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.
10,000annual hires
40%improvement in hiring diverse employees
5%reduction 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.
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
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.
13,000annual hires in the first year
8days average time-to-hire
1,400Built 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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
As employers face increasing competition for the best talent, a well-defined employer value proposition (EVP) and employer brand strategy have become more important than ever. In a candidate-driven market, employers need to stand out to their target talent audiences through a unified EVP and employer brand. High-quality candidates know what they want out of a future employer, and organizations that don’t effectively show their value to candidates risk losing them to the competition.
If you google EVP and employer brand, you’re likely to find thousands of definitions. At PeopleScout we define EVP and employer brand as the following:
Employer Brand: The perception and lived experiences of what it’s like to work for your organization.
Employer Value Proposition: Captures the essence of your uniqueness as an employer and the give and the get between you and your employees.
Both concepts revolve around the qualities that make a company a great place to work, as well as the benefits, career growth opportunities, work-life balance and company culture that attract top talent.
EVPs are particularly important in today’s job market, as a majority of candidates heavily evaluate companies before they even consider applying for open positions, and it can be a critical differentiator in a company’s ability to attract talent.
Key Elements of a Successful EVP
As HR Technologist explains, “An employee value proposition must be thoughtfully designed since it has a direct impact on behavior. It must look into the tangible and intangible elements of the psychological contracts between the employer and the employee. It must start way before the employee joins, even before the person is a job candidate; it must appeal to the person irrespective of whether the person intends to work with the organization or not.”
A successful EVP articulates the value that you offer to your employees. At PeopleScout, we establish three elements to support a successful EVP:
Pillars: Pillars are the core components of your EVP and are informed by insights into your cultural DNA and your audience’s motivations. Pillars are used to define the relevance of your EVP and are based on research.
Narrative: The narrative is usually a single, manifesto-style paragraph – it’s the emotive “sell” of what you offer. The narrative defines consistency throughout your EVP and employer brand strategies.
Strapline: Finally, the strapline is a concise phrase that summarizes your overall offering – it focuses on being memorable rather than detailed. The strapline defines a point of focus throughout your EVP materials.
By creating pillars, a narrative and a strapline to support your EVP and employer brand strategy, employers will be set up for a successful deployment both internally to current employees and externally to candidates and the broader marketplace.
For example, we recently completed an EVP and employer brand project for a global law firm based in the UK called Linklaters. Here are the pillars, narrative and strapline that we created to bring the project to life.
Benefits of a Well-Managed Employer Value Proposition and Employer Brand Platform
Organizations that effectively deliver on their EVP can enjoy a host of benefits, including decreased annual employee turnover and increased new hire commitment, according to Gartner research. Other benefits include improved brand sentiment, increased reach to target audiences, a greater sense of commitment from current employees and cost savings related to compensation.
Improved Brand Sentiment
Organizations with effective EVPs are more attractive to candidates and are considered employers of choice – organizations where candidates want to work. In order to make yourself an employer of choice, you have to be able to appeal to your ideal candidates by differentiating your company from your competitors.
A compelling EVP and employer brand can move your brand sentiment in a positive direction. A clearly defined EVP creates the foundation on which to build your internal and external employer brand messaging, which allows you to have greater influence over what you are known for and how you are perceived.
Increased Reach
A thoroughly researched and tested EVP is designed to speak more effectively to your target talent audiences. When you are able to tailor the core of your message to individual audiences, while keeping your narrative and strapline consistent throughout, more diverse groups of candidates will respond favorably. This has real business impact. According to a Morgan Stanley study in The Atlantic, there is a positive relationship between equity returns and the gender composition of an organization’s employee base, as an example.
We work with an organization in the UK that was once an online automobile magazine but is now a digital publication. The organization struggled with brand perception. Many candidates thought the company was old-fashioned, and they struggled to attract women to their open positions. We developed an “adventures in awesomeness” EVP that spoke to the digital transformation that had already happened at the employer. This EVP not only increased brand attractiveness and shifted sentiment, but also increased the number of women visiting the careers site by 300 percent.
Greater Employee Commitment
Organizations with strong EVPs enjoy significantly higher levels of engagement from employees. In one example studied by Cornell University, a beverage bottling and distribution company launched an initiative to develop an integrated employer brand. Around the same time, the company decreased headcount by more than 6 percent and maintained tight control over salary raises. Despite these difficulties, employee engagement grew at the company from 36 percent to 55 percent over a five-year period.
This study suggests that when you clearly articulate your EVP and the behaviors you’re looking for from employees, it can be a factor in successfully attracting and retaining employees with the right cultural fit for your organization. This yields more engaged employees.
Compensation Savings
Organizations with effective EVPs are able to reduce the compensation premium required to attract new candidates. Another example highlighted in the Cornell paper found that organizations with a well-managed employer brand had a 26 percent economic advantage in terms of labor cost.
Key Considerations When Creating an EVP and Employer Brand Program
There is ample data that shows that effective EVPs generate real business benefits. To realize those benefits, there is a lot of work that goes into creating a successful EVP and employer brand. Before launching an EVP internally or externally, it’s critical that companies spend time researching, defining, developing, optimizing and deploying an EVP that accurately represents the company’s value to employees.
