Most Innovative Use of Technology
WINNER River Island
FINALIST
• Cabot Financial (Europe)
ast year put massive pressure on retail staff to drive sales and service. With 150,000 applying for jobs at fashion retail- er River Island every year – and a policy to review and reply to every one –
the HR department needed to take the hiring pressure off store managers, as the company rose to the challenge of growing its businesses while shrinking its queues of customers. Due to the sheer volume of roles that River
Island was trying to administer, the company was failing to fill vacancies. It just didn’t have enough time and candidates were not receiving feedback. Considering customer and candidate demographics overlapped, this posed a serious problem for the retailer. River Island launched a recruitment portal,
which was completely led by technology. The system incorporates: quotas to control the numbers of applicants; online interview booking; text message reminders for interview appointments, as well as Google maps to help interviewees find where to go;
28 HR Excellence Awards July 2011
attendee lists for store managers; automatic generation of reference requests; onboarding/ induction; instant messaging within the recruitment team; and monitoring tools. The system was designed to make the
business more streamlined and, although it incorporated automated processes, the firm has set it to feel ‘human’. Both applicants and line managers learn the outcome of application processes in a timely fashion. River Island adopted a social media plan,
via Facebook and Twitter, which both act as successful viral marketing tools allowing users and their friends to blog about River Island, saving costs in advertising jobs. The reduction in screening time has saved
River Island an estimated £300,000. The HR team has saved 100% of the time it previously used to deal with recruitment administration – the time to fully recruit a new store (200 staff) is now less than nine days. River Island estimates it has saved £1.1 million. Considering the volume of applicants,
judges were impressed with the results River Island was able to measure. One described the system as “brilliant for the industry”.
Highly Commended
BSkyB Satellite broadcasting company BSkyB recruits in the region of 5,000 members of staff every year. With just under 100 staff on average to place every week, software has to be foolproof. Following the launch of the compa-
ny’s onboarding portal last year, BSkyB set out to create a ‘world class’ onboard- ing experience for its recruits. Previously, the company had used a
paper-based system, but the new platform, which combines two providers’ software, has saved the company £20 per recruit, made the candidate experience more straightforward, is more efficient and more environmentally friendly. The judging panel was satisfied the
company had proved the business case for the system and also commented on the measurable and promising results.
hrmagazine.co.uk
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40