Kerry Richards leads the UK recruitment team at Delaware North, a leading hospitality and food services supplier and supports the employment of 250 permanent staff, plus 4,000 staff on variable contracts in the UK business. Over the last 12-18 months, Kerry and her team have transformed how the company recruits and manages the thousands of staff they employ on variable contracts. This has included developing a new careers website to further enhance the company’s recruitment activities and how the ‘employer’ brand is communicated.
Integral to this process, has been Kerry and her team working with Eploy, the leading cloud recruitment software provider, to move the company’s entire recruitment process online, in order to improve operational efficiency so that it can service its venues more effectively and attract the right candidates, while saving time and money.
By moving it all online, Delaware North’s recruitment processes have improved significantly. The new Eploy-powered careers website has automated many of the resource-heavy elements of employing staff on variable contracts; from initial registration, response, online screening, psychometric testing to compliance paperwork gathering and reference checking.
In addition, candidates are now able to use the careers website via their mobile, which is important as many new hires are young people, and more likely to be using mobile devices. The Delaware North careers site itself was also a finalist at the In House Recruitment Awards in the ‘Best Careers Site’ category.
Kerry worked with the marketing team to introduce a new advertising strategy, which includes social media profiles to communicate and engage with potential candidates and a well-crafted strategy using a clever model of job boards to attract the right candidates with the specific experiences that each role requires.
Alison Gray, HR Director at Delaware North, said; “Over the last 12 months Kerry has taken the technology we use to recruit to a completely different level and in the process has improved the profile of our organisation to the external market and our clients. We are even more delighted that this has been recognised by the judges at the In-House Recruitment Awards.”
Testament to Kerry winning this prestigious award, are the results her team have achieved since implementing this new online recruitment strategy:
- Reduced external recruiting costs by 65%
- Via the website, average monthly new candidate registrations has increased by 33%, and the average monthly applications increased by 52%
- In parallel, the biggest growth can be seen in the number of monthly log-ins and applications from a mobile device, with average monthly website applications via mobile devices increasing by 196%
- The candidate’s ‘self-service’ functionality has reduced time to hire by 50%. This is particularly important for high volume campaigns, which often have short lead times to meet the needs of the company’s high profile venue clients
- The introduction of pre-screening questions has directly improved the calibre of candidates
- Labour costs have also reduced, and the savings have been re-invested in improved training and development for new starters
The judges at the 2014 In-House Recruitment Awards summed up Kerry’s achievements in this citation: “Within any team there is often a stand-out performer and the winner of this award is no exception. They were able to clearly identify the needs of the business through listening to stakeholders to improve various processes which ultimately improved the quality of hire throughout the business.”
Chris Bogh, Eploy’s Founder and Technical Director said: “It has been an absolute pleasure working with Kerry and her team; and we are very proud to see Kerry acknowledged at this year’s In-House Recruitment Awards for all her efforts and determination in making the move to online so successful.”
Delaware North is the exclusive provider of hospitality and food services at Wembley Stadium, Emirates Stadium, iPro Stadium, the Valley and Craven Cottage. They also have operations at London Heathrow Airport, Edinburgh Airport, Glasgow Airport, East Midlands Airport and the Manchester Runway Visitor Park.
The Judges said; “A compelling and honest entry which highlighted all aspects of their recruitment strategy, this winner was able to share and detail their successes, challenges overcome and also their change management processes they’ve been through. This recruitment team has an obvious and very successful purpose within the business, which is why it has been awarded a winner.”