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
2Languages, 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.
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.
2xDouble 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.
For the past few years, the recruitment and staffing industry have been under constant pressure to reevaluate their service delivery strategies. Despite the recent turbulence we’ve been experiencing due to COVID-19, recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) offers organisations the opportunity to augment their recruitment functions to support growth in other regions.
Business Growth in Europe
For the past 10 years, the offshoring market in countries like Poland has beenan increasingly large component of the global business operations. Offshoring certain business functions offers savings, and enterprises have become more comfortable with managing remote teams—whether through an outsourced provider or their own offshore service centers.
In addition, global businesses are looking to other countries to access a wider, well-educated and experienced talent pool. Some jobs require highly skilled talent, and in order to fulfill all their requirements, expanding to a new region—and acquiring the best skills at a lower operating cost—will become a kay component of organisational resilience going forward.
5 Ways RPO Can Support Your European Expansion
Europe is made up of 44 countries, all with their own distinct traditions and languages. A homogenous approach won’t delivery against your European talent acquisition goals. An EMEA RPO partner can help you navigate these differences and find talent as rich as the cultures this continent has to offer.
Here are five ways a global RPO partner can help your organisation expand in Europe.
Access local recruitment expertise. With a regional presence and experience, your RPO partners can provide insights into local labour markets and what matters to talent in different areas of expertise or the region.
Expand your talent pool. Whether you’re opening a new factory or looking for top software engineers, RPO can open up a whole new pool of talent for your organisation.
Gain efficiency and agility. Access to flexible teams and leading recruitment technology means your RPO can help optimise your processes and reduce the burden on local hiring managers.
Adapt your approach to cultural nuances.Global RPO partners have multilingual teams who can tailor your recruitment processes to account for the location and role.
Ensure compliance. Each country has its own recruitment regulations and laws, and an RPO partner can help you stay compliant and mitigate risk.
Need an RPO Partner in Europe?
Looking for help with talent acquisition in Europe? Contact us to learn more about our talent acquisition solutions in EMEA.
As a graduate resourcing consultant, 2020 is my fourth graduate recruitment cycle. I currently work on the Lendlease team at PeopleScout, supporting our client by sourcing bright minded graduates who will help to shape and deliver the future of the construction and property industry.
And, despite the uncertainty in the world right now, I am confident that this move to digital graduate recruitment will stick.
Graduate Roles are Still Important
Graduates are the future of every business. Lendlease has a two-year graduate program, and the people hired for those roles use that program to grow their skills and experience before moving on to other roles within the business. We have even seen some of those graduate hires grow to become senior leaders at Lendlease.
Furthermore, it is critically important to continue recruiting for graduate roles during this uncertain time. Graduates futureproof the business by bringing in diverse, new talent with different perspectives, new ideas and an understanding of current trends. By actively filling these roles, we are preparing for the future beyond COVID-19.
But, the Graduate Recruitment Process Needs to Change
Normally, the planning for a graduate recruitment cycle begins in the previous year. For 2020, we started planning in November and December of 2019. We prepare through January and February, and then the campaign goes live in March. In previous years, we would attend career fairs, flying to different universities and presenting information about Lendlease in person. Throughout the next few months, candidates would apply and interview online, and finally attend an in-person assessment center.
But, in 2020, we needed to adapt rapidly. We stuck with our normal timeframes, but moved the entire process online – career fairs and assessment centers included. Earlier this year, I attended one of the virtual career fairs.
The fair was run by a university, and nearly 1,500 students registered. We advertised on social media to get students excited to speak with Lendlease. On the day of the fair, about 300 students visited the digital booth – making it one of the most popular. I was able to present to larger groups of students at once – something that isn’t possible at a traditional booth. Students also came with questions, which I was able to answer and talk with them about one-on-one.
The virtual fair I attended was held using Zoom video technology, along with the help of a third-party provider to ensure everything ran smoothly on the day of the event. Each employer had a unique booth and logo, so students could easily identify them and talk with employer representatives. Many graduates registered to come talk with us, allowing us to target hundreds of students in just three hours without having to travel.
Best Practices to Make the Transition Smooth
For the process to be successful, consider the types of technology you use. For virtual career fairs, the university may already have a preferred platform. However, you will still need to consider virtual interviews and virtual assessments. At PeopleScout, we use Affinix™, our proprietary talent technology. With Affinix, we can schedule and conduct virtual interviews – live or recorded – on a candidate’s own time.
