Habitat signs up Bond International Software to polish up recruitment processes

Habitat UK, the international home furnishing retailer, has signed a five-year contract with stock market-listed Bond International Software to deploy Bond Talent ñ a fully hosted online recruitment & talent management software solution which will provide an online web portal-based recruitment application and applicant tracking system throughout its UK operations.

Habitat, which employs more than 900 people across the UK in 38 stores ñ which includes its head office flagship store in Londonís Tottenham Court Road ñ [storefront pictures available] will use the new system to manage all of its recruitment processes electronically ñ eliminating existing manual and email-based systems ñ to provide secure access to its business partners and line managers who need to manage more than 4,500 job applicants annually. Improving the system is expected to result in an estimated annual cost saving of thousands, together with significant increases in efficiency, speed of operation and time savings.

The new five-year contract will provide Habitat with a fully-hosted solution from Bond, which will enable the company to manage all applications online through a web portal, whilst allowing the recruitment teams full visibility of all candidates.

Sean Thomas, Habitatís UK Head of HR and Development, comments, ìWith all of our recruitment records on e-mail and paper, we had no systematic way of calculating even how many candidates we had for each vacancy, let alone a way of centralising all the information. With Bond Talent, the time taken from posting a vacancy to filling it can be dramatically reduced. We will see a substantial reduction in administrative time spent and we expect to save thousands through productivity and time savings.î

ìThrough Bond Talent,î Thomas continues, ìall of our line managers, regardless of department or location, can post vacancies through the portal to which prospective candidates can submit their applications. These candidates can then be assessed and tracked all the way through the recruitment process. Moreover, our recruitment department has full visibility of each application and can create a ëtalent poolí from which we can select appropriate candidates for future positions. We see this as a clear advantage for the business.î

Almost 50 years old, the Habitat Group is a European based international home furnishing retailer with over 70 store operations in the UK, France, Spain and Germany , in addition to a large distribution network of retail partners. Habitat employs approximately 920 employees in the UK in retail alone and posts in the region of 35 vacancies per month.

Thomas continues, ìHabitat as a brand is the epitome of modern furnishing and as such is considered to be very forward-looking, however our back office processes for recruitment did not live up to this image. For instance, the vast majority of our CV applications have to be received via an e-mail. Bond Talent will allow us to create a consistent image throughout and present our potential employees with the recruitment routes they would expect from such a progressive company.î

Bond Talent is a specialist application for the global recruitment and talent management markets which has been designed to greatly reduce hiring costs and to enhance the strategic capability of in-house resourcing teams. The system is user-friendly and flexible allowing for reduced paperwork and improved efficiency. This gives key recruitment staff more time to concentrate on development rather than administrative tasks.

Tim Richards, Managing Director of Bond International Software, comments, ìIt is not just well-known high street brands like Habitat that can benefit the most from Bond Talent. Any organisation that relies on manual, email and paper-based processes has significant cost inefficiencies. A widely-accessible, web-based and flexible software system can remove the reliance on clumsy physical records and provide a new ability to manage all vacancies and applicants in a timely and efficient fashion, whilst also providing an impressive return on investment.î