Ready for ANYTHING? – The AA in partnership with TMP and PeopleScout

Challenging the public’s perception of the only roles on offer at the vehicle breakdown service company were roadside ones, the AA decided it needed to engage a wider audience and attract the diversity of candidates needed to fill its broad spectrum of roles.

  • Working with talent solutions communications agency TMP, a PeopleScout Company, the AA launched a dynamic employer brand and message that brought the AA culture and diversity of opportunity to life.
  • The brand development began with research to understand public perceptions and competitor market positions. The message that was heard over and over again: people thrive on going the extra mile to help customers. This led to the core employer brand message: ‘Ready for ANYTHING?’.
  • The attention-grabbing activity included a presence on its website theaacareers.co.uk, where visitors can view the light-hearted ‘Almost every role you can imagine’ film, see engaging people stories and realistic job profiles, to a social media hub and interactive 3D imagery.
  • ‘Ready for ANYTHING?’ challenges ran in Birmingham and Newcastle shopping centres, in a Saturday night gameshow-style, aimed at attracting potential contact centre candidates. There were laughs, prize money and a surge in careers site traffic.
  • The company’s values and employee value proposition made a real impact in its 24-hour live adventure, headed by former Special Forces soldier Ant Middleton. Six brave AA employees went into the wilderness, tackling challenges chosen by the public via social media to vote on what they’d face.
  • The cheeky brand mascot AAbot has mobilised a new generation of employer brand advocates. AAbot has also been at the heart of social media and external recruitment campaigns, appearing on taxi wraps and local football terraces. More recently, he became the star of #wheresbotbeen social media competition.
  • All the initiatives have led to record-high direct hires – up 38% to 95%. The AA has also moved from 60% agency use to less than 5% in 30 months – saving £7m per year.

Judges’ comments: “In a very competitive category, The AA was a clear winner, bringing a smile to the judges’ faces! Impressive results and cost savings. Loved the bot!”

Global TA Team, Mondelez International

Multinational confectionery, food, holding and beverage company Mondelez International’s Global Talent Acquisition (TA) team consists of just under 320, operating across 165 countries. The Global TA team in its current form was formed in 2016. Before then, recruitment was decentralised, with a high-reactive, agency-driven environment.

  • The team operates across four regions and 24 different time zones, with a matrix structure of TA Centre of Excellence (COE) for mid-career to senior executive level roles and three shared service centres (one in each region) that service the higher volume and lower level roles below mid-career.
  • Built a Global TA Leadership team, which consists of 13 regional and global TA leader roles – now aligned to Mondelēz’s recent geographical BU (Business Unity) model restructure in Q4 of 2018.
  • Launched a new global Onboarding programme called ‘Starting Here’, coupled with its Learning Program, the TA Academy and Mondelēz International University.
  • Launched and adopted the Avature CRM (customer relationship management) system and rolled out its new Employer Brand Proposition in 2019.
  • The team overcame many challenges of bringing a CRM into a large global organisation, implementing large-scale tech and engaging a large and diverse TA team in utilising this from day one.
  • Included active participation from Global TA COE leaders, and introduced ‘Mondelēz’s Got Talent!’. Through this three-month competition, the company created 5,857 prospects, with 2,000 ‘kept warm’ and 104 hires.
  • Globally the team achieved a phenomenal 384 hires attributed to Avature in the first year, which it estimates to have saved $5.76m (£4.46m) had it had to use outside agencies instead of sourcing these candidates.

Judges’ comments: “The judges were unanimous in selecting Mondelez as the outright winner of this category. The team demonstrated outstanding innovation with brilliant outcomes. The employer brand toolbox and cookbook, and the onboarding programme ‘Starting Here’ are world class.”

NES Global Talent

NES Global Talent delivers international workforce solutions across the energy, life sciences, chemicals and mining sectors, dealing with 12,500 contractors through 66 offices globally.

  • With just five people (three of them new in the last 12 months), the team is responsible for content creation and strategy, internal and external communications, PR, digital marketing including social media management, email marketing and enhancing our website, graphic design and event management.
  • A few of the main projects the team has undertaken include sales campaigns in the Americas, initiating a podcast channel, growing the firm’s social media following and engagement, and conducting a survey with over 30,000 oil & gas professionals and subsequently releasing a report about the energy market.
  • The survey, which was carried out in conjunction with job board Oil and Gas Job Search, provided crucial insight into global industry trends and further demonstrated NES Global Talent’s thought leadership.
  • The company’s social media growth was unprecedented: overall follower count on LinkedIn rose by 58.15% to 487,894 followers, and Facebook followers rose by an outstanding 2,022.67% at 99,000.
  • The judges said this team does what a marketing team should – they’ve produced impressive year-on-year growth, they’ve grown in every sector and they can measure it.

Judges’ comments: “NES Global’s survey provides fantastic insight, and they complemented it with multichannel thought leadership and content, making themselves stand out in their field.”