Likewise, it is important to focus on communication. Graduates want to hear from you. Something as simple as a message to check in can be powerful. Communicating with candidates, even if it means admitting you don’t have all the answers, builds trust in an uncertain time.
Graduate Recruitment Won’t Go Back
With the COVID-19 crisis, we are always facing new surprises. However, with graduate recruitment, the surprise was how well the process worked – even with changes taking place under a tight timeline. We had to adapt quickly, but we saw that the digital process works. Students responded well to online career fairs. We saved money by avoiding air travel and lodging. We communicated with and assessed candidates in ways that kept everyone safe.
Based on our experience, 2020 won’t be a one-off year in which graduate recruitment looks different than normal. It will be the first year where digital graduate recruitment is normal.
In light of the workforce disruptions caused by the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus, talent leaders are quickly adapting and transforming their organization’s talent function to match our present reality.
The current crisis gives talent leaders the opportunity to assess and fine-tune recruiting practices in a way that will keep both candidates and recruiters safe while better positioning their organization for the future working conditions.
Technologies such as text messaging tools built for recruiters offer enormous opportunities to improve recruiter efficiency, time to hire and build stronger relationships with candidates. What’s more, text messaging, when paired with a virtual hiring solution, is a safer alternative to traditional recruiting.
Before you implement a texting solution, you need a solid understanding of use cases and best practices that can help ensure success and mitigate risk. In this article, we will outline the case for texting and share best practices for leveraging texting in your recruiting program.
The Case For Text Recruitment
Recruiters and talent leaders understand that good recruiting begins and ends with building strong relationships with candidates. So, why add yet another communications channel to the recruiting mix?
The answer is simple: Times keep changing, and so do the ways we communicate. As that happens, the effectiveness of tried and true methods also changes as demographics and preferences shift.
Texting Recruitmentis Straightforward: Text messages are typically short and to the point, which makes them easier to read and respond to than email messages. Texting also carries with it an expectation of informality which makes it easier to communicate. For example, saying “yes” instead of “Yes.” is totally acceptable via a text exchange.
Text Recruitment is Convenient: Candidates can respond to texts whenever and wherever while they are running errands, on break at work or home watching a movie.
Text RecruitmentHas Greater Reach: Many hourly and elderly workers don’t own or have access to a computer and rely on their mobile devices exclusively for job searches. Texting is also more accessible for job seekers who don’t have unlimited data plans or who do not have a smart phone, making your application process more accessible to a broader population.
Text RecruitmentBuilds Dialogue: The nature of conversation is constantly evolving. That means candidates are becoming increasingly open to beginning conversations via text.
Use Cases for Text Recruitment
There are as many ways to integrate texting into your recruiting process as there are topics to communicate about. Below, we cover some of the best use cases for text recruitment.
Automating Candidate
Reengagement
Many organizations already have a large database of candidates in their ATS. Sending automated text messages is an extremely effective way to reach out to those contacts at scale to rapidly generate interest in new positions. You can also use automation to reach out to previous employees, if they have opted-in for texting. To gain that opt in, you could ask for consent as part of the off-boarding process for departing employees.
Automated Updates
Sending automated texts to candidates to confirm that their job application has been received and is under review can be a great way to keep them engaged in the process. What’s more, you can set up automated messages that are triggered at each phase of the hiring process to keep candidates up to date with their status. This makes the recruiting process feel more personal and less like their application was sent down a black hole.
Automated Scheduling
Interview coordination is ideally suited to texting. Your organization can send text links for candidate self-scheduling to streamline interviews.
Enhanced Screening
Capabilities
When handling a high volume of applicants, it can be difficult for recruiters to respond quickly and individually to each candidate. Using texts, you can qualify applicants faster using response templates and automated screening questions. Recruitment texting platforms can be programmed to send back follow up questions, job application links, or other content based on candidate responses.
This exchange is an example of not just interview scheduling, but also actual interviewing over text. At PeopleScout, we have seen client’s receive an 85% response rate for this type of question and answer exchange, which is higher than other communication channels.
Better Interview
Completion Rate
Recruiters know that coordinating with the candidate is only half the hiring battle. Recruiting teams can use texts to send automated interview reminders to hiring managers and colleagues, so nothing slips through the cracks. Fewer missed or reschedule interviews means a shorter time to hire.
