Case Study: Citi
At a Glance
Reduced agency recruitment from 95% to 12%
Reduced average time-to-hire by 15 daysBackground
Amongst Alexander Mann Solution’s Financial Services clients is Citi, a global banking giant that provides financial services to consumers, corporations and governments in more than 100 countries around the world. Citi has a prestigious brand portfolio that spans multiple countries and markets.
In the UK, Citi delivers an extensive range of banking, saving and investments, insurance and credit card services to more than four million customers through their retail banking business. With over 12,000 employees based at key UK office locations – including Belfast, Edinburgh, London and Derby – getting recruitment right is central to their ability to respond rapidly to changing market dynamics.The Challenge
In early 2007, Citi undertook a strategic review of recruitment across all its UK businesses. The findings revealed internal teams, hampered by inflexible recruitment structures, were struggling to satisfy seasonal or high volume campaign demands.According to a senior Recruitment Manager, extensive usage of third party suppliers had begun to affect the business. “We had become too reliant on external recruiters – between 85% and 95% of all hires were being sourced through agencies. This significantly impacted our ability to control the quality of candidates and keep recruitment costs low, while raising compliance concerns. ’
Resource limitations were also impacting the teams’ performance in other key areas, including stakeholder engagement and the delivery of accurate and timely management reporting.
The Recruitment Manager added: “For our business to perform effectively we needed to improve our recruitment productivity and better align our strategic and tactical recruitment activities with the individual needs of each business unit. We also needed to address the fact that a recent global re-branding programme had diluted brand recognition in the UK candidate marketplace.”
Citi took the decision to outsource all its recruitment related processes to Alexander Mann Solutions (AMS). A dedicated team of 32 AMS professional employee recruitment specialists was established to work alongside their in-house resourcing functions around the UK, while an additional 10 AMS consultants would focus on supporting the graduate hiring and internal programmes.
Liaising closely with Citi’s managers and the in-house resourcing team, AMS would be responsible for managing the entire end-to-end selection process, from initial project brief to formal job offers.
The Solution
As a first priority, AMS undertook a full agency supplier review, identifying some £50,000 rebates in the process. Simultaneously, AMS re-engineered Citi’s fragmented recruitment processes, creating a standardised and seamless system that would make adept and responsive hiring a reality. In addition, AMS introduced recruitment administration services to support the back office and retail banking business functions, together with a fully co-ordinated structure to support graduate intake and intern programmes.According to the Recruitment Manager: “In just three months after taking up its responsibilities, AMS had successfully sourced in excess of 2500 candidates for our UK consumer businesses. Significantly, the newly implemented suite of 23 automated management intelligence reports has delivered timely, accurate recruitment intelligence back into the company.”
The fast paced results delivered in the UK led to AMS being asked to extend its remit and deliver specialist support to Citi’s EMEA operations. Consequently, AMS recruiters were deployed in Moscow and Budapest, with the AMS Service Management Centre in Krakow processing all recruitment administration to ensure effective, low cost hiring.
Results
In just one year Citi has transformed its external recruitment, becoming more responsive and better able to source the right talent, whatever and wherever the need.
Within 12 months, AMS has already reduced average time-to-hire ratios by 15 days, down from over 45 days. Direct recruitment now accounts for 88% of all hires, with agency hires representing just 12% of all external recruitment. As a result, our client’s PSL margins and recruitment costs have been slashed.New, rigorous management systems now enable fast, seamless candidate management, more accurate and intelligent reporting, and standardised administration processes across all units and EMEA geographies. What’s more, a concerted project to re-establish the client’s employer brand has resulted in elevated candidate awareness and enhanced direct hiring success ratios.
The Recruitment Manager concludes: “As a company with highly complex international business structures, we have had to adapt rapidly to current economic pressures. It’s not often we see our suppliers playing such a central role in the success of critical change management exercises, but AMS has, and this is characteristic of the high value relationship between our two businesses.”
