Example Cases

Learn valuable lessons from these organisations:

UK retailer Pret A Manger, acclaimed by 'Fortune' magazine as one of the Top 10 Companies to work for in Europe, created its HR department in 1999 and its recruitment and selection policies were finalised in 2002. New team members are first screened by telephone by the central recruitment team. However, the final decisions on new team members are made by the staff in the shop through a voting process. New candidates take part in competency-based assessments and also on-the-job experience days. A clear advantage of involving employees in this process is the ownership over the selection of the new employee. Unfortunately, difficulties can occur when the decision to hire is not unanimous.

A study of recruitment techniques was made from a group of more than 50 world-class organisations. One company implemented a character trait recruiting process that aimed at identifying and profiling the personality traits of the best-performing employees in every major job classification. Employee turnover declined nearly 47% in the three years after this process was implemented. This contributed to the company achieving a 16% lower employee turnover rate than its competitors.

New recruitment and induction policies were implemented at this famous luxury hotel chain to support a new culture `that put employees first` and supported a `one team, one hotel` concept. Recruiters were thoroughly trained in behavioural interviewing techniques and new recruits selected primarily for attitudes, behaviours, and cultural fit. The induction programme for every new employee aimed to reinforce the hotel's vision and values and included an overnight stay in the hotel as a guest. A performance appraisal system was put in place to further strengthen the new philosophies and employees were assessed not on skill but on how they integrated the hotel's values into their everyday work. Positive results from the new philosophy included employee pride being measured at 97% and impressive improvements in customer service and employee satisfaction.

Financial Services company Alliance & Leicester piloted two automated systems in early 2002, one internet based and one telephone based. These provide an automated initial screening that explores skills, preferences, and behaviours. Applicants that pass the screening are confirmed by telephone and all the data is automatically entered into the candidate management system. Through the system, managers can select candidates to perform telephone interviews or formal, competency based interviews. If the candidate is unsuccessful they can be returned to the pool of candidates until a more suitable role emerges. Although the systems are quite new, recruitment times have fallen from 12 weeks to an average of 7, and the cost for each new call centre unit has almost halved. The success of the system has been somewhat attributed to the buy-in achieved with managers` involvement in the design phase of the systems.

Kellogg decided to revamp its recruiting function by outsourcing the hiring of employees. A vendor worked directly with hiring managers, managed the company's online recruiting system, and tracked all data and details with his own recruitment technology. A series of metrics was established in the contract with the vendor and its performance was measured according to cost, timeliness, and quality. A Kellogg senior project manager worked daily with the vendor ensuring consistency with strategy. Doing all this gave the company flexibility and lowered costs. Agency fees were reduced by $1.3 million in one year and the average cost per hire dropped from $6,000 to $3,800.