-to-Fill Engineer Roles at Scale

Microtitle

Openreach: Recruiting for Hard-to-Fill Engineer Roles at Scale

Openreach approached PeopleScout to help recruit for hard-to-fill trainee engineer positions. Our postal code-by-postal code attraction and simplified recruitment process enabled Openreach to fill all roles and to increase applications from diverse candidates.

413 trainee engineer hires
70 % of applications were from diverse candidates
3 months to fill all vacancies

Situation

Openreach recruits 3,500 trainee engineers on an annual basis, with a large proportion of hires made in areas with strong candidate pipelines. However, hiring in Southern England and London proved challenging. So, they approached PeopleScout to support the delivery of 413 trainee engineer hires in these hard-to-fill locations in just three months.

Solution

SOLUTION HIGHLIGHTS

  • Microsite hub
  • Bespoke, postal code-tailored attraction program
  • Simplified application process
  • All roles filled with increased diversity interest

At a Glance

  • COMPANY
    Openreach
  • INDUSTRY
    Telecommunications
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS
    Recruitment Process Outsourcing
  • ANNUAL HIRES
    413 trainee engineers
  • LOCATIONS
    Multiple areas across Southern England and London
  • ABOUT OPENREACH
    Openreach is a subsidiary of BT Group providing phone, broadband and Ethernet services to homes and businesses across the UK.
Let’s Connect

MICROSITE HUB

We worked with Openreach to scope and build a microsite to act as the hub for trainee engineer hiring. 

TAILORING BY POSTAL CODE

Deploying a bespoke attraction program by specific postal codes allowed us to be highly targeted in driving candidate pipelines. All attraction materials drove candidates to the microsite. 

LIGHT-TOUCH PROCESS

In addition, we developed a light-touch simplified recruitment process, which included video interviews and a one-page online application. 

Results

FILLED IN THREE MONTHS

From sign-off to implementation, the service was set up, configured and ready to go live in six weeks—and all 413 roles were filled within three months. 

DIVERSITY BOOST 

Nearly 70% of applications in London postal codes were from diverse candidates, translating into a 53% offer rate. 

TRANSFORMATIONAL

Openreach has said that collaborating with us has been “transformational,” and we’re now working with them on 150 additional hires.

The AA: Ready for ANYTHING? An Experiential Event Drives More Applications

Posted on by skatz
The AA: Ready for ANYTHING? An Experiential Event Drives More Applications

Recruitment Events

The AA: Ready for ANYTHING? An Experiential Event Drives More Applications

The AA engaged PeopleScout to design and host big, bold recruiting events for their call center roles. Through a series of silly, messy tasks, we increased awareness of the AA’s roles and drove more applications.

2 recruitment events
60,000 career site visits
78 % increase in applications

Thousands more careers site visitors. Hundreds more applications. And how did we do it? With 64 fake spiders, 15 liters of custard and one tube of wasabi paste—among other things. This is the story of how we created a fun, conversation-sparking event that captured the essence of the AA employer brand, raised awareness of their call center roles and helped them make the successful hires they needed.

Situation

The AA has two large call centers in Oldbury (near Birmingham) and Newcastle, England. With ambitious hiring targets to meet, they’d used a range of attraction methods, from job boards and paid social media, to taxi wraps and ads at cinemas. They weren’t getting the results they needed, so it was time for something bigger and bolder.

Solution

We discussed and planned the objectives carefully with the talent attraction team and local stakeholders. We wanted to raise general awareness of the organization in local audiences and encourage them to spread the word, so we needed a way of reaching a large number of individuals easily, effectively and creatively. The AA also wanted us to showcase their fun and friendly culture.

Highlights

  • Raising awareness of roles
  • Reflecting a fun and friendly culture
  • Boosting social media activity
  • Increasing careers site visitors
  • Record-breaking application figures

At a Glance

  • COMPANY
    The AA
  • INDUSTRY
    Roadside Recovery Services
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS
    Talent Advisory
  • LOCATIONS
    2 call centers in England
  • ABOUT THE AA
    The Automobile Association (The AA) has been supporting motorists in the United Kingdom since 1905. With over 14 million members, breakdown cover is always their number one priority, but the AA has branched out into finance, insurance, leisure and lifestyle services.
Let’s Connect

A BRAND MESSAGING-ALIGNED EVENT

The “Ready for ANYTHING?” strapline is the central message in all of the AA’s recruitment communications activity, so it made sense to take this message and see just who was Ready for ANYTHING? among local audiences.

FUN TO TAKE PART IN. FUN TO WATCH.

With a big prize to incentivize contestants, the event was built around getting volunteers on stage to take part in a mystery challenge. We built The Random Challenge Generator—a big screen flashing through a series of silly, messy tasks. The contestant pushed a big yellow button to stop the screen, which brought up their challenge. We also engaged a celebrity host to help draw the crowds, engage with the audience and keep the fun moving. We ran two of these shopping center-based outdoor events—one in Newcastle, the other in Birmingham.

PROMOTING THE OPPORTUNITIES

Maximizing social media activity before, during and after the event, we also live-streamed the challenges. Filming on the day enabled us to create short videos for follow-up content to promote the AA’s call center roles. On the event days, we gave out flyers encouraging people to get involved and driving to the AA careers site, while digital screen and on-stage announcements also highlighted the AA’s local career opportunities.

Results

UNPRECEDENTED CAREERS SITE VISIT FIGURES

Social media and event build-up activity drove 60,000 career site visits across the weeks events were held. Before, 1,500 to 2,000 people visited the AA careers site each day. For the Newcastle event, this increased to 5,000 in just one day, with a record high of 7,100 in one day for Birmingham.

