Improving the recruitment odds at William Hill
| Published date | 01 January 2005 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/14754390580000586 |
| Pages | 10-11 |
| Date | 01 January 2005 |
| Author | Louise Flavel |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
10 Volume 4 Issue 2 January/February 2005
HR at WORK
,
Short case studies that demonstrate best practice in HR
Improving the recruitment
odds at William Hill
S
ervice-based industries such as
retail, banking, catering or call
center operations have effectively
replaced manufacturing plants as the
volume employers of the day. But the
quality of employees working in these
industries is still vital to their ongoing
success. As a company that employs
over 10,500 people, bookmakers
William Hill is no exception. It has
tackled the challenge of attracting top
talent by revolutionizing its approach
to the recruitment of around 3,500
customer-facing posts a year.
The company’s previous unwieldy
applications procedure meant it risked
missing the most talented candidates.
Potential recruits, often prompted by
in-store recruitment posters, would
telephone and have their details taken.
They would then be sent an application
pack, wait for it to be processed, and
then arrange an interview. The volume
of applications meant this process
would often take as long as a month.
“The good people were likely to
have got jobs by the time we got round
to seeing them,” says Nick Jolly, William
Hill’s HR projects manager. In August
2002 a new business strategy prioritized
differentiating the company’s offer
from other bookmakers by creating
welcoming environments and focusing
on excellent customer service. Having
the right people on board was key to
delivering this new strategy.
Identifying the best
The first step was to model the talents
and personality traits of William Hill’s
best customer-facing employees, then
use them to select new staff. Working
with human capital consultants,
Kenexa, the highest performing
customer service assistants, deputy
managers and managers were
interviewed and a list of common
personality traits was built. These
included:
•taking pride in the job;
•needing a fast pace at work;
•empathy and ability to read
customers’ moods;
•optimism; and
•numerical astuteness.
This profile of the model customer
service assistant was used to draw up
150 targeted questions to identify
people who met the requirements. The
questions were then trialled with the
best customer service assistants and a
control group with lower performance
rankings and the 150 questions whittled
down to 67. These formed the basis of
the automated telephone screening
interview (ATSI) piloted in William Hill’s
Northern region from March 2003. The
trial’s success led to a roll-out across the
UK which was completed in January
2004 (see Figure 1, right).
The application process
In the new recruitment process would-
be applicants now initially call one of
four small regional recruitment call
centers and are screened for basic
eligibility criteria such as age and work
permits. “Although this is a highly
automated process, we think it’s
important that when you apply to
William Hill you talk to a human being
first,” says Jolly. “Someone who can
answer basic questions on pay and
hours and other terms and conditions.”
Callers are each given a personal
identification number (PIN) and asked
to call in the following 72 hours to go
through the 12-minute ATSI which
records their responses to the 67
questions. The ATSI data from each
interview is transferred to a graphical
report which is accessible via the Web
within minutes. In contrast to the old
system results are analyzed rapidly and
fed back by the next day. “Someone
could do the ATSI today and we can
Founded in 1934, William Hill is one of
the world’s leading betting companies.It
has almost 1,600 licensed betting offices
in the UK, a flourishing interactive
business and over 300,000 telephone
clients worldwide, making it the world’s
largest telephone betting organization.
WILLIAM HILL
Bookmakers William Hill receives around 40,000 job applications per year.Find out how an automated
interviewing system has ensured they get high-quality candidates as well as saving time and money.
© Melcrum Publishing Ltd. 2005. For more information, go to www.melcrum.com or e-mail info@melcrum.com
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