How a world leader in glass manufacturing solved its global recruiting needs.

 
 
By Stephen Malia
 
Owens-Illinois, Inc. (O-I) is the world’s largest glass container manufacturer, with more than 24,000 employees in 22 countries, including 19 manufacturing operations in the United States and Canada. We are a $7.1 billion company headquartered in Perrysburg, Ohio, with market leadership positions in each of the four regions in which we operate—Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America, and North America. When we decided to outsource our recruitment function, we needed a partner who would respect our desire to create a world-class program to deliver world-class talent. The decision was clear as glass: We chose Adecco RPO. 

 
The challenge
At O-I, we had a limited recruiting function—our HR generalists owned the recruiting pieces of the process, but there was a need for a stronger centralized program. Determined to show our commitment to talent, a new leader of recruitment was engaged to spearhead this initiative. A full assessment of the existing process highlighted several areas of need: a dedicated recruitment team, a validated, measurable, candidate-friendly process, an applicant tracking system, and a holistic sourcing strategy. With little or no workforce planning, we also needed to make sure the solution could scale to meet our needs on a real-time basis.

 
After a complete assessment of our situation, we found ourselves at a decision point: build or outsource? We chose outsourcing.

 
Recognizing a recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) solution could help meet our critical recruitment needs, while supplying both the expertise and technology at variable vs. fixed price points, we sought a partner who was aligned with our value principles—a firm offering an enterprise-wide RPO solution to fill all of our hourly positions to start, able to introduce a configured, bilingual technology, and provide dedicated recruiting specialists. We were looking for a strong partner where together we could accomplish the desired outcomes.

 
The strategy
After we awarded Adecco the RPO business, Adecco initiated a comprehensive review of the current recruitment process and then we jointly developed a transition plan to ensure a smooth conversion for internal staff and hiring managers.

 
Issues identified
The combined implementation team of both O-I and Adecco RPO worked in tandem to address each issue. Our initial strategy was to implement an applicant tracking system to ensure a consistent and timely process. This was completed within the first six weeks of the engagement with no upfront capital investment. During this period, it was realized that resolving the remaining challenges would require a change in behavior from all involved. It was agreed that a pilot program would be the best implementation methodology/strategy. The nine plants with the greatest needs were quickly identified and pilot programs were established in each location. The pilots allowed process improvement in a controlled and thoughtful manner while creating internal success stories to be shared prior to the companywide rollout of the RPO solution.

 
We had our RPO partner take ownership of the recruitment process for every plant across the country with the goal of providing a consistent, candidate-friendly experience, backed by a metric-driven process.

 
 
Since project inception, with the aid of our RPO partner, have filled more than 800 positions across all North American locations. Based on the success of our initial program we expanded the partnership in July 2008 to include non-exempt and exempt salaried positions.

 
 
Results
We experienced a dramatic increase in qualified and interested applicants as well as a more efficient interview-to-offer ratio at the plant level from 7:1 to 1.8:1 or 172 hires from 310 interviews. This significantly decreased the amount of time spent conducting interviews by our plant hiring managers, allowing them to focus on core strategic initiatives. In addition, by lowering the average cycle time by two weeks and increasing the speed to fill positions by 40 percent, we were able to cut our overtime spending by more than $500 thousand during the pilot project for the nine locations. The strength of our partnership and established trust allowed us to fill jobs faster with candidates that previously were not accessible. We also leveraged our partner’s Center of Excellence for research, sourcing, screening, recruitment administration, and coordination.

 
 
Stephen Malia is SVP and CHRO of Owens-Illinois.