Field Recruiting
Retail, hospitality
and other employers with large physical footprints can also utilize text short codes to capitalize on walk-in
applicants. Signage placed on doors, at the register, or elsewhere connects job
seekers directly to the online job application forms and minimizes distractions
for managers in the field.
SMS short codes are five to six-digit numbers that are often paired with keywords for use in text recruitment (e.g. ‘Text JOBS to 123456’). You can utilize them on signage at job events to maximize ROI.
Best
Practices for Text Recruitment
While mobile phones and texting have become ubiquitous tools in everyday life, it is important to realize that communication preferences vary from individual to individual. It is also critical to recognize that the attributes that makes texting such a powerful recruiting tool – that’s it is direct, convenient and personal – are the same things that make observing best practices so important.
Secure
Permission from Candidates
Text messages are governed by different laws and standards than email. Employers in the U.S. will want to consider how the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), or similar laws such as the European Union regulations regarding electronic communications, namely the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), apply to different types of recruitment texting activity. Talent leaders should consult their legal counsel and get comfortable with the ins and outs of the TCPA when formulating a text recruitment strategy and all related policies.
Before you text candidates, you must first obtain express consent from the candidate and it must be easy for them to opt-out of communications. As a starting point, review your organization’s website and application process and add simple, clear language stating that phone numbers may be used to message applicants. The notice should be placed near the phone number entry field, rather than buried in lengthy terms of service statement and privacy policy should also be updated.
Consider Compliance
Requirements
Even if your
organization does not have a text recruitment
platform, chances are that some recruiters are using personal devices to
communicate with candidates via text.
This may produce positive results, but places you at greater compliance risk because
there is no centralized record of communications. Using personal devices, or
even dedicated company devices, also makes it difficult to exercise effective
oversight to ensure that organizational guidelines are followed.
Text messaging activity is increasingly likely to be included in compliance audits, so make sure your bases are covered. Follow all of the same protocols – business and legal – that you would in writing, email or telephone conversations.
Define
Messaging Guidelines for Recruiters
Texting should be professional and consistent with your employer brand, just like any other type of communication. So, it’s helpful to provide high-level guidelines to your recruiting team to ensure that everyone is on the same page about internal text messaging practices.
Communicate
Clearly with Candidates
The best text outreach messages get straight to the point. In
any initial conversations, the recruiter should answer a few key questions
candidates may have to get the best possible response:
Who are you and why you are reaching out?
What are the next steps?
Setting context and expectations up front maximizes engagement. What’s more, these questions can be set up as automated responses, so recruiters may only have to step in once the initial screening questions have been asked and answered.
Timing is Everything
Text only during the workday, from 8 a.m. at the candidate’s local time to 5 or 6 p.m. Texting a candidate during off-hours, may lead them to do the same and set an expectation of a response from your team. If job seekers do reach out on weekends or evenings and you do not want your recruiters to engage, you can steer their communications back to the normal business hours. For example, if you receive a text on Saturday, you might set up an automated response that you will follow up first thing Monday.
Texting is Not Always Appropriate
Some aspects of the recruiting process require a more personal touch than others. While many consider messaging “personal” and “immediate,” you may want to deliver important information (ex. “you didn’t get the job”) or discuss sensitive topics like salary using other means such as a phone call or email depending on the situation.
Closing Thoughts
Automation
of the recruiting process is where the candidate experience is headed. As a
result, it is going to free up time for your recruiters and allow them to
seamlessly connect one-on-one with candidates and holding meaningful conversations.
Texting has become such a big large part of
modern life that embracing it can make your organization an employer of choice
to top candidates in your industry.
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
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.
As organizations around the globe confront talent scarcity challenges, even the most seasoned talent leaders find themselves in uncharted territory. This profile shares insights from PeopleScout Global Leader of Solutions Design, Krista Sullivan de Torres. Krista is a seasoned professional with more than a decade of human resources and talent acquisition experience. While Krista’s professional experience spans many industries, she has a passion for and deep expertise in healthcare recruitment. Her experience includes launching RPO programs for healthcare startup organizations, managing RPO operations for managed care, population health, behavioral health, and healthcare system clients. Krista’s specialties include global talent acquisition team design, talent acquisition operations, analytics and reporting, recruiting, sourcing and retention. Krista holds a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Krista shared her insights about hiring solutions for healthcare providers from her home office in Florida.
