As organizations around the globe confront the challenges presented by the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, even the most seasoned talent leaders find themselves in uncharted territory. We’re talking to our experts here at PeopleScout about the issues that are most pressing during this uncertain time.
We are focused on the safety of our employees and clients, friends, families and loved ones. However, it is important for many organizations to keep their talent acquisition functions moving – whether to provide essential services or to serve our communities by providing jobs.
In this episode, we talk about preparing for recovery. We don’t know exactly what the economic recovery will look like, but we do know that employers are facing a very different talent landscape than before the pandemic – and many have leaner talent acquisition teams.
Joining the podcast for this discussion is PeopleScout Client Portfolio Leader Chris Gould.
Virgin Media: A Virtual Approach to Call Center Recruiting
Virgin Media was receiving high customer call volumes and needed to hire 500 new customer service roles across the UK. During the COVID-10 lockdown. In just two months. Enter PeopleScout and our fully virtual RPO solution.
5,500Applications Delivered
1,800 Virtual Interviews Assessed
300Offers Made
Situation
As the UK entered lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, enquiries to Virgin Media contact centers—including customer video calls—increased by up to 95% during daytime hours. To maintain excellent service and keep customers connected during this critical time, Virgin Media created more than 500 new contact center jobs in the UK based in Birmingham, Sheffield, Manchester and Teesside.
All 500 new hires needed to start in just two months, with the added complication of taking into account social distancing measures. Due to lockdown, candidates could not attend assessment centers or interviews onsite.
Plus, contact center managers did not have capacity to interview so many candidates while maintaining stringent service levels, and right-to-work onboarding checks could not go ahead as normal with an in-person visual review of original documentation.
Additionally, Virgin Media introduced a number of measures to ensure its people remained as safe as possible while continuing to help answer customer queries. This included providing remote working capabilities, where possible, and flexible working patterns.
All of this experience needed to be brought-to-life for candidates at the outset of their application to ensure swift hiring of the right caliber people. Virgin Media engaged PeopleScout for recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) and tech-charge talent assessment solution.
Solution
With a tight turnaround in play, we formed an agile working group which met twice daily to track project implementation and delivery progress. This rigorous schedule resulted in the deisgn and implementation of a new virtual hiring process in less than two weeks. This new fast-tracked application and assessment process used video interviews, dramatically reducing the processing time and allowing new staff to be selected within days and start within weeks.
To generate applications, we built a new page on the Virgin Media careers site and created an enhanced attraction plan to drive applicants there. We diverted existing candidates (whose roles had been cancelled) into the new process. To improve quality of applications and speed-up hiring, The microsite was built with two areas: a hints and tips page and a page illustrating the overall application process.
Recruiting capacity was scaled up, utilizing our global delivery centers to score over 5,000 application and nearly 2,000 video interviews and to support onboarding of successful candidates without delay.
Results
Within two weeks of launch, PeopleScout’s RPO team had:
Designed a virtual interview process from scratch
Delivered 5,500 new applications
Conducted over 1,800 online video interviews
Instigated 400 final stage qualification calls
Made nearly 300 offers within 4 weeks of kickoff
95% of qualified candidates approved for hire during the Hiring Manager audit step
At a Glance
COMPANY Virgin Media
INDUSTRY Telecommunications
PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS Recruitment Process Outsourcing
ANNUAL HIRES 500 new call center hire
ABOUT VIRGIN MEDIA Virgin Media is a telecommunications, providing telephone, television and internet services in the United Kingdom. It is owned by Virgin Media O2.
“We have built a strong and effective partnership with PeopleScout, shown through the complexities brought about by the pandemic and then a large merger.”
The graduate recruitment process has grown increasingly digital in the past few years, but the entire process for 2020 was held online due to the pandemic. However, the virus didn’t create this change; it simply sped up a process that was already happening.
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 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.
We 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.
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.
Cutting Time-to-Fill in Half with a Technology-Driven RPO Solution
A large, multi-brand media company in Australia engaged with PeopleScout to develop a tech-powered recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) solution designed to deliver seamless recruitment experiences and provide them with a competitive advantage.
