Situation
The executive leaders running the North American Operations of a billion dollar multi-national consumer paper products company recognized significant productivity, efficiency and succession planning problems across 8 manufacturing facilities in the U.S. It was determined that the root causes of these problems included talent gaps at the Senior Staff, Supervisor and Manager level in the following departments:
- Mechanical, Industrial and Process Engineering
- Reliability & Maintenance
- Production Operations
It was estimated that these skill deficiencies were causing millions of dollars of lost income annually and because of their aging workforce, these costs were accelerating every year.
Our client had an internal recruiting staff, but those recruiters were unable to attract the best-in-class talent necessary to solve the near and long-term problems created by this unique situation. In addition, this internal team had to keep up with filling the everyday recruiting needs created by organic staff turnover, which was increasing every day.
Action
Our client’s leadership team began requesting information about the skills, capabilities and track-records of potential third-party recruiting firm partners across the country and ultimately selected Delta Diversified as a sole source partner.
Delta Diversified coordinated an initial “kick-off” conference call, which included the client’s key decision makers at every plant location and the corporate office. During the call, Delta Diversified realized that attracting best-in-class talent was only part of the solution. It was clear that our client’s corporate stakeholders had a different vision than their plant-level leadership and before a recruiting strategy would be successful, they needed to get buy in from all parties involved in the interview and selection process across their U.S. operations. Our team recommended an approach to solving this internal communication challenge and it was accepted, executed and ultimately successful. Now we could move forward with our search execution strategy.
We identified the entire competitive marketplace in which our client operated their core businesses. In addition, we identified multiple ancillary marketplaces, which had been recognized as having best-in-class talent in the functional areas of most importance.
We used all of the information gathered during our discovery sessions with our client and created a compelling story about our client’s history, current status and vision for future development. While our team identified and engaged ALL of the prospective candidates within our broad list of source companies, we highlighted the significant value that would be created by individuals in this company over the next 10 years and helped our prospective candidates understand how their performance with our client would create unique benefits to them and their families in the near, mid and long-term.
Results
Over the next 8 months, we successfully recruited over 100 candidates from our high-value target source companies and put them through multiple levels of screening by our search team. Here’s what happened next:
- We presented 82 candidates to our client
- 26 of them were offered jobs
- 20 were hired
- During their annual review it was confirmed that all 20 of these candidates outperformed their peer group and 11 of them had already received promotions.
It may be challenging to attach a specific dollar figure to the positive impact we had with this client. That said, this example demonstrates how investing in Delta Diversified literally produced exponential returns. The most talented and successful professionals in the marketplace are not seeking change, but an expert recruiter understands how to engage and motivate these types of people…