Rare Recruitment

Rare Recruitment was founded in 2005 as a direct response to the lack of ethnic diversity represented in the graduate pool hired to enter elite professions.

  • The judges said this is what recruitment should be about – changing people’s lives for the better, rather than “stuffing people into jobs”. To quote one of the testimonials: “Rare’s for anyone who wants to be more than what society might tell you that you can be.”
  • Rare offers a number of highly competitive introductory career programmes, such as Articles, an award-winning programme for brilliant BAME candidates interested in applying for vacation work schemes and training contracts with our legal clients.
  • Advancing Black Leaders (ABL) is a new programme Rare created for JP Morgan to help redress the underrepresentation of black heritage undergrads in their internship talent pipeline.
  • Becoming a Rare candidate quite literally changes the course of a young person’s life. These undergraduates get a direct connection to some of the most prestigious employers in the country. The consistently high level of preparedness that clients experience from Rare candidates at interview means that Rare has been able to both create tailored offerings for each firm and to continue expanding the number of candidates, year-on-year.

Judges’ comments: “Rare was rare indeed. Their direct response to the lack of ethnic diversity represented in the graduate pool to hire into elite professions is leading-edge for the future of inclusivity. The submission was highly evidence based with huge positive impact on candidates who are overrepresented within lower socio-economic groups and who are, in turn, underrepresented at prestigious graduate employers.”

Also: In this category, the judges said it was great to see so many emotional stories describing how candidates have been supported. Not only the winner, but each finalist had real impact and showed both a personal touch with a strong focus on D&I. 

Sanctuary Personnel

Sanctuary Personnel is the umbrella company of leading recruitment specialists, Sanctuary Social Care, Sanctuary Health and Sanctuary Criminal Justice.

  • Impressive work with Rotherham Council following the enquiry in 2014 revealing the sexual exploitation of children. Leadership and frontline staff resigned and it became impossible to attract sufficient social workers to meet service needs. Sanctuary helped transform services to such an extent that it has been able to scale down its support.
  • The judges were also impressed with Sanctuary’s work with rehab charity Turning Point, using its specialised talent pools to source substance misuse nurses where other agencies had struggled to find suitable locum staff.
  • During incredibly tough times for health and social care public sector clients, while its competitors contracted in size during a highly changeable marketplace, Sanctuary proactively identified ways of bringing added value to those clients. It created innovative solutions, enabling clients to make service delivery improvements as well as greater financial efficiencies.
  • Sanctuary’s continued partnership with Enfield Borough Council with its ‘single team’ approach shows a real depth of understanding client challenges.
  • With many of its clients, Sanctuary has worked with incredibly tough briefs – real-world problems solved by effective recruitment. Get it right and change the world.

Judges’ comments: “Sanctuary stands out as a winner in this category for its follow through to impact – providing great, solid customer service. It was refreshing to see an entry boasting of scaling back services/fees.”

Investigo

With four UK offices in London, Guildford, Milton Keynes and St Albans, and an expanding US offering centred in New York, Investigo offers interim and permanent recruitment solutions to a diverse range of blue-chip companies, the public sector and SMEs in the accountancy, banking and finance industries.

  • With its banking and financial service (B&FS) client partnerships stretching over a decade, Investigo is frequently asked to contribute to the recruitment strategies of its B&FS clients by providing targeted market information. A number of the recruiters who navigated the ‘credit crunch’ era are now leading Investigo’s B&FS teams.
  • Investigo supports clients with their diversity & inclusion agendas, working with clients on an individual basis to understand what their strategy is and how to support them with attracting diverse talent. Investigo puts on D&I events that are widely attended by B&FS clients and offers a full D&I Guide to assist our clients in achieving inclusive recruitment.
  • The judges were impressed with clients’ testimonials, such as sourcing hard-to-fill, confidential roles and Investigo’s consultants working together to achieve their clients’ goals.
  • Stand-out candidate care, leading to long relationships that has often progressed to additional work for Investigo as candidates are confident to use the company to resource entire finance teams in their future roles.

Judges’ comments: “A client-focused approach with some fresh ideas differentiating them from many similar entries. They’re making clients feel special with priority consulting access.”

 

NES Global Talent

NES Global Talent delivers international workforce solutions across the energy, life sciences, chemicals and mining sectors, dealing with 12,500 contractors through 66 offices globally.

  • Although there was an impressive calibre of entries in this category, NES Global demonstrated incredible specialist expertise in its service to customers around the world. In particular, the placement that stood out to the judges was the success in sourcing a tri-lingual candidate who could speak Spanish, Chinese and English for a project in the UAE in the solar energy space.
  • NES Global’s ability to support clients in some of the most challenging locations in the world is impressive. Having people on the ground operating in the same time zone, speaking the local language and with a true understanding of local culture provides a strong foundation and confidence among its clients.
  • NES also showed an amazing duty of care, with its consultants going the extra mile for thousands of its contractors who work in places throughout the world that are often in political unrest and extremely unstable.

