Elemed

Elemed is an all-female, multi-lingual, niche recruitment company that focuses on technical roles within the medical device industry. Although London-based, the recruiter has an international presence. Besides recruitment, Elemed are part of the community they serve through non job- related initiatives such as a medical device regulation discussion forum, (with 6,000 members), the Elemed academy and a podcast.

  • Elemed was approached regarding a confidential project concerning a notified body regulator for medical products, which was planning to open up a new, highly regulated entity. The question was whether to locate in the Netherlands or in Denmark. As part of the build, Elemed provided a talent pool analysis in both locations and salary rates analysis to help choose location.
  • Denmark was chosen, thanks to the information that was shared, such as attracting talent there, salary package details, and barriers to entry from a hiring regulatory perspective. Elemed also successfully offered recruitment support, with the head of certification the most important position to be filled.

This was a highly critical project, not only for the client nor even for the company: this fulfilled a gap in the entire industry, having a notified body regulator based in Denmark. (According to the the Danish Medicines Agency, a notified body is a private organisation designated by the national health authorities to review and assess whether the manufacturer’s documentation meets the legal requirements.) It made the national news.

Judges’ comments: “As a small niche business operating internationally in exceptionally challenging times, Elemed punched well above their weight with the highest levels of candidate and client success. They had to pivot their business significantly during the year and pioneered a financially viable structured mentoring programme.”

Also: The judges discussed this category at great length because of the quality and volume of worthy submissions. The size, resources and defined achievements of each entry was very different.

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ERSG

ERSG is dedicated to the energy sector, specialising in the areas of offshore & onshore wind, power generation, transmission & distribution, subsea & marine engineering and placing a wide range of engineers into these markets, often in remote or hard-to-reach worldwide locations.

  • As one of the first recruitment businesses to specialise in these markets and thanks to their excellent staff retention, ERSG has built large teams of dedicated recruiters in nine offices worldwide.
  • Due to the very specific skill requirements and relatively limited pool of experience, these markets are most effectively served by ERSG’s highly specialist and knowledgeable recruiters.
  • With its headquarters in the UK, since 2008 ERSG has placed thousands of workers domestically and internationally, in 21 countries across three continents. ERSG has at any one time had more than 1,000 freelance contractors, more than 800 of whom are working on offshore wind projects.
  • Due to the international nature of the market ERSG has had great success placing candidates on international projects using their multilingual team of recruiters based in London, Dublin, Hamburg, Amsterdam, Seattle, Orlando, Boston, Tokyo and Taipei.
  • During 2019/20 there has been a substantial amount of change, resulting from investment in the operational, IT, marketing and HR & training functions to further support their client service. This followed on from ERSG’s IT team’s aim for 2019/20 to execute a digital transformation through the implementation of an internal CRM system, Bullhorn and an integrated SaaS telephony system Cloudcall.
  • These digital innovative changes within the business have enabled ERSG to operate in a more streamlined fashion, freeing highly knowledgeable and skilled staff across the business to work in a more effective and efficient manner for the benefit of the candidate and client service, boosting profitability and strategic business management.

Judges’ comments: “The judges were particularly impressed by ERSG’s partnership approach when faced with complex challenges from their key clients. They responded diligently, clearly demonstrating success ensuring a positive outcome.”

Eames Consulting Group

Eames specialises in the banking and financial services sectors, operating across the core disciplines of audit, risk, compliance, finance, actuarial, broking & underwriting, claims & operations, change & technology.

  • To better support their clients’ needs, and the demand for more agile staffing solutions, Eames launched a management consultancy in 2020. ECMS exclusively supports the financial services sector with project augmentation, project management and project advisory services.
  • Their approach is to adapt to each client’s own methodology, using an in-house designed framework. This innovative approach to consultancy within this space has seen the organisation drive revenues of more £5m across a number of clients in the insurance sector in the first full year of business.
  • Eames gave as an example of the group’s approach the case of a candidate for a senior underwriter role at a multinational insurer which was going through just prior to the first lockdown. The client’s head office made the decision to withdraw all active roles. When the client re-opened live roles in late 2020, the candidate was concerned about moving jobs and onboarding remotely. There was also a new hiring manager, to whom Eames had to re-market the candidate. Their consultative approach and expertise of the London insurance market, meant they were able to support both the client and candidate in their decision making, and were able to manage a smooth onboarding process, making what is a key hire for the organisation.