50%drop in time-to-fill
4agency brands
EVP development and implementation
Scope and Scale
For the client, candidate care is key, so the model was designed to ensure engaging communication strategies along with consistent employer value proposition (EVP) messaging. All of this had to be underpinned by technology, allowing the recruiters to access sourcing tools, to easily and efficiently move candidates through the process and to manage multiple requisitions at one time. Ultimately, the goals was to find better quality candidates, faster, across the four agencies that made up the media group.
Situation
By implementing a centralized talent acquisition model, aligned to the different brands in the group, the senior leadership team now has access to reporting that gives them a clear picture of where their requirements are, any bottlenecks or challenges and this, in turn, helps with business planning. Prior to the introduction of an RPO, time-to-fill averaged between 42 and 60 days which placed a significant amount of additional pressure on teams and business units with the potential to generate a domino effect of increased vacancies.
Solution
Full, end-to-end talent acquisition services
Strategic sourcing across every brand and business unit
Executive search for senior roles
EVP development and implementation
Hiring manager training
Third-party supplier management
Executive reporting
Talent community development
Occupational Personality Questionnaire (OPQ) design and implementation
Contract generation for graduates and all solution hires
The deployment of PeopleScout’s complete sourcing and talent management solution in conjunction with our RPO team made an immediate impact on the time-to-fill metric. With advanced sourcing capabilities, powerful automation, a streamlined onboarding solution, detailed reporting insights and CRM capabilities, the solution generated productivity gains that allowed for an improved candidate experience, the optimization of marketing strategies and more effective talent pooling.
Results
Time-to-fill dropped from 60 days to an average of 27 days.
Integrating an experienced recruitment team with media and digital marketing expertise allowed for a smooth transition for the RPO team and the client and established a conversion benchmark above 82% of roles briefed versus placements.
PeopleScout is also focused on process improvement and to target goals around improved staff retention and candidate quality through the introduction of cognitive and behavioural testing, video interviews, a reference checking technology platform and a suite of new technology tools, including artificial intelligence.
Client Feedback
“Since partnering with PeopleScout we’ve seen consistent improvement in the marketing of our brand to potential employees, increased productivity through process improvement and the introduction of new tools and technology as well as a reduction in vacant roles. We regularly receive feedback from candidates that their experience of the job interview process is the best they’ve ever experienced period.”
“Media agencies operate in a fast-paced, high-volume environment where resourcing needs constantly fluctuate and reactivity is key. In this context, PeopleScout’s scalable approach is a huge advantage as it allows us to quickly recruit staff when we win new clients and focus on longer-term strategic work when volume is lower. The PeopleScout team has quickly developed an intimate understanding of our industry and business challenges and are seamlessly embedded in each of our agencies, allowing them to sell our EVP to candidates.”
At a Glance
COMPANY Large Australian multi-brand media company
INDUSTRY Media Services
PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS Recruitment Process Outsourcing, Talent Advisory, Affinix
PeopleScout delivered high-volume contact center hires in just two months for this telecommunications provider with a virtual candidate experience.
16different volume vacancy types
60%managing over 60% of all external hiring
300offers made in just 4 weeks
PeopleScout has been working with a large telecommunications company for more than seven years. The company supplies telephone, television and internet services to customers throughout the UK.
PeopleScout provides RPO services for volume hiring to the client’s front-line workers. In the highly competitive telecommunications industry, the client needs to ensure the company attracts the very best talent, particularly across their sales and technician functions. PeopleScout manages up to 16 different volume vacancy types or about 60% to 70% of all external hiring. This fast-paced market requires an agile partner who can respond to quickly changing requirements.
Situation
The client had recently decided to reduce the number of sub-contractors and outsourcers for front-line jobs. PeopleScout had been briefed to replace these workers with permanent employees.
As the UK started restrictions for COVID-19, some of the company’s outsourced overseas contact centers were threatened with the risk of closure due to lockdown in those countries. To maintain excellent service, the client created more than 550 new contact center jobs in the UK, to help keep customers connected during this critical time.
The task was to find 550 new starters within two months of the project launch, using a completely redesigned process while taking into account social distancing measures. Candidates would not be able to attend assessment centers and interviews onsite, contact center managers would not have the capacity to interview while maintaining stringent service levels and right to work/onboarding checks could not go ahead using a visual review of original documentation as normal.
