British Heart Foundation

“We’ve come a long way since we were founded back in 1961. And our huge progress is thanks in no small part to employees both past and present who have propelled us here. We’ve been involved in major breakthroughs; from stents and transplants to defibrillators and clot busting drugs. We’ve seen survival rates transformed and treatments revolutionised.

We are now one of the UK’s largest and best known charities. Our workforce spans England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. We pride ourselves on giving our people a working environment that is rewarding and supportive, inspiring and “Everyone who works here lives our values every day: brave, informed, compassionate and driven. Because whatever role we are in, we share the same fearless commitment to sparing families the heartbreak of conditions like stroke, heart failure, atrial fibrillation and other heart and circulatory diseases - conditions that currently kill 1 in 4 in the UK”.

The Recruitment Challenge

British Heart Foundation first implemented Eploy’s recruitment software in 2009 into their Head office. It helped to streamline their internal processes, reduce overall costs significantly whilst allowing a more proactive resourcing strategy.  “We implemented Eploy because we wanted to create a more effective, efficient and enjoyable recruitment experience for both our applicants and hiring managers, as well as continuing to drive down recruitment costs and build a talent pool of applicants for the future. We have streamlined our internal processes, allowing the recruitment team to focus on a more proactive resourcing strategy” 

Since that time the organisation has grown, now employing 4,200 staff, with the Retail Directorate seeing rapid growth. BHF were keen to implement the same recruitment system across the Retail Directorate to continue cost savings but also to provide a unified recruitment and on-boarding process across the organisation, especially with the volume of roles required across the retail operation.

The Organisation

BHF recruits employees of all levels across the organisation including Retail, Healthcare Innovation, Finance, Governance and Strategy, Fundraising, People and Organisation Development, Digital and Technology, Marketing and Engagement. With over 700 retail outlets nationwide, BHF is the biggest and most successful charity retailer in the UK. It’s also their second most significant source of revenue turning donated items in to £millions that fund their life-saving work.

Leading The Way with Recruitment & On-boarding

Bringing the retail side of the organisation online with Eploy is providing applicants and hiring managers with a more efficient and enjoyable recruitment experience. The Retail Directorate hires approximately 1,200 roles per year, and as recruitment and on-boarding had been handled manually, it was a process that was admin intensive.

Kate Russell, Head of Recruitment commented “Having extended the use of Eploy across our Retail Directorate, with online on-boarding we are delivering on our goals to support our transition to more digital working, to run our operations and processes in the most efficient and cost-effective way possible and attracting high-quality talent.

“Online on-boarding will help to keep new hires informed and engaged before they join us. Our Recruitment Team can now collate reference and new starter information online which will vastly improve our efficiency and meet the expectations of candidates. We’ve Implemented the Eploy Agency portal too and this has resulted in a reduction in spend with agencies.”

Attracting and Retaining High-Quality Staff

As part of this project, BHF updated their Careers site to align with their new brand and make it more user friendly. Candidates can quickly discover what it is like ‘Working at BHF’, getting an understanding of BHF values, the working environment and how everyone is working together to Beat Heartbreak Forever. Now Retail roles for Instore, Operations and Support and Online can also be found on the Careers website. The Careers site navigation is intuitive and shares content that candidates want to know about! Jobs by Team is used and includes a separate Graduate Programme section. The Careers site is engaging and promotes sharing vacancies on each post to expand their reach and clearly displays how to filter job search results.

Results

After the redesign and rebrand of the Careers site, which included a range of navigation and search engine optimisation measures, total direct applications via the Careers site increased by 40%. Based on SessionCam insight and Google Analytics the Careers site was further enhanced to make it more user friendly. Glassdoor reviews were added to the homepage to increase transparency, consistently communicating the employer brand through updated copy and images. Search Engine Optimisation further improved the structure of job vacancies, making it easier for applicants looking for a career with BHF.

“Both candidates and hiring managers are delighted with the functionality and user experience of Eploy. The revised Careers site provides greater flexibility, better brand awareness in the marketplace and shows how BHF is working to be an employer of choice. Candidate registration takes seconds using Eploy’s CV parsing software and we use email and SMS alerts to continually engage with candidates”

“Candidates registering for job alerts will be fundamental to growing and nurturing our talent pools. BHF wants to utilise Eploy to nurture talent and be able to quickly build pipelines to meet our future talent needs. We know the basics such as cost per hire, time to hire etc, but want to drill down on the data and metrics in Eploy to become more efficient with an even more engaging candidate centric experience.

Chris Bogh, CTO at Eploy commented “We have a longstanding relationship with BHF and to see how they have extended the use of Eploy across the Retail Directorate is fantastic. Having a unified recruitment and on-boarding process for the whole business to support their strategy with robust reporting and analysis is a positive step towards achieving their goals.”

BHF will, in a forthcoming phase, see the integration of Eploy with their ERP system to feed Eploy data and metrics to drive analysis capabilities and add further value to run their operations and processes in the most efficient and cost-effective way possible.