Judges’ comments: “The judges were very impressed with the excellent tailored client service and also their focus on inbound business. We very much liked the fact that the company has evolved from traditional recruitment to broadening their services to become a true consultancy.”

Also: The judges were very pleased to see the amount of innovation and evolution within each of the nominees and how they have responded to support clients, colleagues  and candidates in difficult times.

Amoria Bond

Amoria Bond provide staffing and consultancy services across specialist global STEM markets: technology and engineering. They place thousands of permanent and contract candidates worldwide every year from their offices in Manchester, Amsterdam, Cologne and Singapore.

  • Amoria Bond takes a relationship-led/consultative approach to client services. After updating their vision of being the best service and consultancy group in global STEM-markets, they engaged their client base to define what ‘best service’ really is – and isn’t – and launched a company-wide initiative to embed best service across all operations.
  • This included the creation of a best service steering committee, with members from every office and team who champion best service or lead projects, to enhance specific areas of service offering, delivery and
  • A best service charter was launched.
  • Every employee made three personal best service pledges.
  • Job descriptions company-wide were updated to include best service; progression requires demonstrable evidence of consistently delivering, role-modelling or championing best
  • A net promoter score survey is sent to each client and candidate after every placement: “Based on your experience of our service, how likely would you be to re-use or recommend Amoria Bond’s services?” which provide insights on best service at company, office, team and individual recruiter-level.

 

Judges’ comments: “While many firms demonstrated excellent client care on non-Covid aspects, for us, this year was about how recruiters were able to quickly adapt and help their clients overcome Covid challenges. Amoria went over and above, introducing wellbeing programmes for themselves and clients. They also focused on and invested in thought leadership and connection.”

Remedium Partners

 Remedium is a healthcare recruitment business that champions the recruitment of permanent doctors and healthcare professionals. On top of existing staffing and resourcing shortages, the NHS now faces a growing backlog of unmet healthcare demand; the organisation is now supporting talented doctors from all over the world to make the move to the UK.

  • Candidates are given comprehensive support at every step of the journey, beginning with an application ‘triage’ process, ensuring any potential obstacles to successful recruitment are uncovered at the outset. Candidates are only put forward for roles that match their specific requirements and that align with their career goals, and are thoroughly prepared for interview.
  • Once a job offer has been accepted, candidates are assigned to an onboarding executive, whose job it is to make the move to the UK as easy as possible, and to help them settle in – both professionally and socially – once they have arrived.
  • Since the start of the pandemic, Remedium has managed to relocate around 300 doctors from overseas to work in NHS hospitals – despite flight cancellations, quarantine requirements and international border closures.
  • They also help to support their doctors’ Understanding that making friends in a new country can be difficult, Remedium organises regular social events near every NHS trust that they work with. When this was not possible when Covid-19 hit, they began running regular Zoom quizzes for their doctors and their families.

Judges’ comments: “In normal markets and circumstances it is a tough enough challenge to source your candidates overseas. Add to the mix a pandemic and the achievements of our winner in this category are even more impressive – this company provided an exemplary service to candidates – not only relocating a huge number of healthcare staff – but also showing huge amounts of empathy through organising social events.”

Also: The judges were really impressed by the range of service offerings that are presented to candidates across all the companies they reviewed.  It is clear that the interests of candidates are very definitely front and centre of their strategic agendas.

Charlton Morris

Charlton Morris is a search firm that has three divisions – CM Medical, CM Life Science and CM Industrial – with 80% of their work is outside the UK. Generating revenue, either independently or in collaboration with the sales team, is the primary aim and their marketing function is a revenue-generating department.

