Smiths Group overcomes local talent sourcing challenges with RPO

Challenges

Local talent sourcing, fast

In 2017, the global technology company Smiths Group was planning a phased relocation of a manufacturing site for its John Crane division. The move: from the Netherlands to the Olomouc region in the Czech Republic, close to one of its existing sites.

The company wanted to begin recruiting activities on the six-month project as soon as possible, so Smiths turned to Cielo, its Recruitment Process Outsourcing partner since 2012. Cielo provides Smiths Group with a global, end-to-end RPO solution across all five Smiths divisions for about 1,200 hires annually in 27 countries.

The project required hiring for more than 40 executive, engineering and production roles against strict deadlines, plus any eventual backfills. This included several niche manufacturing roles, such as production engineers, quality engineers and hydro test technicians. With high competition for talent and wage inflation, the local talent market in Olomouc was challenging to attract.

Together, Smiths and Cielo aimed to deliver a local project to business-critical timelines, minimizing potential challenges while providing a highly competitive commercial offering.

Solutions

Energizing strategies to overcome challenges

To get ahead of the competition in the region, Cielo presented detailed research on the Czech labor market, including education, unemployment, earnings, migration, and more.

Cielo’s unmatched local capability and market knowledge were crucial to sourcing local talent, providing candidate relationship-driven delivery from an embedded team. On the ground were permanent Czech-speaking recruiters, supported by Czech-speaking recruiters in its Budapest delivery center.

Sourcing was carried out using Cielo’s proprietary recruitment technology and promoted via local radio and newspapers, branded email/flyer campaigns created with support from its employer brand experts. Plus, the database of 1,500 individuals in Smith’s existing talent pool in the region gave the company a head start in overcoming the highly competitive local labor market.

Results

Local talent sourcing success story

In partnership with Smiths, Cielo directly sourced 100% of the required hires within the agreed timeframe.

Despite the relative complexity of the project, 533 applicants were successfully sourced, with more than 40 offers accepted. The team filled all the roles in scope, plus three backfills resulting from internal moves from an existing Smiths site. Given the generally high time to hire seen in the Czech market, sourcing local talent and completing the project on schedule highlights the success of the Smiths and Cielo partnership.

Cielo’s sourcing skills, local knowledge, employer brand consulting practice, and proprietary recruitment technology allowed Smiths to successfully set up its new manufacturing site.