A methodical evaluation of hiring needs and company culture and close collaboration between insurer and provider led to improved hiring results.
As the HR industry evolves and talent wars persist, best practice solutions in outsourcing and consulting have begun to play a bigger part in overall talent management strategies. As companies and HR departments raise the bar on expectations, the need for true partnerships has become apparent and can often be a major factor in outsourcing success.
In 2007, the Chubb Group of Insurance Companies, which had outsourced various functions of its HR department since 2004, sought to improve its candidate pipeline and recruitment efforts. With many key positions open at any time, Chubb knew that top talent recruitment was essential to maintain its competitive edge. The insurer, which had previously outsourced recruitment services to an enterprise HRO provider with disappointing results, sought a true RPO provider that could work collaboratively with it to create proactive and innovative recruitment strategies. After evaluating several recruitment solution providers, Chubb came to The RightThing.
Before any process refinement or implementation processes began, Chubb brought in The RightThing to gain a deeper understanding of its overall culture, ,values, and talent management strategy, which helped The RightThing understand the kind of candidates that would excel in Chubb’s environment. From there, the insurer and The RightThing created and implemented a “lift-and-shift” model to ensure process efficiency and a seamless transition from Chubb’s existing provider. During the 90-day transition, the RPO vendor’s strategic account team collaborated with key leaders from Chubb.
With the ultimate goal of building a robust and proactive recruiting pipeline, The RightThing and Chubb worked together to strategize and redesign the current recruitment process, which had relied heavily on job postings and agency recruiters. To do this, they established five scalable support teams that specialized in specific areas such as scheduling, contingency, phone interviewing, database mining, and recruiting. This took the administrative tasks off hiring and HR managers and created a more efficient flow.
In examining all open positions, the teams identified almost 25 percent of current requisitions as hard to fill. With this in mind, a passive recruitment strategy was designed utilizing The RightThing’s recruitment operations center, which provided experienced recruiters focusing exclusively on Chubb’s recruitment needs. Using a multitude of passive sourcing strategies and robust technology, a rich pipeline of diversified candidates began to form.
To manage incoming candidate communications and offer applicants a high-touch experience, My Staffing Pro (MSP) was integrated to help keep candidates engaged throughout the entire process. This technology allowed Chubb to stay in touch with candidates after every step with e-mail updates regarding their status. It also enabled the candidate to easily schedule interviews and other appointments online and would follow up with reminder e-mails as the appointments approached. All electronic communications were also backed up with a candidate care phone number available to applicants to call anytime with questions.
By establishing a partnership and working together as a team, Chubb was able to reduce the number of aged requisitions and increase the offer-to-hire ratio to 92 percent. A formal diversity tracking system was established, and the amount of time that hiring managers spent in the overall process decreased.
With a new recruiting process focused on passive candidates, Chubb put The RightThing in charge of managing its recruiting agencies, which were historically used at the company’s discretion and/or to source requisitions open longer than 40 days. With the refined strategy in place and a robust pipeline of candidates coming in, The RightThing was able to successfully assist Chubb in cutting agency cost by more than 70 percent, which ultimately reduced Chubb’s cost per hire.
Since July 2007, The RightThing has assisted Chubb in processing more than 25,000 candidates, which has lead to hundreds of hires. Working together to create innovative and proactive recruiting solutions not only helped drive ultimate success but also played a role in creating a partnership with Chubb.
Jamie Minier, chief operating officer of The RightThing, Inc., has more than 13 years in the RPO industry, and has served in many different operational areas, including solutions specialist, college relations, change management, client support, reports and analytics, ATS management, and on-site implementation for large-scale clients.