Woolworths and changeworknow

Hiring the right people at the right time, in the right place and at the right cost is a key theme that underpins the recruitment strategy for Woolworthís retail management.
With over 800 stores nationwide, their UK Retail Resourcing Team needs to have a continuous stream of good quality candidates to meet the business requirements. A visible high street presence and a strong brand means that recruitment campaigns often bring high volumes of applicants. Previous campaigns have attracted high numbers of candidates (up to 4,000 at one time) and this had put a heavy workload on the small recruitment team who found they had to deal with and respond to hundreds, sometimes thousands, of applications, all of whom needed a carefully considered and speedy response in order to protect the employer brand. The time it took to sort through paper applications meant that good candidates were inevitably lost in the process.

Woolworths partnered with on-line recruitment specialists, Changeworknow Ltd, to develop an interactive on-line application process for retail management. Using technology and the corporate website was seen as the way forward. We believed that inviting people to apply on-line on our corporate website and using technology to screen and qualify candidates against our selection criteria, providing us with a database of qualified candidates, would significantly reduce the screening time and enable us to respond quickly to all candidates says Iain Lewis, former UK Resourcing Manager and Project Manager.

This interactive and dynamic web-based approach has been a phenomenal success for Woolworths and there have been some clear tangible results, including:

- A 70% reduction in direct hiring costs.

- Speed to hire has improved from eight weeks to two days in some cases.

- There has been a marked increase too in the quality of candidates who go through the process and apply. Up to 95% of candidates who submit their application are meeting or exceeding the essential requirements for the role.

- Administration time has been reduced by 40%. No longer is the resource team wading through unsuitable applications, but are spending time making contact and building relationships with more suitable candidates.

As Iain Lewis sums up: As a result of our on-line approach we are able to act more as an internal recruitment consultancy for the business. We are able to respond to our internal clientsí resourcing needs quickly, efficiently and in a highly cost effective manner.