Siemens PLM Software, a business unit of the Siemens Industry Automation Division, is a leading global provider of product lifecycle management (PLM) software and services with 7 million licensed seats and more than 71,000 customers worldwide. Headquartered in Plano, Texas, Siemens PLM Software works collaboratively with companies to deliver open solutions that help them turn more ideas into successful products.

Because of the nature of its business, Siemens PLM Software continuously needs to recruit, develop and retain extremely high calibre talent with very specific technical and consultancy skills. The available talent pool is always highly competitive and there isn’t always the possibility of cross-fertilisation with the workforce of the parent company.

Ochre House began working with Siemens PLM Software in 2007 and has continuously offered highly flexible support to adapt to market conditions.

Originally brought on to achieve a number of business critical HR objectives, including, acceleration of time to hire, reduction of costs and the creation of talent pipelines, Ochre House and Siemens PLM Software renewed their contract with new services in November 2011.

Ochre House has always taken the position with partner clients that its role is to deliver what is right for them in real-life market circumstances and consequently this new contract provides the group with a ‘menu’ of services which are selected based on the requirements and expertise of the role.

The Silver, Gold and Platinum options available under this new contract are designed to attract talent for different business needs. The Silver service identifies active candidates with general skills for wider levels within the company, Gold is a more involved and social level of service which identifies semi active and semi passive candidates and Platinum is a head hunting service to find passive candidates and more specialist, niche skills.

From 2007 – 2009, the combined Ochre House and Siemens Industry Software team achieved:

• A more standardised approach to hiring
• Increased involvement of HR in talent sourcing
• Acceleration of time to hire
• Reduction of costs
• The creation of talent pipelines
• A better understanding of local recruitment challenges
• 95% direct hires
• 150 roles in Germany alone

Due to the global crisis in 2009, Siemens PLM Software reviewed its recruitment policy. Instead of a dedicated talent sourcing function, the business needed highly flexible support which could help with a planned redeployment programme in Germany, yet be ready for recruitment as soon as market confidence returned.
The dedicated Ochre House resource embedded in the company’s German operations was slimmed down to one individual, who switched focus to the internal recruitment and redeployment programme. At the same time the executive search team at Ochre House’s UK head office continued to provide support throughout 2010 in the recruitment of a number of senior roles across Europe.

By the latter part of 2010 confidence had begun to return to manufacturing and Siemens PLM Software therefore needed to scale up its consultancy and technical capabilities once more and fast in order to take advantage of new opportunities.

Expected recruitment levels for 2011 grew quickly from 60 in December 2010 to 100+ by January 2011 due to a number of new business wins. Ochre House therefore immediately scaled up the dedicated Siemens PLM Software team and stepped up the involvement of its head office search team.

Despite the rapid escalation in hires, the scarcity of talent and the challenge of finding specialists for a wide range of locations, the expanded Ochre House team began to deliver quickly. By late spring 2011 all of the original key roles had been filled including that of a new management position for the Nordic countries. And the creation of well-defined talent pipelines meant that candidates were in place to meet all of the requirements defined at the beginning of the year for the coming year.

Due to the success of the Germany project, Ochre House is now working with Siemens PLM Software to implement a similar structure in APAC, embedding a team into Siemens’ Shanghai office supported by a ‘centre of excellence’ in Hong Kong. This centre will provide expert guidance to the embedded team, mirroring the support of the UK group to the onsite project in Germany.

“Ochre House’s ability to provide both broad, on-site recruitment services and international executive search for our business across Europe has made them one of very few outside partners that we trust with our brand. Because of their flexibility and commitment throughout challenging economic times our relationship has grown and developed, ensuring that we get on board the very best people, who we’re convinced will make Siemens even more successful in the future.”

Joos Duffing, EMEA HR Director, Siemens PLM Software