 

  • Responsibilities include building the brand online, primarily via LinkedIn, helping TA teams attract talent to the business and working to elevate the status of their The credibility, visibility and reputation of their recruiters are increased through the creation of content. Between October 2019-20, this amounted to more than 140 different pieces, from articles and podcasts to videos.
  • A large part of the team’s responsibilities has been managing the transition into three separate business units (CM Medical, CM Life Science and CM Industrial) after a rebrand in October 2019, and establishing those brands in their markets. This also saw the introduction of four new websites, three of which are content-focused.
  • An important innovation on their websites has been their content creation process. Each piece is consultant-led; the marketing team then creates the content and works with the consultant on distribution. This eliminates the time-consuming concept and research stage for the marketing team, and also means the consultants are more likely to promote content that they have helped create.
  • This approach has allowed the organisation to align their marketing strategy with sales, and set targets for both teams on which they have to work together. The result has been a collaborative sales and marketing function that makes both significantly more effective.

 

Judges’ comments: “Charlton Morris has shown that you can generate revenue, create communities and add value through its podcasts, published articles and ‘Client Hubs’ to a level that is rarely seen. They have broken the mould within their sector and created an army of genuine subject market experts across their business. A worthy winner which should inspire others to think differently.”

Also: The judges appreciated that because of the pandemic marketers have had to be resourceful.

 

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Acre

Global Talent Attraction and Acquisition – Thermo Fisher Scientific

Thermo Fisher Scientific, with annual revenue exceeding $30bn (£27bn) and a global team of more than 80,000 colleagues, delivers a combination of innovative technologies, purchasing convenience and pharmaceutical services. The organisation has around 6,000 open vacancies at any one time. Recruiting such a vast number of people while ensuring excellent hire quality is the job of its Talent Acquisition (TA) team.

  • When the Covid-19 pandemic began, as the largest manufacturer of sterile injectables, Thermo Fisher Scientific began manufacturing and supplying PPE and then moved on to diagnostics and vaccine produ While the number of business-as-usual vacancies fell, an exceptionally large number of vacancies were created to support the new work. In all, they went up to an average of 14,000 vacancies.
  • The team had always planned to move recruitment into a more agile approach and applied this to 29 prioritised Covid-19 projects. Within these there were dozens of smaller programmes, with anything from a few hundred to thousands of positions to fill, ranging from factory workers to scientists.
  • To manage the workload, the TA team broke down every project into core roles. They then broke the vacancies into regions with each having a dedicated team. These teams used reporting tool ‘Power BI’ to set up project dashboard/monitor progress.
  • The team has delivered on their existing strategy, fast-tracking the recruitment process, while maintaining standards and working collaboratively, despite being a team of 550 members. As a result, the business is in an extremely strong position and has developed a way of working that has revolutionised its recruitment.

Judges’ comments: “Not only is Thermo a worthy winner, but is a story of resolve and determination. The TA team found themselves in the heart of the Covid-19 pandemic and thanks to their incredible delivery they ultimately supported a key pillar of the UK’s response.”

Also: This category benefited from a wide variety of achievement from organisations large and small. This allowed a lively and engaging discussion amongst the judges, who were though unanimous with their choices.

 

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Foxtons Talent Acquisition Team – Foxtons

Telegraph Media Group, in partnership with That Little Agency

The Telegraph Media Group’s newspaper brands are among the best known in the UK. The biggest challenge is that the consumers of their product, who are generally positioned right of centre politically, are not the group’s typical employees, who are traditionally left of centre. The company is increasingly pivoting into a digitally focused business. This means that they are looking to engage talent outside of their traditional market of editorial and journalism professionals.

The Telegraph and That Little Agency worked together to help reposition the group as a digital media business.

  • The result was a top-to-tail review. Surveys, focus groups and executive interviews across employment groups (editorial, commercial/sales, business enablement, technical and digital) and the UK.
  • The research enabled them to define their employer brand personality. This fed into the creative brief as they looked to articulate this through an instantly recognisable and strong look and feel.
  • Having launched in January 2020, the ‘You make the story’ employer proposition is still evolving, but some encouraging trends are visible. All data has been taken from Google Analytics, the Workable applicant tracking system and directly from the Telegraph resourcing team. Website performance: 126% increase in website traffic (2020 vs 2019); 44% increase in job applications (2020 vs 2010); 70% of website traffic from non-paid-for sources; 21% of website traffic from social media sources; and 43% of website traffic through organic searches on Google.

