Turning up the Heat for the Party Season........

..is the headline on River Islands website today. What a great strapline as we will certainly be doing that today! The snow may have arrived in Henley but that is not going to stop members of the Changeworknow team and River Island leaving work earlier than usual to prepare for tonights Personnel Today Award dinner in London.

We have enjoyed a two year partnership with River Island and are delighted that the work has been recognised in these prestigious HR awards. River Island are finalist in the category Excellence in HR through Technology and rightly so as they have achieved significant results such as:

• Reduction in screening amounting to a £300,000 cost saving



• Average time to hire of 19 days



• Removing one third of the work load for managers with an estimated £800,000 cost saving to the business

With results like these we are all looking forward to tonight's event. A chance to celebrate whatever the result. Fingers crossed and good luck!

Why even bad news can be good news!!

I received a letter earlier this week; from a travel company with whom I had entered a competition.

I’d been invited to take part in a survey earlier this year, on the subject of cycling holidays. Cycling and Holidays! Two things I love to do, and with the added incentive of being entered into a prize draw to win a holiday I was hooked.

Usual type of questionnaire, didn’t take too long. I hit ‘finished’ and thought if I win I’ll hear from them, if I don’t then I will resign myself to being marketed to unashamedly.

So imagine my surprise when the letter opened with: “I am writing to thank you for taking the time to fill out our recent cycling survey. I am sorry to say that you did not win the prize draw, however I would like to share some good news which may help get your holiday planning off to a good start for 2011”

The letter then proceeded to share the results of the feedback they had received, and what they were offering next year in response to this. Closing the loop.

Yes, it was a standard letter, but it was addressed to me! I suddenly felt strangely touched by the fact that they had bothered to tell me the news rather than leave me guessing. I suddenly felt that this company cared enough about their customer experience to continue to have a dialogue with me and demonstrate that my input had been of value.

I might not be ready to book a holiday with them now, but you never know I might be ready at some point in the future. And they clearly understand that.

Usually with competitions ‘if you don’t hear, you haven’t been successful’!

Now, where have I heard that phrase before? I couldn’t help thinking about the parallels with online recruitment.

All too often candidates who apply for a job are given the same message. Online recruitment technology makes it SO easy today to give candidates feedback on whether their application has been successful or not, so why wouldn’t you do it?

• It shows you care about the individual’s experience with your company and your brand
  
• It respects their time and effort
  
• It demonstrates a human touch, especially if you care enough to think about the content
  
• It keeps the door open for further interaction both as a candidate and a potential customer

And you never know a candidate might not be ready for a job with you now, but they might be at some point in the future.

Come and take a look at our website and see for yourselves the kind of organisations that we work with who care enough about their candidates to give them a positive and engaging experience. http://www.changeworknow.co.uk/

Lesley Nash, Managing Director

Zizzi's selects Changeworknow to put Passion into Online Recruitment

Zizzi, the restaurant chain known for hiring people that ‘love what they do’ has selected online recruitment specialists Changeworknow to launch an online recruitment process that will help it to bring people in to the business that have a love for food, service and customers.

Selected for their passion and commitment to providing a great candidate experience and a highly efficient and user friendly applicant tracking system Changeworknow’s solution will enable Zizzi to provide a high touch approach to all candidates throughout the process and hire talented people who are passionate about their jobs. The first phase of the implementation is for management recruitment with team member planned to launch in the new year.

Changeworknow’s new on line resourcing and talent platform incorporates some of the most innovative functionality of any solution on the market today and is already providing substantial benefits for both recruiters and candidates. Zizzi’s are the latest organisation to benefit from this offering and in doing so join Changeworknow’s growing portfolio of blue chip clients.

To see the new system in action please click here

Changeworknow team continues to grow

We are delighted to announce that we have a new addition to our team here at Changeworknow. Nolwenn Balavoine has joined our Client Services team as Implementation Consultant.

No stranger to the online recruitment industry Nolwenn comes to us with six years experience of working with leading companies to implement technology solutions. Formerly at Stepstone Solutions working in a similar role Nolwenn has a wealth of expertise in recruitment, project management, client relationship and consulting having worked with clients such as Boots and Gala Coral Group. She joins us at a very exciting time as we continue to launch the new technology platform with existing and new clients.

Nolwenn is a great addition to our team and we are all very excited that she has joined us!