Additionally, the client introduced a number of protocols to ensure its people remained as safe as possible while continuing to help answer customer calls and queries. This included providing remote working capabilities where possible and flexible working patterns.
Solution
An agile working group was formed and met twice daily to track project implementation and delivery progress. A new virtual hiring process was designed and implemented in less than two weeks. PeopleScout fast-tracked application and assessment by using video interviews, dramatically reducing processing time and allowing candidates to be selected within days and start within weeks.
To generate candidates, PeopleScout built a new page on the client’s careers site and created an enhanced attraction plan to drive applicants there. This included diverting existing candidates (whose roles had been cancelled) into the new process and creating two microsites to improve quality of applications and speed-up hiring – a hints-and-tips site and a site illustrating the overall application process.
Hiring capacity was ramped up, using PeopleScout’s global delivery centers to score nearly 5,000 video interviews and to support the onboarding of successful candidates without delay.
Results
Delivered 5,550 new applications
Conducted more than 1,800 online video interviews
Completed 400 final stage qualification calls
Made nearly 300 offers within four weeks
Created a hiring manager audit step with 95% of qualified candidates approved for hire
Process Improvement
Throughout this agile process, PeopleScout continually used data to understand where interventions could be made to improve the recruitment journey. We created two microsites to help prepare candidates for each step of the process.
The sites were created, signed-off and live within the first three weeks of go-live. They enabled candidates to find out more about key steps in the process such as getting access to an onboarding site which outlines what they need to do prior to starting, as well as what happens on day one.
“Due to the COVID-19 situation, we needed a new hiring process in an extremely short period of time. In less than two weeks, PeopleScout had candidates moving swiftly through the process. PeopleScout’s agility ensured candidates could start within one month of applying.
As the situation continued, we found that we needed additional onboarding support. PeopleScout created microsites to educate and move people through the process which, at the same time, reduced email traffic to our teams.
Most importantly, PeopleScout has helped us build a new level of trust with our hiring managers, enabling us to work in a far more efficient and safe way. The success of this project means that we now have a new way of recruiting to build on in the future.”
Head of Resourcing, Telecommunications Company
At a Glance
COMPANY Large telecommunications company
INDUSTRY Telecommunications
PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS Recruitment Process Outsourcing
ANNUAL HIRES 550 virtual call center professionals in two months
A Comprehensive Recruiting Solution Saves 35% in Recruitment Costs
A leading regional food company across the Asia-Pacific region partnered with PeopleScout to implement an RPO solution to reduce agency spend and improve recruitment outcomes.
35%reduction in agency spend
$500,000saved in recruitment costs
Implemented a new streamlined recruitment process underpinned by analytics
Scope and Scale
The client operates in a highly competitive market where the need for evolving technical specialization can expand quickly as a result of high demands and product innovation. PeopleScout has developed an unrivaled experience and knowledge of the organization and the talent acquisition skills needed within consumer goods and consumer goods manufacturing companies. To meet its workforce demands, the client engaged PeopleScout to implement a full-cycle RPO program for their head office and production sites.
Situation
The client requires a scalable RPO solution to optimize recruitment technology, reduce agency usage, centralize recruitment processes and increase the quality-of-hire by standardizing the recruitment and selection process. The solution combines highly skilled recruiters, innovative technology and sophisticated recruitment processes to source market leading talent across Australia and the wider APAC region.
Solution
EMBEDDED RECRUITMENT SUPPORT
The solution has been constantly evolving over time to become a fit-for-purpose recruitment model that can flex up and down to meet the growth needs of the company across both regions as determined by changes in seasons and mergers and acquisitions.
IMPROVED TECHNOLOGY
The optimization of the recruitment technology ensures all roles are approved through an online form. The end-to-end recruitment process is shifted online allowing for measurable analytics.
TAILORED RECRUITMENT FOR DRIVERS
PeopleScout designed a recruitment and assessment process for drivers with a simple one-click apply and a single onsite interview. Completed pre-employment paperwork meant that drivers only came in once to complete the selection process. Mobile drug and alcohol testing vans were made available at the end of their shifts for a period of three days—reducing administrative costs and time-to-hire. On the day of the interview, candidates also completed medical assessments, further reducing time-to-fill.
