River Island case study v2.indd

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Innovation in mobile recruitment
How mobile is changing the face of
recruitment
River Island
A new approach to recruitment
River Island is a retailing success story with over 250 stores
in the UK, Ireland, Europe and the Middle East. The business
needed a robust, flexible and candidate-focused recruitment
system to enable them to attract and sign up the most talented
people that will see them stay at the top of the high street.
Previously River Island employed a
totally manual approach to its Sales
Advisor recruitment. “As a business
we recognised the need to give
candidates a better experience and
relieve the burden of recruitment from
store managers.” The labour-intensive
recruitment system used by River Island
also put a great deal of pressure on the
Central Recruitment team, led by Head
of Talent Acquisition Janine Jenkinson.
Changeworknow was selected to
develop a recruitment solution that
would not only manage the volume
but also provide the means for the
recruitment team to provide a better
candidate experience.
“Often vacancies remained unfulfilled
because we simply couldn’t process the
sheer number of applications received.
Because we weren’t able to track
candidates once they had made an
application, we frequently weren’t able
to offer news or feedback to anyone
who contacted the team to check on the
progress of their application. As a team
and an organisation we recognised
the need to give candidates a better
experience and relieve the recruitment
burden from Store Managers giving
them more time to drive sales” she says.
Immediately the pressure was on to
ensure this approach to recruitment
was ready for the upcoming Christmas
trading season. By going live as early as
possible the system would ensure River
Island could attract the best candidates
early in the season and ensure they
filled as many of their vacancies as
possible.
UTILISING TECHNOLOGY TO
MANAGE TALENT
The recruitment solution recommended
by Changeworknow included leveraging
the skill and expertise of the Central
Recruitment team to post vacancies
on the corporate website and manage
candidates once applications had
been submitted. By using technology
to manage the volume and quality of
candidates through screening and
filtering of suitable applications it was
possible to preserve the time expertise
“Our expectations were
entirely surpassed by 51,000
applications that were
submitted and the overall
quality of the candidates who
want to work with us.”
of Store Managers.
Key functionality in the River Island
system included:
⋅ Quotas on vacancies to control numbers of quality applicants
⋅ Online interview booking
⋅ Texting interview reminders
⋅ Automatic mailing of attendee lists to Store Managers prior to assessment
⋅ Interactive Candidate Career Portal
⋅ Onboarding capability ⋅ Automated talent pool management ⋅ Visual prompts in the recruitment system to recruiters when action is required by Recruiter or Candidate ⋅ Dynamic Graphical Reports that change in real time for up-to-date accurate management information
EXCEEDING RECRUITMENT
EXPECTATIONS
The number of applications generated
by the Changeworknow recruitment
system following its launch was
staggering for the business.
“We were concerned we just wouldn’t
get enough applications to fill the 5950
seasonal vacancies we have across the
business” admits Janine Jenkinson. “Our
expectations were entirely surpassed by
51,000 applications that were submitted
and the overall quality of the candidates
who want to work with us.”
96,000 people started the River
Island online recruitment process for
the Chistmas season. Of this group
approximately 53% of individuals
submitted their application, with the
remainder de-selecting themselves
from the process based on feedback
received on their suitability.
To manage the vast number of
applications received the River Island
team worked closely and quickly with
Changeworknow to tighten the scoring
of applications and use the vacancy
quota functionality to ensure only
the highest quality candidates were
selected and invited to attend their local
recruitment events.
DELIVERING POSITIVE
BUSINESS IMPACT
Since the launch of the system for
Sales Advisor recruitment, the system
has been extended to support all
recruitment for the business. Due
to the agile nature of the software
Changeworknow and River Island
annually review the current system
and make updates to suit the nature
of the business as it evolves. A focus
on continuous improvement allows
River Island to have the slickest, fastest
solution available to their needs and
has lead to incredible cost saving and
time efficient results for the company
including:
• Number of applications received has gone from an estimated 300,000 per annum to 150,000 per annum. This
has amounted to a cost saving of £300,000
• Time setting up interviews has been greatly reduced contacting thousands of candidates to a matter of hours.
• Interview slots are set up and communications are automatically generated inviting candidates to book.
• Assessment events are getting filled online in 12 minutes
• All paperwork gets automatically sent to Store Managers giving River Island a 100% saving in time
• Average time to recruit is 19 days for
Sales Advisors and River Island make offers as early as October for their Christmas season, giving a distinct competitive advantage.
• New stores fully recruited for in just 9 days – and some stores require up to 200 members of staff.
• Significant reduction in the work required by store managers as one
third of the process has been removed. This has resulted in a saving
to the business of £800,000
• Driven out every inefficiency and extended this tool for all store based and head office recruitment.
• The technology has resulted in a total cost saving of £1.1 million for
River Island.
Contact us to discuss
your recruitment
needs:
01491 410 681
changeworknow.co.uk
About changeworknow
Changeworknow is one of the UK’s leading providers of cloud based
applicant tracking and talent engagement solutions. Changeworknow
is well known for its commercial and consultative approach to online
recruitment. Several million candidates a year have a Changeworknow
online recruitment experience and several thousand HR and Line
Managers rely on the intuitive management system to optimise
their recruitment programmes. Organisations using the system are
benefiting from a best of breed recruitment solution that delivers
outstanding results.
Classification: Public
Contact us:
+44 (0)1491 410 681
[email protected]
changeworknow.co.uk
Write to us:
Changeworknow
Girdler House
Quebec Road
Henley-on-Thames
Oxon, RG9 1EY