direct sourcing case study: strategic workforce planning reduces time to fill for retail roles.
proactive partnership and centralized recruiting process helps a luxury retail company hire 260 contingent talent in Canada in 7 months
| 2 min read |
candidate attraction challenges
With 32 retail locations across six provinces in Canada, this luxury retail company had an incumbent provider managing hiring for part-time retail roles. The recruitment process was not centralized, however, and there were more than 20 points of contact on the provider side, which led to inconsistent service levels. The retailer also faced challenges in candidate attraction and time to fill, with some aged requisitions as old as 70 days.
meeting seasonal demands with proactive workforce planning
To improve talent attraction and build a more standardized recruitment process, the company partnered with Randstad Sourceright and transitioned more than 300 contingent workers from the incumbent to the new program in just three weeks, with no interruption of service to the luxury retail chain.
Recognizing the importance of partnership and a centralized process to the retailer, Randstad Sourceright built a dedicated team that supports the end-to-end process, including recruitment, payrolling, and managing employee issues, such as performance, HR issues and workers compensation. The team supports all part-time hires for all 32 permanent retail locations, as well as both full-time and part-time hires for pop-up boutiques hiring in classes.
To better attract and engage contingent talent, the team developed a direct sourcing strategy that uses the client’s brand in recruitment marketing, and provides benchmark data to help build a more competitive pay strategy.
The team has weekly catch-up meetings with the HR team and hiring managers to address current issues, and to anticipate both challenges and opportunities in advance. This proactive approach has helped to maintain staffing levels when students who work part-time leave their roles at the beginning of summer.
Advanced workforce planning has also enabled the team to meet two key seasonal demands: start of school in fall and post-Thanksgiving holiday shopping, when recruiting needs to be ramped up to ensure new hires are onboarded and trained in time.
significant reduction in time to fill with direct sourcing
The new recruitment process and proactive partnership have proven to be a huge success. For the first seven months of the program — despite three different COVID lockdown phases across the six provinces — 264 contingent placements were made across 32 retail locations, with a time-to-submit rate of just seven days and a time-to-fill rate of just 16 days. This was a significant reduction from 70-day aged requisitions seen at the kick-off of the program.
The direct sourcing strategy has also improved talent quality. The organization now experiences a 84% retention rate for contingent retail roles, compared to a 74% retention rate among the workers transitioned from the incumbent. This shows that the talent hired with the new strategy are a better fit.