Situation
Recruiting manufacturing employees can pose huge challenges, even for the largest of manufacturers.
Based in the UK and privately owned, 2 Sisters Food Group turns over £3 billion per year as a leading food manufacturing company. Despite its large size, the company lacked a central talent acquisition function. Hiring had become fragmented across 43 sites, with a heavy reliance on outside agencies and little cost control.
Journey to success
After a competitive bid process, Hudson RPO was selected for our straightforward, project management-style approach. 2 Sisters valued our onsite recruitment partnering model and sought to benefit from the sourcing services of our Centre of Excellence.
The original contract focused on recruiting manufacturing employees and other roles. The brief included 400 annual hires across the UK and Ireland. These roles would be largely factory-based, including production line manager, technical manager, engineering, and general operations, as well as quality and assurance. Sales, marketing, finance, and HR roles were also identified.
In the first two years, we filled 650 roles. Then, in year three, we hired more than 700 new employees.
Thanks to the sourcing team’s flexible leverage, 2 Sisters can scale up and down as needed.
Enhancing 2 Sisters’ employer value proposition has been at the heart of our focus, which means we’ve also:
- Launched a campus hiring programme
- Produced an employer branding video
- Optimised the company’s social presence
Implemented hiring manager interview training - Improved the interview process by offering company information packs
Project expansion
Since launching in November of 2015, Hudson RPO has saved 2 Sisters more than £3 million in agency fees.
Agency reliance dropped from 92 per cent to 7 per cent. While cost-per-hire can fluctuate depending on volumes, we consistently beat our SLA of £2,655. In some cases, it has been as low as £1,300.
Meanwhile, our time-to-hire average is just 26 days.
In 2018, Hudson RPO’s 2 Sisters team won ‘Best Recruitment Team of the Year’ at the In-house Recruitment Network awards ceremony. The team were also finalists for ‘FMCG Recruitment Team of the Year’ and ‘Recruitment Manager of the Year’.
Behind the scenes
2 Sisters also engage a managed service provider (MSP) solution to hire between 50 to 100 contractors per annum.
But to achieve even greater efficiencies, 2 Sisters implemented InGenium, the proprietary technology service which provides an applicant tracking system.
About the client
2 Sisters Food Group represents one of the most compelling success stories for British business within the past 20 years. More than 23,000 colleagues, drawn from 36 nationalities, help to make a mind-boggling array of some of the finest food in Britain — from pizza to pies, from poultry to puddings, from prepared meals to ranges of soup.
2 Sisters started out from very humble beginnings in the early 1990s, and from there 2 Sisters has grown to become one of the leading food manufacturing companies in Europe, producing great quality, great value food.
At a Glance
Services Provided
£3 million in fees saved
The benefit of using Hudson RPO, vs an agency, over a three-year period.
Significant savings per hire
We consistently beat our SLA of £2,655, sometimes by more than 50%.
Manufacturing
Industry served within Ireland and the UK
