The challenge
Our client, one of the UK’s largest retailers, relies heavily on a sharp increase in ‘blue collar’ temporary worker numbers to ensure the secure and timely delivery of millions of customer orders over the Christmas period.
During 2016’s peak period from August through to December we were responsible for recruiting more than 500 additional temporary workers across eight key distribution centres, many within highly-saturated local markets. The roles required included warehouse operatives, 7.5T drivers and fork-lift truck drivers.
What we’ve done
We worked alongside the client to design and deliver a co-branded digital recruitment advertising campaign to attract large volumes of high-quality candidates. This was led by our Head of Marketing and Digital Sourcing Manager. By working in tandem with client representatives and our dedicated account management team we captured the essence of the John Lewis employee value proposition and communicated this to the candidate market via a suite of engaging content.
Our approach utilised the following elements and attraction channels:
- Open day events/digital registration pages/flyers/posters
- Social media advertising to targeted local audiences
- Emails to current and historic workers
- Creative/branded job board advertising
- Targeted web banners
- Our team made weekly calls and engaged in daily communication with the client, ensuring the project stayed on-track as a collaborative recruitment drive.
Recently, Guidant have produced a recruitment video as part of a campaign to drive candidate attraction for their distribution centre during the 2017 peak period and beyond.
Key achievements
The campaign was delivered on time and within the set budget. Our team exceeded expectations and delivered a total of 559 workers to the client during the 2016 peak period. The recruitment of hard-to-fill 7.5 tonne driver vacancies was especially successful and also exceeded targets set by the client.
What our account team says:
"We were asked to bring in 32 people for induction on Monday and we essentially threw caution to the wind. And as it now stands we are sending in 89 quality candidates on Monday. Genuinely, we (the on-site account team) are really grateful for the marketing support as it has undoubtedly made this possible."
Stuart Lambourne - Account Director