SOURCING FOR LEADERSHIP ROLES
PeopleScout was asked to recruit a number of senior leadership roles across the organization. In the past, these roles would have been filled by an executive recruitment agency. PeopleScout was able to reduce time-to-fill and create a significant cost savings.
Results
REDUCTION IN AGENCY SPEND
Since the start of our journey with the client we have reduced agency spend from 40% to less than 5%. This equates to a cost reduction of well in excess of half a million dollars.
INSIGHTS & EXPERTISE
The client values the transparent approach to sharing data and the regular insights underpinning process improvement provided by PeopleScout’s RPO team as well as their ability to quickly source and hire candidates for hard-to-fill positions.
ACQUISITION SUPPORT
The use of structured screening and assessment combined with hiring manager training and uplift in hiring manager capability has led to an increased quality of hire.
IMPROVED PERFORMANCE
PeopleScout has improved the client’s recruitment performance by merging people, process and technology to enhance the experience with the recruitment process for candidates, recruiters and hiring managers.
ALIGNMENT TO PEOPLE CAPABILITIES
The company people capabilities set the behaviors of how the company performs, grows, recruits and recognizes people. The talent acquisition team continues to work closely with key stakeholders to build success profiles and interview guides that embed these capabilities in the recruitment process, and the team coaches hiring managers on best practice interview techniques.
At a Glance
COMPANY Food manufacturing company
INDUSTRY Consumer Goods
PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS Recruitment Process Outsourcing, Affinix
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 the challenges presented by the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, even the most seasoned talent leaders find themselves in uncharted territory. We’re creating a mini-series with our experts here at PeopleScout about the issues that are most pressing during this uncertain time.
This profile shares insights from PeopleScout Vice President of Technology Carter McHugh.Carter brings more than 22 years of experience in building world-class software solutions for businesses and consumers. In his role at PeopleScout, his passion is creating a culture of technology excellence at a global scale and delighting customers with innovative software solutions that improve their people and business processes. Prior to joining PeopleScout, Carter held various executive technology roles at CSG International, a leading provider of enterprise revenue management and customer engagement solutions for the telecommunication industry.
Carter shared his insights on best practices for using virtual talent solutions from his home office in Chicago.
How does cloud computing enable virtual hiring solutions? What would they look like if we didn’t have this type of technology?
Great companies have been investing heavily in modernizing their technology infrastructure by enlisting the help of major cloud computing platforms like Amazon with their AWS offering, Microsoft with their Azure offering and Google with their Google cloud platform. These companies are experts in providing secure, always on, and really most importantly, managed infrastructure and platform services. Through automation, these services seamlessly support elastic demand — meaning they can rapidly scale up when they’re required to due to extra usage, and they can also scale back down when they’re not as heavily utilized.
In just a matter of weeks, the world has shifted rapidly to fully digitalizing their work requirements, resulting in increased network bandwidth, processing and data storage requirements. Without these managed computing services, companies would be understaffed and would lack both the data center equipment and the automated operations necessary to handle such a rapid increase brought on by virtual talent solutions.
Here at PeopleScout, our proprietary tool, Affinix™ talent technology, and the technology partners we use are all designed to take advantage of these cloud computing services. So, we’ve been able to respond very quickly and ensure that our clients can manage this sudden shift away from traditional, face-to-face interviewing into digital interviewing and virtual hiring throughout their talent acquisition process.
These services aren’t limitless. When we experience outages, what’s happening and why?
I think almost everyone can recall times when they’ve sat down to stream their favorite show or movie and it’s getting interrupted, or they’re seeing a little circle spinning. A lot of that is due to high network congestion or just an overload of too many people trying to access the service at once. As good as these cloud competing platforms are in their ability to provide this highly available, scalable virtual infrastructure and these great application services — it isn’t totally magic.
Somewhere there still exists physical computers, networks, digital storage and in a lot of cases, people who are still running and working very hard to make all of this possible. So, when too many of these resources are requested all at the same time, they all still have to compete for that same available physical resource. Things have to wait their turn to get processed, so that’s when you see the service degradation and the digital disruptions. Sometimes that can result in a lot of end user frustration, and companies work very hard to avoid this. But again, it’s not easy to avoid in a situation like we’re facing today with such a rapid shift into the fully digital experience we’re witnessing right now.
As organizations rely more heavily on these services for their talent acquisition solutions, what are some best practices to avoid outages?
