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Enterprise Insight, set up by the four business organisations, CBI, IOD, FSB and BCC and Government funded, runs the Make Your Mark national campaign to encourage enterprise and entrepreneurship in young people 14-30 years.
“Thank you so much for such a tremendous, sustained, committed and expert effort to recruit an absolutely fabulous new staff team for Enterprise Insight”
Kevin Steele,
former CEO Enterprise Insight
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Cohesion HR took on the initial task of planning, recruiting and developing the campaign team growing staff numbers from 6 to 60, including five regional offices.
Working with the CEO and Directors, Cohesion helped to define individual job roles and the core competences and campaign values on which the campaign team would be built. Each role was unique, requiring specific skills and/or specialist experience, not easily sourced from the labour market.
A highly focussed recruitment campaign was designed in three phases, developing an employer brand, utilizing multi-channel media including online, national, regional and trade advertising, specialist recruitment agencies and headhunters, setting up a dedicated web page to provide information packs on the campaign and individual jobs as well as a portal for applications. We set up a streamlined response handling process, effectively tracking and handling applications for all vacancies with economic administration. The recruitment campaign focussed on quality rather than quantity yet attracted over 1,000 applications, an average of 15 applications for each vacancy.
Cohesion managed all selection processes, working with the Directors on longlisting/shortlisting, attending all interviews, providing psychometric test reports on candidate personality and motivations, and taking up references.
In addition to recruitment, Cohesion also prepared salary scales and incentive plans, a performance review framework and outline training programme.
Following the initial phase of recruitment, Cohesion was retained to manage another 30 permanent and temporary vacancies, including Chief Executive and HR Manager.
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Cognac is a visual communications consultancy that aims to “communicate anything in 10 minutes”. It has an impressive client base of blue chip clients and needed to expand its staff to handle the growth in business.
“Cohesion added professional know-how to our recruitment processes to find some great new team members whilst enabling our management to concentrate on serving our clients and growing our business.”
Tom Ball
CEO, Cognac
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Cohesion HR was asked to take over the recruitment process for a Visual Communications Consultant, Graphics Designer, Marketing Manager and Office Manager.
We reviewed Cognac’s existing recruitment processes and made recommendations to improve their effectiveness. We drafted job profiles and advertising copy for the Cognac website and managed advertising in the Guardian, internet job boards and trade press as well as sourcing and briefing specialist employment agencies. We set up a streamlined response handling and tracking system using Cognac internal resources. Cohesion conducted first interviews with shortlisted candidates and provided interview and personality test reports for the senior management. In short we managed all recruitment and pre-selection processes ready for Cognac management to meet and select from a shortlist of quality candidates.
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NTA Monitor rapidly established itself as the market leader in Internet Security services and Cohesion HR provided specialist recruitment expertise to build the technical teams through developing and managing two Graduate Recruitment campaigns.
“Cohesion HR added the professional recruitment resource and expertise we needed to grow our technical teams without diverting our management from growing our business”
Roy Hills
Managing Director, NTA Monitor Ltd.
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Cohesion HR handled all aspects of the campaigns, including planning and positioning, press and Internet advertising, sourcing and managing agency relationships, response handling, shortlisting, telephone screening interviews, arrangements for final interviews and all administration and communications. The client was presented with a shortlist of quality candidates from which to make selection at interview.
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The London Pensions Fund Authority (LPFA) administers the Local Government Pensions Fund for over 200 public sector and charitable employers.
“The revision of our recruitment processes has strengthened our teams and improved the quality of services we provide our members.”
Phil Goodwin
Director of Operations, LPFA
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The LPFA had well established recruitment procedures, but had experienced difficulty in recent years in recruiting and retaining staff to undertake the training required to work in the Operations teams.
After reviewing existing practices, we suggested new approaches to the recruitment process, expanding the target candidate pool, utilising web based capabilities and incorporating equalities best practice. We also identified new cost-effective avenues for attracting suitable candidates, including community and Internet based services.
The introduction of nationally accredited tests of literacy and numeracy skills and personality profiling, ensured that candidates selected for interview had the necessary ability level to succeed in both the training and the work and had the temperament and ambition to be suited to the roles. This ensured that the needs of employer and employee were satisfied.
The recruitment procedure was revised and updated and a framework for a rolling recruitment plan established to ensure an optimum supply of trainees.
The Benefit
One year after the new processes were introduced, new recruits have exceeded expectations in their training programme and are making valuable contributions in their teams. Turnover rates have dramatically reduced so that further recruitment could be deferred, thus reducing recruitment costs and the stability and efficiency in the teams improved
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“The HPI profiling provides a level of objective and impartial assessment that forms a valuable part of our selection process and contributes towards enhancing procedural fairness”.
Linda Hallett
Head of Human Resources and
Organisation Development,
West Kent Housing Association
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In 2003 West Kent Housing Association (West Kent) underwent a major restructuring that resulted in a number of new posts being created. Internal candidates were encouraged to apply for the new career opportunities created but posts were also advertised in the press to attract external candidates.
Several of the internal applicants had many years of service and were known to the managers who would make the selection decisions. To support the Equal Opportunity Policy, Management wanted to ensure that the selection processes were transparent, fair to all and would also contribute to career planning for the future.
Cohesion HR was invited to provide personality profiling for applicants using the Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI) to complement the internal processes of interviews and assessment centres.
Arrangements were made for internal and external applicants to complete the HPI online which provides flexibility and convenience for candidates, eliminating the need for travel or time off work and providing the client with profiles prior to interview. HPI data was forwarded to Cohesion HR via the Internet for analysis and profiles were prepared for each candidate, assessing suitability for the roles applied for and identifying areas of strength for future career development.
Each candidate was provided with a written feedback report and had the opportunity for personal feedback with a Cohesion HR consultant on their future development.
Feedback from applicants confirmed that the assessment process had been fair and valuable in identifying strengths and opportunities for future development.
During 2004 Cohesion HR has continued to work with West Kent providing personality profiles for recruitment and personal development purposes.
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