Comerica, a national financial services company, gets onboard with RES.
In a climate of acquisitions and mergers, combined with an increasing difficulty and cost to find quality hourly candidates, Comerica Incorporated recognized the need to centralize its non-exempt recruiting process. The centralization effort would require a significant investment in technology as well as a commitment to transforming its entire recruitment process. Without such an effort, they would struggle to meet their strategic objectives of attracting, developing, and retaining a high volume of qualified employees.
PROBLEM SOLVERS
Recruitment Enhancement Services (RES) and Comerica formed a partnership to create a leading edge recruitment solution. Together, they would develop and implement a cost-effective, Web-based system that would serve as the facilitator for the entire recruiting process for Comericas nonexempt staffing business. Combining state-of-the-art and completely customized staffing technology with a dedicated RES management and support team–the Comerica Talent Connection–the partnership developed all encompassing programs supporting every aspect of Comericas nonexempt recruiting function. RES re-engineered the nonexempt recruiting and staffing process to include all outside vendors: skills testing, background checks, drug screening, human resources information systems (HRIS), and payroll to create a more unified and efficient process. All applicant flow is driven through the Internet; thereby virtually eliminating headcount, as well as many of the administrative burdens associated with recruiting. RES also facilitates and administers the Comerica Career Center, a Web-based portal for Comerica employees to search for internal job opportunities and submit a friend to the company employee referral program. Specifically, the customized Comerica Talent Connection Staffing Program includes the following primary components:
- Customized external careers site, www.comericajobs.com
- Management and creation of internal, extranet employee career center for career mobility, employee referral program, intradepartmental postings, and summer internship opportunities
- Online requisition entry and management
- Sourcing and screening of candidates (utilizing customized questionnaires)
- Third-party skills based testing
- Online application process–Comerica legal application with e-signature and submittal Self-scheduling of interviews for qualified applicants
- Hiring manager evaluation of applicants in real-time, 24/7
- Applicant tracking, reporting, and automated communications
Onboarding of the new hire is all conducted seamlessly through ATS, including offer letter generation and acceptance; background check and drug screening documentation which is captured and submitted to the appropriate vendor with the results tracked; payroll and HRIS entry and activation; and an automated employee referral program payout with multiple ERP payout structures. In addition, the Comerica Talent Connection maintains end-user support and training for all markets–users include hiring managers, staffing managers, employees, and external candidates. Comericas program also handles third-party vendor management and the complete coordination of online testing, background check, and drug screening vendors for billing, communications, and off-system documentation maintenance and tracking. Recruitment marketing and Web-site design are included as well.
THE OUTCOME
The decision to transform Comericas nonexempt recruiting process and implement supporting technology has had a dramatic impact on the company as a whole. A phased implementation of the program began in June 2001, within Comericas largest market, Michigan. Since then, with all of Comericas markets now part of the program, 2,859 requisitions have been filled and the average time-to-fill has been reduced from 43 to 24 days. By building a higher quality candidate pool and thereby reducing the interview-to- hire ratio from 5:1 to 3:1, the solution has put an end to more than 4,000 unnecessary interviews. The most obvious endorsement of the programs success, however, might be Comericas recent decision to extend the partnership to the remainder of the company as Comerica and RES prepare a variation of the program to support Comericas exempt staffing needs as well. Today, Comerica continues to find new and innovative ways to improve the process and overall system intuitiveness. In February 2003, Comerica chose to migrate its existing applicant tracking system to RES new flagship RESq Enterprise applicant and requisition management system. This migration will result in a system with not only synonymous functionality, but with increased security and improved ability to rapidly implement system modifications and improvements.
