FEATURE
Recruitment CASESTUDY
RPO in the chemical industry Hudson was tasked with recruiting highly specialised positions across diverse and remote geographies for a global industrial client specialising in the chemical industry in a highly competitive candidate market. “Strategically, our client also wished to increase the range of services available to its customers by increasing revenue generated from its equipment and project management division, thereby decreasing its dependence on chemical sales and they needed a strong recruiting partner to do this,” said Deanne Barbary, Global Head of Operations, Hudson RPO. Specifically, the client’s goals were to: • Source highly specialised roles in extremely diverse and remote geographical markets • Decrease business reliance on candidates sourced via agencies and employee referrals • Reduce the time taken to fill open roles • Identify and grow talent pools utilising a range of channels, particularly social media. Hudson RPO designed, implemented and managed a scalable solution covering end-to-end permanent recruitment for the client across Asia-Pacific, with a team of 18 staff located across five hubs in Australia, Singapore, India, China and Thailand. As a result, a 96% direct-fill rate was achieved across locations as diverse as Fiji, Indonesia, Thailand, and New Zealand. Agency usage was also reduced from over 90% to 4%. Average time-to-fill was reduced from over 50 days to 21 days. “Hudson RPO has also developed and implemented a social media strategy that has led to this channel as a candidate source increasing by 50% yearon-year,” says Barbary. Proactive competitor mapping of target organisations in the water treatment equipment and project management area also led to the hiring of a high quality senior executive to lead the growth of this division. “By recruiting this senior individual via the Hudson RPO solution, the client’s reputation in this area was significantly enhanced, a key competitor was destabilised and we saved our client huge fees that would otherwise have been paid to their search provider,” said Barbary. “The appointment has also led to two further competitor employees approaching our client about opportunities.”
6
ISSUE 13.2
SUPPLEMENT
Hiring using Big Data More companies are turning to an algorithmic assessment of Big Data to carry out hiring. For instance, according to an article by the Wall Street Journal, Xerox Corp. used to pay lots of attention to applicants who had done the job before when hiring call centre staff. However, Big Data told the printing company that experience doesn’t matter. Analysis of data revealed that what does matter in a good call-centre worker – one who won’t quit before the company recoups its $5,000 investment in training – is personality. According to the article, after a half-year trial that cut attrition by a fifth, Xerox now leaves all hiring for its 48,700 call-centre jobs to software that asks applicants to choose between statements like: “I ask more questions than most people do” and “People tend to trust what I say.”
the individuals to ensure that these people will work effectively within their business,” says Barbary. Another challenge can be gaining the buy-in of hiring managers who have been working with other agencies and formed strong relationships with them. “They (hiring managers) can be reluctant to utilise the new model as a result of this,” says Barbary. “We mitigate this through extensive business consultation in the implementation phase, to ensure that impacted stakeholders participate in the design of the solution, processes, and selection of Preferred Supplier List agencies, etc...” Companies also need to ensure there is effective executive sponsorship for the solution, as recruitment outsourcing firms typically embed a change in the way they go about their hiring. “We need senior level support to ensure that managers understand why the change is being made and what is required of them,” says Barbary.
Cloud-based recruitment RPO providers are increasingly tapping onto cloud-based software to support customers so as to provide RPO solutions in a more cost-effective manner, says Annie Yap, Group Managing Director, AYP Asia Group. AYP uses an Australian cloud-based recruitment solution through which on-site consultants can tap into the international database of candidates during sourcing. “This means AYP need not invest in high cost data centre infrastructure,” Yap explains. “Therefore, the cost of delivery is cut down, translating into lower cost for the client as well.”