As a business, this leading Automotive Retailer are always looking to move forward. One of their key objectives is to attract more people to the industry from every walk of life, increasing diversity across the business.

To begin this journey, the company had to adopt a different mindset and become more flexible and open. They needed to look at other ways to open the door to a wider pool of candidates and be reflective of their customer base both now and in the future. To achieve this, it is important to make sure that the careers the business are offering attract diversity. The different skills that diversity brings will allow this business to adapt to changing customer needs and expectations. Ultimately, the goal is to develop a strong pipeline of talent, who will become the future leaders of the business.

Plan of Action:

MBA designed, created, and delivered a Hiring Manager Workshop. This workshop was developed in support of the company's overall business objective which was to advance their recruitment strategy through various work-streams. MBA's market insights outlined the need for the business to re-evaluate their current hiring strategy to attract candidates with transferable skillsets that would be beneficial for their business. This company is part of the 30% club, which is a business campaign aiming to boost the number of women in board seats and executive leadership positions of companies all over the world. MBA has been entrusted to transform an objective into reality because of our strong partnership as their exclusive recruitment partner for the past 8 years. 

Scope:

• The current market is challenging with unemployment for automotive professionals is at its lowest, therefore a limited candidate pool.
• There is a need for creating a workshop that outlines the current challenges in the market and importantly how we can collaborate to overcome them with specific ideas, tools and techniques.
• The workshop was to explain how a different attraction strategy approach will interest viable candidates.
• The company's hiring objectives are defined by two pillars, one the need to find people from different industry backgrounds and two the goal of introducing more women into the automotive industry as part of their pledge to the 30% club.
• Ensuring hiring managers understand the need and benefit for a mindset change when it comes to hiring non-experienced candidates.

Solution:

• Update the methodology to attract all types of candidates with transferable skills.
• Outline the business's need to follow a different attraction strategy that incorporates everything from reporting, interviewing capability and process, and an updated tool kit for hiring managers.
• To reduce the negative stigma in the industry, the company needs to elevate their EVP strategy to show they are an employer of choice.
• Promote a change in the way non-experienced candidates are viewed in the market based on previous successes.

Results:

• Delivered an engaging and interactive workshop across 2 centres where we shared ideas and discussed solutions in an open forum.
• Hiring managers came away from the workshop engaged and equipped to successfully interview candidates from non-automotive industries - opening up the doors for more diversity.
• Formed an action plan encompassing new effective strategies to attract talent.
• Created an interview matrix for hiring managers to follow with questions specific to non-experienced candidates.
• Created a merit-based scoring system to assist with the decision-making process.
• Agreed on tailored interview processes to ensure candidate experience remains positive and at a high-level.
• Agreed on innovative methods of the recruitment strategy including video interviewing.
• Put additional training programs in place so that people with little to no industry experience have the opportunity to succeed.
• Agreed to amend working hours with added flexibility to promote a better work-life balance and attract new talent.
• Created an alternative attraction method to engage in the market in new ways.
• Focused on merit-based recruitment, which is now being used across all sites.

Testimonial:

"We have ambitious goals, some of which are attracting more people into the industry and diversifying our workforce to be more inclusive. We shared our objectives with MBA, as our sole recruitment partner for the past 8 years and experts in the industry, we knew their insights would be invaluable. MBA proposed a Hiring Manager Workshop to support this objective and get Hiring Managers on the same page when it comes to the updated recruitment strategy. 

The MBA team, specifically, Emma and Harry really committed to driving the objective forward by developing an informative yet engaging workshop and delivering it across our business. Their understanding of our business, recruitment goals and current market conditions made them the perfect people to turn this goal into a reality. The research and insight that was put into this workshop provided quite impactful results. We look forward to seeing the continued success as we move forward with the new knowledge and tools that MBA provided."

-Group Operations Director