Case Study - QR

Transport Industry

Company: QR

Industry: Transport

Employees: 14,000

PageUp People Products in use: Recruitment Management Solution

Time to implement: 9 weeks

Main reason for choosing PageUp People: Innovative functionality, usability and customer service

QR Ltd., previously known as Queensland Rail, is one of Australia's largest integrated transport providers, with operations spanning across the country. The QR business has over 14,000 staff nationally. Together the QR group carries over 170,000 passengers, 683,000 tonnes of freight and over 1000 train services a day. QR Ltd. faced several recruitment challenges when they approached PageUp People.

QR hired in excess of 2000 staff annually. And although a robust internal recruitment process was in place, the recruitment team did not have the technological solution to assist them in managing the high recruitment demands in a talent-short market. Consequently, QR was dependent on external recruitment agencies to assist them in finding skilled candidates, which resulted in QR spending a large annual fee on agency placements.

Further challenges included the lengthy time-to-fill rate of 95 days, which frequently resulted in missing out on top candidates. In addition, QR had limited candidate care that reflected negatively on the QR employment brand.

With one of the major corporate objectives being 'Service Excellence' amongst their people, the QR recruitment team engaged PageUp People to provide a technological solution to address these challenges.

The Solution & Results

Having understood QR's recruitment processes, over 10 modules of the PageUp People Recruitment Management Solution (RMS) were identified as fundamental to supporting QR's challenges and enhancing their results.

After 9 weeks of consultation, the dedicated PageUp implementation team configured the RMS to match QR's workflow and language. The system went live at the 9 weeks as well. Included in the system roll-out was the user training program. It ensured the QR recruitment team knew the full capability of the system in order to maximise its use in recruitment. Tania Silva, QR's Recruitment Systems Manager, was impressed with the customer centric approach from the PageUp People team, noting that it had exceeded her very high expectations.

QR realised 3 significant areas of benefit in addition to the smooth roll out and customer centric approach. These were:

Multi-million dollar cost savings with the implantation of an in-house talent management database.
Increased candidate care and customer excellence
Employing highly skilled and suitable staff

Multi-million dollar cost savings

The RMS was found to provide QR with a considerable return on investment according to Silva. With the implementation of an in-house Talent Management Database, QR was able to source and target skilled candidates for vacant positions from their system. This meant that QR was no longer completely reliant on external agencies to source quality candidates at short notice. It also dramatically reduced agency fees.

According to Silva, "the financial outlay of implementing the PageUp People platform was insignificant when compared to what we were able to save with the talent pool functionality alone". In addition, the platform provided greater visibility of costing data against jobs; the QR team have been able to more closely, and accurately, track recruitment expenses. This has allowed QR to make more informed strategic recruitment decisions and realise greater results.

Finally, the use of the systems functionality has allowed QR to further streamline their recruitment process. Silva notes a reduction in time-to-fill from 95 to 35 days. Not only is this a significant drop in recruitment fill times, but another major example of ROI on the purchase of the PageUp People RMS.

Increase to candidate care

Improving candidate care was a key objective for QR in rolling out a new RMS. Through the use of the PageUp People platform, Silva believes there has been a, "huge impact on employer branding. We just haven't had the functionality to manage and enhance our online employer branding before". After implementing the platform, QR was able to brand their online job ads, and as a result, attract a wider range of candidates to their vacancies. From the back end, the recruitment team were able to more effectively respond to candidates on a personal level by using the systems' communication email and SMS functions.

In addition, through the use of configurable recruitment workflows, the QR team were able to realise greater flexibility in the management of their recruitment campaigns. Through, the flexibility of the system, QR were not only able to advertise to external candidates, but had the online functionality to run campaigns targeted at internal staff. Silva noted this as being a key benefit to the promotion of roles internally and subsequently retention of staff.

Employing higher quality staff

An unexpected benefit of the implementation of the PageUp People platform was the continued hiring of a higher quality of staff. By leveraging the talent pool functionality within the platform, QR have realised great success. Silva explained that within the first two weeks of implementing the platform, the QR team had recruited four highly skilled engineers without having to advertise. By being able to deeply mine the QR talent pool, through the use of artificial intelligence and specified parameters, the QR team were able to search for candidates with very specific requirements. Silva explained that the quality of the recruits were directly linked to the successful use of the functionality.

Looking to the future, QR intends to expand the use of the platform to further enhance a robust database of talent for an in-house temp desk.