The UK’s leading distributor and wholesaler of pharmaceutical, medical and healthcare products has dramatically reduced the cost of recruiting thanks to a bespoke e-solution which has allowed the company to bring its recruitment in-house.
Alliance Healthcare approached Chatham-based RecruitActive and sister company Netsite with the idea of a careers microsite and e-recruitment/applicant tracking system that would manage its UK recruitment while engaging and attracting better quality applicants.
Launched only five months ago, HR Project Manager for Alliance Healthcare Denise Farrell says that e-recruitment has already reduced the cost per hire by a staggering 76 per cent and, importantly, maintained the quality of applicants.
She said: “We have been able to maintain the high quality of candidates at a fraction of the cost and have made some dramatic changes in a short space of time. Only a year ago, one hundred per cent of our recruitment was conducted via external agencies. That has already reduced to 17 per cent and the HR team is working hard at reducing this further by coaching and influencing our line managers, and continuing to build our own knowledge and capability to recruit direct.”
Working closely with Denise, RecruitActive and Netsite developed the supporting microsite that was designed to attract and engage new candidates using an approach that reflects the way people and companies communicate and use social networking.
Netsite’s Managing Director Paul Duthoit said: “We have a huge amount of experience in e-recruitment so we know that the key was to make the site attractive, professional, very informative and easy to use – otherwise you can easily lose good potential candidates at the first hurdle. And like all our tailored solutions, this project met Alliance Healthcare’s particular needs and enhanced their recruitment processes while helping them to make substantial savings.”
One of the options available to Denise was to link into sister company Boots’ on-line careers and recruitment site but she decided she wanted to represent Alliance Healthcare’s own unique culture and ‘personality’.
She explained: “We are part of a large, global group but we have our own culture within that and I wanted to represent our employment offering in an authentic way and in a positive, honest light and bring out the personalities of our workforce. An important part of the process was involving our staff in the development of the microsite.
“All the photos we used are of our own staff members and even the photographer is a member of our finance team. I asked people for their comments about why they work for Alliance Healthcare and I was very encouraged by the positive testimonials I received. All of the comments and stories are genuine and none of them are edited – which confirmed that Alliance Healthcare is a great place to work and we needed to let the external jobs market know that!”
Initially the microsite was designed to handle head office recruitment but it is now being rolled out to Alliance Healthcare’s 12 service centres across the UK enabling the company to advertise, recruit and select candidates in a consistent way across the business. Everyone from warehouse operatives and drivers up to senior logistics managers will now be recruited using the on-line process.
“One of the biggest concerns of line managers is whether we would be able to recruit high quality candidates using e-recruitment. To allay some of their fears, we conducted a survey of our existing staff to find out how they would search for a job and what search engine they would use. The results showed that a clear majority of people in all functions and at all levels used the internet in their job search.
“We still have some way to go, however generally we’ve been able to maintain the high quality of candidates we usually hire, at a fraction of the cost. Also, when direct candidates come for interview they tend to be more engaged and motivated to work for us – they have found out more about Alliance Healthcare prior to the interview and have made a conscious decision that they want to work here.
“At induction we ask our new hires for feedback and it has been very positive. For instance, most felt better equipped for their interview - they understood the structure of the department they were joining and where the job fitted in to it. We are delighted with the result which has made us realise that it’s no longer necessary to pay large sums of money to third parties to search for candidates – developing a jobsite also has the added benefit of marketing your company and promoting your employer brand in a very cost-effective way,” she said.
Chatham-based Netsite offers a range of services from bespoke website design and web applications, and with its sister company RecruitActive, content managed e-recruitment systems and Applicant Tracking Systems. The company was established 14 years ago and has clients including the NHS, Rochester Avionic Archives, Crewsaver and The Historic Dockyard Chatham.
