Manpower - Employers - Case Studies

How Hertfordshire CC are filling 10,000 vacancies, lowering costs, and increasing performance

Recognising that recruitment is not their core business, Hertfordshire County Council sought an innovative solution to ensure they could attract and retain the best skills to deliver the best services in the most cost-effective way.

They were already using a number of agencies to supply permanent and temporary staff. Now they decided to break new ground and become the first local authority to outsource their entire recruitment needs to a single supplier.

They entered a 5-year contract with Manpower that will:

• Reduce their 7-figure recruitment budget by 5%

• Fill 10,000 full-time vacancies and over 1.5 million hours of flexible
   vacancies

• Build a strong employer brand for the County Council

• Dramatically reduce the management time devoted to recruitment

• Substantially reduce their admin processing costs

The Challenge

As Hertfordshire's biggest employer, with 25,000 staff, the County Council faced a growing challenge from escalating recruitment demands. To fill 2,000 permanent vacancies, (excluding schools), and 300,000 hours of flexible working each year they were placing 4,000 advertisements, (including schools), and using 100 agencies. Yet, it remained as difficult as ever to attract the right quality people.

Without being a core activity, recruitment had become a major concern. It was taking up management time and making excessive administrative demands, too. For example, 19,000 recruitment invoices were being processed each year and industry standards show the cost is £30-50 per invoice. The County Council sought an innovative solution that would satisfy evolving government initiatives and meet the e-commerce demands of Modernising Government.

The Solution

Hertfordshire decided to make a radical change. They invited tenders for a total service:

• managing their entire temporary recruitment process and permanent to   longlist stage

• overseeing the redeployment of staff at risk of redundancy

• handling all advertising for recruitment, Public Notices and schools

• building a strong employer brand for the County Council.

Manpower won the 5-year contract because, together with essential public sector and labour market knowledge, they offered the best cost-savings and innovation - with the ability to provide long-term change programmes throughout the contract.

In addition, Manpower offers the most secure and robust e-commerce solutions. These simplify and accelerate the recruitment process, deliver better management information and reduce administration costs and management time.

The Benefits

It was a unique solution for local government and it delivered benefits immediately.

Only 19 agencies are now used and there are just 840 invoices to process - delivering a substantial cost saving. For temporary recruitment Manpower is the Managing Vendor, linking the client with partner suppliers through their Recruitment Centre in the County Council's offices. Ordering is electronic using Manpower's Ultrasource system, which also provides management information online and lets orders be tracked in real time.

The Recruitment Centre gives line managers a time-saving single point of contact for temporary recruitment. Similarly, the recruitment centre gives permanent placement candidates a single point of contact for applications.

Advertising is being transformed - one recent press and local radio campaign drew 750 candidates for 108 vacancies - and the employer brand will be further enhanced by a joint Manpower/Herts CC Internet recruitment portal. The contract will fill 10,000 full-time jobs and 1.5 million hours of flexible vacancies over the 5 years, and reduce the County Council's recruitment budget by 5%.

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