Page of People

BUSINESS CHALLENGE

Queensland Rail (QR), a leading Australian integrated transport provider, was challenged to hire over 2,000 employees annually for critical roles across the organization using outmoded recruiting processes. As a result, it had restricted visibility into its hiring costs and available talent, including its talent pipeline. Adding to the financial implications of this challenge was its dependency on staffing agencies at a rate of nearly $100 Million in fees to source external talent for these roles while leaving its internal talent assets largely untapped. 

In terms of soft costs, QR was challenged to engage top candidates in a tight labor market due to its prolonged hiring process of three months or longer. By the time it reached the offer stage, these candidates had been retained by companies that were competing for the same critical skills. This issue was further compounded by the fact that current employees with these skills were overlooked in the recruiting process and evolved into potential flight risks since they were unable to connect to career opportunities inside the company.

Finally, QR was challenged with a declining employer brand due to inefficient communications with candidates regarding their status in the hiring process. The company was also unable to effectively market open positions to passive candidates and employees.

THE PAGEUP PEOPLE SOLUTION 

Queensland Rail selected the PageUp People Recruitment Management Solution (RMS) for its workflow and language support. Even better, the RMS was implemented in less than nine weeks. In addition, QR engaged its users in a customized training program to ensure adoption of new recruiting processes to deliver on its business objectives. 

BUSINESS RESULTS 

With the PageUp People RMS, Queensland Rail was able to track and deliver ROI on its recruiting processes in short order. Tania Silva, Recruitment Systems Manager at QR, pointed out that “the financial outlay to implement PageUp People recruiting was insignificant when compared to the savings created by the talent pool functionality alone.” She continued, “We also realized significant savings by sourcing talent directly rather than relying on staffing agencies to fill this gap.” In addition, with visibility into recruiting costs, QR was able to measure the effectiveness of budget allocations.

On the candidate side, QR was able to reduce time-to-fill rates by 63 percent, cutting its hiring process down to one month. The solution provided an improved candidate experience, which helped the company retain top talent.

Silva also noted that the improved quality of new hires was a direct result of the solution’s talent pooling capability. In one case, QR reported that it hired four highly-skilled engineers in just two weeks using this functionality, as it could now mine both internal and external talent pools for candidates who fit the job requirements. Talent pooling also helped recruiters identify employees for promotion, enabling the employer to build a talent pipeline to sustain its growth. 

Silva also credits the PageUp People solution with helping improve its employer brand, as recruiters now easily post job advertisements to candidates with appropriate messaging and deliver customized candidate communications during the hiring process via SMS and email capabilities from within the solution.