Background

A multinational food processing and distribution company specializing in refrigerated foods, mainly sausages, cheeses and yoghurts, became a world leader in the food industry. The company has a wide portfolio of more than 50 brands and has 210 distribution centers and 70 production plants, employing more than 45,000 people worldwide. The multinational company operates in 18 countries in Latin America, the United States and Europe.

Challenges

With more than 120 employment centers across Mexico, the food distributor's talent acquisition team needed a more efficient process of hiring operational workers. Before discovering Emi, HR teams searched for all candidates offline, through local newspapers and large physical banners placed outside the centers.

The hiring team of the food processing and distribution company was also facing the following problems:

• Only 20% of the candidates passed the first round of interviews.
• HR managers at each site had to interview all candidates, even those who arrived at hiring centers, without any pre-selection or prior information.
• Recruiting specialists lost 60 hours a month due to a lack of structure and processes.
• Candidates waited up to 3 hours before meeting with an interviewer due to lack of coordination.
• Disjointed hiring processes provided very little data or metrics to compare recruitment performance in different workplaces.

“Before finding Emi, the challenges we faced during the hiring process were related to the size of our company, the dispersion of our headquarters and the need to standardize processes to find suitable candidate profiles,” says the organization's head of talent acquisition.

Solution

The distributor turned to Emi to automate their existing hiring processes to overcome these mass contracting challenges. This allowed the company to keep pace with an increasing demand for better hiring and selection processes by candidates, while hiring large numbers of employees for the right positions more efficiently.

For the organization, one of the most significant changes since partnering with Emi has been the freedom to focus on higher-value tasks and priorities. Because the talent acquisition team spent so much effort compensating for disorganized hiring processes, it had little time and resources left for activities that would contribute to strategic hiring objectives.

“We have left transactional activities in the hands of Emi, and now we can focus our resources on activities of greater value to the organization.”

Now, the dealer relies on Emi to streamline essential HR tasks, such as request filtering, the interview schedule And the collection of documents from new employees. Emi's functions pave the way for a streamlined hiring process that helps the entire company save time, money and effort.

Results

Designing a positive candidate experience

With Emi, reseller candidates, dispersed in different regions, now have access to a simple 24/7 virtual assistant that synchronizes with SMS, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. This expands communication channels so that candidates have access to the information they need, when they need it.

Outside the Internet, the company uses brochures and QR codes to attract potential candidates to the organization. These options combine physical and digital elements to reach candidates where they are in their job search.

Eliminate obstacles for candidates

Before using Emi, company candidates used to arrive at the interview site with very little preparation and without prior filtering. Not only was this annoying for candidates, who had to wait up to three hours to be seen by a recruiter, but it also created unnecessary stress for talent acquisition teams.

Now candidates are screened using personalized profiles to help the hiring team find the best talent faster. Candidates can also automatically schedule interviews on the job site and with the hiring manager, without so many laps, through Emi.

Emi's features are friendly to candidates and ensure that candidates no longer have to wait hours to meet with an interviewer. This reduces candidate frustration and allows the talent acquisition team to make attractive offers to qualified candidates quickly, accelerating the speed of hiring and improving the quality of hires.

Standardize HR processes in all workplaces

The food processor and distributor has been able to easily standardize and monitor the recruitment process at all of their work sites in Mexico.

Thanks to Emi's automated recruitment platform, the talent acquisition team can connect their employment portals, social media posts and offline campaigns to channel all candidates into the selection process. Recruiters can also automatically filter candidates who attend job fairs without an appointment or who arrive at workplaces with QR codes in hand. This process reduces waste of time and allows recruiters to give priority to interviews with the most interested and most suitable candidates for vacant positions.

Improve candidate satisfaction rates

Even in organizations with a high hiring volume, it's also important to create a positive experience for each candidate. A positive recruitment culture boosts employee retention and leads to more direct referrals in the future.

Through Emi's virtual assistant, the company asks candidates to give their opinion on the recruitment process. This medium allows candidates to be open and honest about their recruitment experiences.

By measuring and tracking candidates' opinions and sentiment at Emi, the organization can ensure that it stays focused on offering a candidate-centered recruitment process. Emi helps the reseller create an enjoyable candidate experience that lays the foundation for a healthy working relationship with features such as formless SMS requests, automated interview scheduling and access to 24/7 answers.

Get Data-Based Recruiting Results

Now, the company's talent acquisition team has access to real-time analytics and metrics that weren't in sight before. Information on vital hiring KPIs, such as source efficiency, candidate satisfaction, length of the hiring cycle, candidate abandonment rate, vacancy rate and employee turnover rate, helps HR managers allocate resources based on real-time performance data.

Thanks to Emi's detailed analytics dashboards, the talent acquisition team can also compare hiring performance across its many plants and distribution centers. This helps HR to shape its hiring strategy for long-term growth.

Since implementing Emi, the food processor and dispenser has been able to:

• Reduce staff turnover by 20%.
• Achieve an average candidate satisfaction score of 4.75/5
• Cut the hiring deadline by 30%: from 12 to 8.53 days.

“Without a doubt, we know that the applicant experience has improved, regardless of whether we're hiring a plant operator, a self-service salesperson, a member of the retail team, or a warehouse employee.”

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