Ebook
How RPO Can Solve The Top Challenges In Healthcare Talent Acquisition
What are some of the hiring challenges facing the healthcare industry right now?
Prior to the COVID-19 crisis, there were already many challenges around healthcare hiring. We all hear about the shortage of nurses, but there’s also a shortage of clinicians across the board. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, we’ve seen an increased number of patients, so these shortages have become even more acute — particularly in the areas that have been hit hardest with the disease. In addition, some challenges arise when clinicians who have COVID-19 risk factors, or live with someone who does, are now unable or unwilling to work in order to protect themselves and their families — causing a large strain in hiring for these specialized roles.
Hiring for a healthcare role, clinical or nonclinical, is much more difficult than hiring in many of the other essential industries right now. How and why is that?
Regardless of whether we’re hiring for a role that is clinical or nonclinical, there are a lot of additional requirements for working in healthcare than there are in most other fields. If a candidate is going to be working directly with patients, particularly those that are most vulnerable, an extremely thorough background check is necessary to protect the safety of patients. So, rather than a traditional pre-hire online form and standard background check, healthcare candidates will undergo additional criminal history checks, fingerprinting and more. These critical checks tend to slow down the hiring process and can add a layer of complexity when we’re looking at the available workforce.
Another factor affecting hiring is that a lot of people are a little afraid to work in the healthcare industry right now. As I mentioned earlier, people may be cautious about taking a job in healthcare in order to protect themselves or high-risk family members against COVID-19. In addition to there being a challenge in the number of candidates available to start, we are faced with the challenge of selecting the right people for the job and ensuring we have a pool of candidates who are excited and available to work during this unusual time.
Lastly, a major factor we consider in the healthcare industry — particularly in a clinical setting — is ensuring healthcare workers are extremely customer-focused. We look for people who are very focused on the patient and the patient’s family. We’re facing challenges in the spike in the number of people who are severely ill, so ensuring we have workers who are correctly educating and caring for patients is of the utmost importance.
What sort of hiring solution for healthcare providers are available right now?
A lot of healthcare organizations are really trying to get creative during this critical hiring time due to the healthcare talent shortage. They’re looking to potentially bring back previously retired workers, flexing up hours for part-time associates and bringing in traveling nurses or clinicians to support them where their internal teams are at capacity. Many organizations are also interested in implementing a recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) solution to quickly get short-term support in locations that are particularly hard-hit.
How do these RPO solutions work in practice? What are some of their benefits?
That’s a great question. One of the many benefits of healthcare RPO is that we’re able to ramp up very quickly to meet client needs. For example, a client came to PeopleScout when they needed to rapidly scale up hiring to support their hospitals. We spoke with the client, came up with a solution and worked through the contracting phase all within three days. It helps that PeopleScout has a large team of clinical and nonclinical healthcare recruiters who are trained to know the industry and can identify high-quality candidates to get the pipeline filled quickly.
When it comes to on-demand recruitment support, the beauty lies in rapid engagement and disengagement. Once immediate hiring needs are fulfilled, an RPO provider can pull recruiters back in-house and assign them to a new project. This is a great benefit for clients — they don’t need to deal with the stress of layoffs and furloughs because they’re able to engage and disengage experienced recruiters as needed.
The most important thing right now is to keep everyone safe and healthy. What is the best kind of solution for that?
One important way to keep people safe while still meeting critical talent needs is to use a virtual hiring solution for healthcare providers. PeopleScout has a bit of an advantage here because we were a virtually based culture even prior to the COVID-19 crisis, so many of our recruiters were already working from home. Our virtual solution allows us to conduct digital interviews — on-demand or live — so we can continue to safely service our clients without interruption. We’ve been able to effectively maintain — and in some cases exceed — productivity while also minimizing the risk for our clients, candidates and internal teams.
Are there any final thoughts on hiring solutions healthcare providers you’d like to leave us with?
We’re all going through a really challenging time right now and trying to support one another. We’re all in this together and PeopleScout is here to support our clients, candidates, teams and prospects in any way we can.
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
1,000click-throughs
75,000views 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.
Grocery retailer Sainsbury’s turned to PeopleScout to hire drivers to support their growing online business.
6,200annual hires
5weeks to fill most roles
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.
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.”