NES has also used the latest AI technology to free up its recruiters to focus on value-add activities, whilst technology solutions manage the more repetitive tasks. For example, it introduced an AI Chatbot tool called ‘Roborecruiter’ to quickly contact candidates and pre-qualify them, asking them simple questions (using email and SMS) regarding skill levels and visa requirements to build up shortlists of candidates for recruiters to then approach on a personal level.

Judges’ comments: “NES provided excellent examples of meeting complex challenges of its clients across the globe in a clear and comprehensive manner. Adopting key technologies to streamline processes while demonstrating well evidence-based outcomes of success.”

NES Global Talent

NES Global Talent delivers international workforce solutions across the energy, life sciences, chemicals and mining sectors, dealing with 12,500 contractors through 66 offices globally.

  • Impressive on-the-ground knowledge has helped companies NES Global works with to source and mobilise local talent in a timely and efficient manner.
  • The judges were particularly impressed with the way NES Global dealt with a new client who was keen to hire a particular candidate that had been referred to them before the search with NES. NES delved into this candidate’s experience and background, which revealed they would not be suitable for this brand new role in Austria. The approach taken by NES showed great tact, sensitivity and integrity.
  • Showed a real duty of care in looking after its 1,000 contractors working on rotation in Iraq, from onboarding to ensuring their safety when travelling home. At the beginning of the tensions between the US and Iraq in 2018, when President Trump pulled the US out of a landmark nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, NES called each contractor individually to address any concerns and reassure them that the recruiter was there to provide support at any time. With 10 new starters, whose assignments were delayed, NES again remained in contact with them throughout the delays, ensuring they were comfortable in neighbouring countries.

Judges’ comments: “Local knowledge of target markets delivered to international clients. Mobility specialists helped candidates adjust to challenging environments.”

Franklin Fitch

Franklin Fitch is a specialist IT infrastructure recruiter operating solely in this space across the UK (London and Cardiff), Germany (Frankfurt) and the US (Austin).

  • To give its clients valuable up-to-date information, building on the traditional salary survey, Franklin Fitch released its Market & Skills Report. Sent to more than 19,000 infrastructure professionals in the UK and Germany, with a diverse response across all demographics, the survey looked into the topics and trends affecting its clients on a daily basis, not just around pay rates, but what talent in the IT Infrastructure space was demanding.
  • Impressive work, finding the right candidate for a hard-to-fill role that had been open for nearly eight months. Franklin Fitch reworked the job description and subsequent job advert, involving three international locations, and filled the role within six weeks.
  • Showed great candidate service when a family tragedy struck in the middle of a recruitment process. The candidate trusted the Franklin Fitch consultant to go above and beyond on their behalf to complete the process on their behalf, which was working in the UK for a US firm when the candidate was based in Greece.
  • Embarked on a brand refresh along with a comprehensive update of its digital presence. This was achieved employing the information and feedback by clients and candidates through regular data-gathering and its Market and Skills Report. As a result there was an increase of 60% in website conversions (job applications and CV registrations) and the company’s social presence across professional networks rose by 44% to more than 9,500.

Judges’ comments: “An excellent understanding of their sector and adding value with data-driven insights (market and skills report). Consultants have to pass a test on sector – Franklin Fitch also trains its staff in skills relevant to the sector. Showed they care and would add value to the process.”

SR2 – Socially Responsible Recruitment

SR2 stands for Socially Responsible Recruitment. Bristol-based SR2 is a community-driven IT recruitment start-up, putting people over profit and making various commitments as a business to ensure CSR is at the heart of everything it does.

  • The judges were impressed by the high level of creativity, innovation, quality of service and differentiation across the entries in this category.
  • SR2 stood out in this category through, for example, in its first two years of business donating over £21k to under-represented local charities in Bristol. It is also very active in the tech community, organising or sponsoring between 5-10 tech events and meet-ups, attracting around 500 people per month.
  • The judges were impressed with SR2’s efforts into improving diversity & inclusion (D&I) in tech via a number of means, including its platform Women Rock https://www.sr2rec.co.uk/womenrock/. Every week the company posts new content on the blog on its website and pushes this out to businesses who have expressed an interest (and via social channels) to keep D&I on everyone’s agenda.
  • Showcased innovations such as creating a group called Bristol Technology Volunteers – a platform that connects charities in need of help with techies who want to help. More than a dozen charities have had tech projects completed for them via the platform.
  • One excellent candidate service in particular demonstrates the company’s willingness to go above and beyond for its clients and candidates. Having secured several final interviews, where diaries had been rejigged to accommodate him, the candidate’s childcare cancelled at the last minute. SR2’s consultant offered to look after his very energetic twin boys, drafting in SR2’s MD to take them to the aquarium. The result was the candidate performed well, and he took one of the jobs he was offered. SR2 even covered the cost of the aquarium visit!

Judges’ comments: “Strong values and ethical recruitment agency that lives by its name. They showcased lots of brilliant examples, including Women Rock and Bristol Technology Volunteers. Driving innovation and engagement across the community.”