Thomson Local contracts UK-wide recruitment to Ochre House

The UKís leading local business search provider, Thomson Local, has selected the fast growing recruitment outsourcing specialist, Ochre House, to manage all its permanent recruitment over the next two years. Under the agreement Ochre House will be responsible for sourcing around 300 hires per year, mainly into the companyís direct sales function.

ìWeíd already moved to centralising our recruitment function over a year ago,î says Sinead Robinson, head of HR at Thomson Local, ìbut the next step was to develop a ëcentre of excellenceí with a proper infrastructure which would give us maximum measurement of and control over all recruitment processes. That obviously raised the question as to whether we should do this in-house or go to an external expert under an RPO set-up.î

ìWe looked at a number of RPO specialists but were particularly impressed by Ochre House from the very start. We particularly liked their partnership approach which meant that there was never any question of us just handing over our whole recruitment function – something that we were instinctively unwilling to do. Instead they made it clear that they would work, not just for us, but with us to create something that fitted our specific requirements and that would deliver the results we needed.î

ìWhat we will be aiming to achieve for Thomson Local is not just the traditional end product of RPO – the acquisition of great people – but also ensuring that those people are then fully engaged, effectively developed and retained by the business,î says Ochre House director, Sue Brooks.î In our view we are now into a new generation of RPO where complete talent management is the order of the day and thatís how we deliver real value to the organisations we work with.î