Right now, we’re all staying home and practicing social distancing to help flatten the curve to mitigate overwhelming our critical medical equipment and personnel during the COVID-19 crisis. A similar pattern applies to peak digital technology load used during the workday.
For example, think about when you use a high definition video for a live interview, especially with multiple participants. Imagine you have a hiring manager and several members of a team and they’re all connecting on their webcams with a candidate and trying to complete a live interview. Many organizations across the world are all doing this during the peak business hours between 10:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m., and all of this combined can really overwhelm those services.
Some good ways to work around this are for talent acquisition teams to:
Reduce or shift live interview schedules with candidates. Most digital interviewing technology, in addition to having live interview capabilities, offer on-demand interview capabilities. This allows hiring managers to pre-record themselves asking interview questions and make them available via a link to an applicant, who can then choose a time and place of their convenience to record their answers. This can ease the burden of having to do everything live, and candidates can complete an interview without the risk of real-time disruption due to service degradation or unavailability.
Use text or voice only interviews.This can be especially useful for initial screening interviews. Once you’ve narrowed down your candidate slate to just a few finalists, you can conduct interviews with live video to help reduce the peak usage load for some of these technologies.
It’s also important for companies and teams to ensure that the digital technologies they’re using employ best practices, including data security and consent. When you’re using these tools with your team and candidates, make sure you’re getting their informed consent to participate in the interviews and recordings using the technology.
Right now, we’re dealing with a relatively short-term crisis, but we could see some permanent changes to the way people get hired and do work. What changes do you anticipate going forward?
With any new technology that’s introduced, there are always people who are early adopters and those who are more hesitant. What’s unique in this crisis is that companies that may have been slower to embrace some of the new virtual talent solutions and talent acquisition technologies now have no choice but to adopt these very rapidly — which can really push them out of their comfort zone. They may have felt that using a video technology wouldn’t allow them to deeply connect with their applicant, or maybe they feared embarrassment or looking bad if the technology failed during an interview. Those were all certainly legitimate concerns, but ones that were very rapidly removed in this crisis.
And as companies have been forced to embrace these new technologies, they’re becoming more comfortable with this new normal. They’ll soon start to realize that they may have been trying to get many candidates to interview in-person who may not have been a good fit, and a video interview may have saved time and resources. They’ll also see that the younger generation of folks who are comfortable with technology may actually be seeking out and really appreciate the ability to interact with technology enabled companies and talent acquisition teams that allow them to set their own interview schedules.
I really believe that once this crisis passes, we’ll definitely see permanent changes to many talent acquisition teams’ processes and they’ll be looking to keep the technologies that they’ve been using. They’ll probably be increasing the use of these technologies, really designing their processes and their candidate engagement more so around virtual solutions.
What other types of tools do you see becoming essential for virtual talent solutions?
The hiring process is definitely two way — candidates are just as interested in if the role, company, people and culture are a good fit for them as the hiring manager is trying to figure out if the candidate is a good fit for the job. Onsite team interviews and guided facilities tours have traditionally been a really important part the final interview stages so the candidate and hiring manager can get really sold on whether this is the right place for them and if this is the right candidate for the team.
Seeing the actual what, where and how teams and companies work has always been critical for candidates to picture themselves in a role and make the final decision on whether to accept or decline an offer. With the potential for increasing remote work as teams are more distributed than ever across the globe, some forward-thinking companies are looking ahead with digital onboarding tools. These are tools that bring together team videos, leadership interviews, daily work instructions, examples of people in the role doing the work, and in some cases using augmented or virtual reality scenarios that can create a simulated work environment for a candidate.
All of these things go a tremendously long way in engaging the best candidates with a modern, consumer-like experience that they’re so used to. This also has the benefit of streamlining these talent acquisition processes, so it benefits both sides. It ensures the candidates and hiring managers all have the best information to make what is really one of the most important decisions of their lives.
Are there any final thoughts on virtual talent solutions you’d like to leave us with?
We are truly living in some extraordinary times right now, and I’ve seen how companies all over the globe are reacting quickly and responding to the changes COVID-19 has brought to the workforce. It’s impressive to see the capabilities companies have implemented to enable their workforce, help their employees and continue to find the best talent they can to run their businesses in these truly unprecedented times.
