Steria is a leading end-to-end IT services provider which works with organisations in financial services, telecommunications and media, retail, utilities, transport, and the public sector across Europe.

In October 2007, Steria acquired the British firm Xansa and the new group now employs over 19,000 staff in 16 countries, including 5,000 in India.

When Steria acquired the UK technology company, Xansa, it found itself engaged with two established recruitment process outsourcers and a need to rationalise this down to one at the earliest opportunity. “Both arms of the new organisation in the UK had legacy suppliers which had been in place for some time” says Noel Scotford, Resourcing, Recruitment and HR Manager for Steria UK and India. “However it simply didn’t make commercial sense to keep both of them on and we were consequently faced with the task of choosing which one would be best for the business we were becoming.” The new sole RPO provider would need to source a minimum of 350 new hires per year ranging from SAP consultants to legal and finance personnel to graduates.

• Onsite/offsite model with four mobile Recruitment Business Partners providing support to Steria’s hiring managers across the UK
• Back-up effected by a Service Delivery Centre which has a team of six specialist recruiters, vertically aligned to Steria’s needs
• Workforce fully segmented and attraction strategies designed to meet needs of hiring managers
• New applicant tracking system (ATS) implemented
• Executive search capability introduced for senior hires
• Employee referral system developed and rolled out across the company
• Launched ‘Talent Times’, a monthly newsletter to the business on all things recruitment

• Agency usage reduced to less than 10%
• Target hiring delivered nationwide at all levels
• All KPIs exceeded
• 2008 graduate recruitment scheme completed successfully

“We were unanimous in our decision. Ochre House demonstrated that they could deliver what we needed and we, quite simply, liked their approach, which seemed based on looking at what we wanted rather than what they had to offer.”

Noel Scotford, Resourcing, Recruitment and HR Manager, Steria UK and India