“About The Job’s guidance, knowledge and expertise often influences strategy and approach through the insights they provide of the market, salary benchmarking and benefits, the industry and evolving trends, resulting in us getting ahead of the curve with our growth in a challenging market.”
- Nicola Jones, Group HR Director
Lawsons is the largest independent Timber, Building Materials and Fencing merchants in London and the Southeast. Established in 1921, they now have 36 branches and 750 employees. Lawsons signed up with us in March 2021, and for the past 18 months we have supported them with their recruitment needs across all branches and their Head Office.
“The service provided includes volume recruitment for roles in branches including Yard, HGV, Sales and Management, specialist recruitment in our Head Office including HR, IT, Purchase Ledger and Finance; the sourcing of graduates and supporting positions in new branches that that are required as a consequence of our growth through acquisitions.”
Having traditionally used agencies that charge anywhere between 10% and 20% of a candidate’s first year salary, Lawsons reached out to us at About The Job and we began to discuss ways in which we could work together to bring down their overall recruitment spend and increase employee retention rates. Looking at our statistics, it is clear that we have been successful in achieving this.
Over the past 18 months, we have placed 57 candidates at Lawsons at a total charge of £36,993. Considering that the average salary of these applicants is £29,600, and keeping in mind the typical agency costings of 10% - 20% of first year salary, Lawsons would have spent anywhere from £183,520 to £367,040 if they had worked with other agencies on these roles. This means that they have saved anywhere from £146,527 to £330,047 through using us for these roles.
Not only have we saved them a considerable amount of money, but About The Job also ensure to only ever send on the very best candidates. Nearly 4 in 5 of our placements make it through their probationary period, and we have the lowest attrition rates when compared against all other recruitment partners Lawsons work with. As well as this, we have a 91% success rate in finding suitable candidates for interview.
“They have an excellent, competitive and cost-effective operating model that is service orientated to ensure their clients, key internal stakeholders and candidates have the best experience possible.”
Flexibility is important, so we have various options for our clients in terms of how they work with us. Lawsons signed up to our membership service. This gives them the ability to advertise as many vacancies as they like, when they like, for as long as they like. Similar to any agency service, with us Lawsons have their own account manager who advertises their vacancies, manages applications, and screens CV’s. We also arrange all interviews and regret unsuccessful candidates. The main benefit and major difference that makes our membership service stand out against standard agency agreements is that the placement fee is a flat fee and not a % of a candidate’s salary. This flat fee will always stay the same, regardless of how high a salary may be.
We view all our client relationships as partnerships, and we want to find the best possible way to work with them and make their recruitment process as smooth as possible. Due to this, we focus on much more than job advertising and staffing. For example, we believe in taking care of our client’s employee branding and how they may be perceived through their marketing, therefore designing artwork relating to this is part of our service. Through our studio team we work with our clients to create engaging content that compliments the active jobs being advertised.
Artwork Examples:
As well as artwork, we also have the capacity to advise on, and compose relevant recruitment literature. For instance, for Lawsons, we created a 58-page employee handbook, and for another we filmed a recruitment video to help increase their employer profile in the local market place. Finally, we can also work as a sounding board on the recruitment market, employee contracts, benefits, and competitor analysis.
If this has got you thinking about your own recruitment processes, and you’d like to find out more about how we can help you moving forward, why not reach out to our director on the email below.
ray@aboutthejob.co.uk