Judges’ comments: “This business has understood that while they may be famous, their existing brand could work against them and they needed a large perceptional shift. The research gave them better insight into their employment experience. The branded assets are beautiful in their design, and cohesive across channels. And all done at an impressively low price point.”

Also: The judges acknowledged that there are many beautifully researched and expressed employer brands, and would like to encourage further participation from the sector and more entries next time.

How Iceland saved their store leaders 24,000 hours a year by implementing transformational change – during a pandemic – Iceland Foods in partnership with PredictiveHire.

Automation was critical to increase the time store managers had to trade their stores. Frozen food specialist Iceland receives a high volume of applicants – more than 120,000 per month – and faced a crisis in 2020: increased trade and Covid-19 absence meant that surge hiring needed to be automated, without losing the personal touch. It had to be a simple solution that store managers would understand quickly and trust and used screening tools that candidates would also trust.

  • The company’s in-house recruitment team chose PredictiveHire. Candidates have reacted well to the technology, with 99% positive sentiment and 77% of candidates more likely recommend to Iceland as an employer of choice.
  • The candidate experience had to be fast, inclusive and human. The tool needed to work for the candidate market which is as diverse as the general population. Against the company’s criteria and internal testing, the PredictiveHire Ai solution (‘Phai’) was superior. Every candidate was interviewed by Phai and received personalised feedback, 20 minutes to complete, with only five open-ended and engaging questions, such as: “At Iceland we are obsessed with quality. How would you help us deliver consistent quality of service?” Adoption was accelerated by embedding a candidate explainer video created by PredictiveHire into the application process.
  • There was seamless integration into the company’s recruitment process.
  • There was 5x payback in four months, giving back 8,000 hours to the business and costing less than 1p per applicant.
  • There was zero gender and race bias, ensuring the hired group are as diverse as the applicant group.
  • Three-quarters of hires were from the top-ranking candidates, demonstrating screening validity.

Judges’ comments: “Their simple, straightforward submission ticked every box by demonstrating the contribution the recruitment function played to the success of their overall business. They also clearly demonstrated thoughtful consideration to the fact that many candidates would be applying for jobs at Iceland following the decimation of their previous career paths, for example, aviation industry employees.”

Also: The judges noted that this was yet another strong category that shows how strong technical integration can lead to quantifiable results.

Be the Change – Police Now

Police Now’s mission is to attract, recruit and train outstanding graduates with leadership potential to be inspirational detectives and police officers who transform communities. It works in parallel with more than 30 police forces across England and Wales. The partner forces rely on Police Now to recruit and train diverse participants, many of whom may not have considered a career in policing. 

  • Policing needs to be representative of the communities it serves: 14% of the population are from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds but only 7.3% of police officers a Recruiting a diverse workforce is essential and in 2020 Police Now committed to accelerate progress to find more graduates committed to delivering change and rebuilding trust in policing.
  • A data-led, evidence-based approach looked across the candidate journey, from potential applicants’ perception of the police, through to participants’ experiences on the programme.
  • The recruitment marketing campaign was built around real people’s experiences of policing; applicants’ individual needs were supported, from one-to-one coaching and interview practice sessions to information sessions for candidates’ family and friends.
  • In 2019 Police Now recruited an analyst to review the end-to-end recruitment process, the employee lifecycle and government data to specifically look for trends with ethnic minority graduates. Understanding this allows the approach to be tailored to speak to the concerns and realities of different groups.
  • The organisation has made long-term investment into channels targeting black, Asian and minority ethnic communities to build a pipeline over many years, and has reached those who would not normally consider policing, with messages targeted to specific demographics and regions, and constant measurement to optimise success.

Judges’ comments: “This was another well-contested category. Overall, the quality was high. However, the judges were blown away with the magnificent ‘Be the Change – Police Now’.”

Also: The judges added that their success in hiring many of those who traditionally would not have considered policing, and the creation of a culture where exceptional graduates were hired regardless of social, ethnic or a gender biased background ensured that this was the outstanding submission.

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Vodafone in partnership with Aon