RECORD NUMBERS OF APPLICATIONS

While the AA saw a huge increase in applications for their call center in Oldbury, they had record breaking figures for Newcastle. With a month-over-month increase from 576 to 1,026—a 78% increase!

Delivering Diverse Early Careers Applicants in Financial Services

Posted on by akessler
Delivering Diverse Early Careers Applicants in Financial Services

Delivering Diverse Early Careers Applicants in Financial Services

A leading UK financial services group partnered with PeopleScout to improve the candidate experience in their early careers program, resulting in improved candidate diversity.

36 % Increased in Total Applications
39 % of Candidates Identified as Female
47 % Identified as Coming from an Underrepresented Group

Situation

PeopleScout is the long-time RPO partner for this client, supporting candidate management within their emerging talent program to attract more graduates and interns into the their workforce. As recognized leaders of employer brand and candidate experience, our client delivery team presented some recommendations to the organization to improve their hiring journey based on ad-hoc feedback received while interacting with early careers candidates.

Solution

Crafting a Better Candidate Experience

We started by creating a candidate experience audit to measure the informal comments we’d heard. Through a series of internal and external focus groups with graduates and interns who had recently been through the recruitment process, we identified gaps in the candidate communication schedule. Candidates revealed that they were often unsure of where they were in the process, what was coming next and how they should prepare.

With our client first, not process first philosophy, we created a customized plan to address these concerns. We produced a candidate journey guide to help the candidates understand each step of the process. To go along with this, we developed a content plan to provide candidates with the right information at the right time, keeping them informed about next steps.

Supporting the DE&I Directive

We also took the opportunity to boost candidate engagement by personalising email communications and adding visual content which promoted organizational program that would appeal to this young audience, like their well-being initiatives. In addition, to support the client’s DE&I directive, we chose to highlight stories about women and employees from minority backgrounds—especially those in finance and technology focused roles—to decrease the likelihood of these candidates dropping out of the funnel. 

Implementing Candidate NPS

Since we’re always focused on delivery, we implemented a new candidate Net Promoter Score® (NPS) survey to measure the candidate experience and uncover more opportunities for improvements going forward. All candidates, whether hired or not, are asked how likely they are to recommend the bank as a potential employer based on their recent experience with the early careers recruitment program.

Results

Since taking on the management of the Emerging Talent program for this client, we generated a 36% increase in total applications from the previous year, with 39% from female candidates and 47% from candidates from a underrepresented background.

The new candidate survey provided a candidate NPS of 57, which is considered excellent.

“The PeopleScout team are proactive in talking to us about new ideas and at the same time are brilliant at being reactive to business hiring needs. PeopleScout are a true trusted partner and have been fundamental to our hiring delivery and service over the last 20+ years.”

– Senior Resourcing Manager

At a Glance

  • COMPANY
    Leading UK financial services group
  • INDUSTRY
    Financial Services
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS
    Recruitment Process Outsourcing, Talent Advisory
  • ANNUAL HIRES
    1,500
  • ABOUT THE CLIENT
    A leading UK financial services group has been partnering with PeopleScout for over 20 years, making it one of our longest-standing client relationships. What started as a Talent Advisory engagement has now expanded to include end-to-end volume Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) services, with over 1,500 hires annually across 16 sites, 50 shift patterns and multiple banking brands.
Let’s Connect

Scottish Police: Securing the Future of Policing with Talent Assessment

Posted on by akessler
Scottish Police: Securing the Future of Policing with Talent Assessment

Talent Assessment

Scottish Police: Securing the Future of Policing with Talent Assessment

PeopleScout developed a bespoke assessment process for the Scottish Police Authority to identify top leadership talent.

Situation

The Scottish Police Authority (SPA) was faced with the challenge of hiring an elite group of leaders into the roles of Assistant Chief Constable (ACC) and Deputy Chief Constable (DCC) for Police Scotland. Police Scotland had undergone a wave of change, instability and uncertainty, and they needed a strong leadership team to work collectively and deliver a significant transformational agenda.

They wanted candidates who not only had the operational policing experience, but also the leadership capability to drive a challenging journey of accelerated growth, intense scrutiny and accountability.

The SPA engaged PeopleScout as a strategic talent assessment partner to help them do it.

Solution

A Robust Process

The SPA wanted our Assessment Team to design and deliver a robust process to recruit a number of ACCs and DCCs into Police Scotland. We measured each candidate’s strengths and potential areas of development against indicators from the College of Policing Competency and Values Framework.

A Two-Staged Approach

In stage one, candidates completed an online critical reasoning test and a series of personality assessments. This was followed by an in-depth validation interview with a highly experienced organizational psychologist.

For the second stage, all candidates were invited to attend an assessment center. They were tested by a team of independent, highly experienced assessors across four exercises.

Bespoke Reports

Our assessors collated all the candidate performance information and developed detailed reports on each individual. These also included a set of unique questions that the interview panel could use in the final stage interview to dig deeper and give candidates a final opportunity to demonstrate their capability in a specific competency.

Results

Successfully Appointed Leaders

This robust approach enabled the SPA to successfully appoint three individuals into ACC roles and two individuals into DCC roles as key players in the Police Scotland leadership team.


Confidence in the Future

Our tailored, best practice-based assessment process gave the SPA confidence that the selected individuals would make a significant contribution to the development of policing in Scotland in the years ahead.

At a Glance

  • COMPANY
    Scottish Police Authority (SPA)
  • INDUSTRY
    Government & Public Sector
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS
    Recruitment Process Outsourcing
  • ABOUT SPA
    Scottish Police Authority (SPA) is the independent governing body for policing in Scotland, created to promote, support and oversee improvement in policing.
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