How Shell recruited more for less

There are some hard truths in the energy market: first, there is a steep change in the demand for energy as the world population soars and the geography of demand shifts eastward. Second, energy supply will struggle to keep pace. There is a race to identify new, sustainable, sources of energy. And third, environmental pressures are increasing. We need to find responsible energy solutions.

Addressing these truths, and growing our business, requires an ambitious business strategy, delivered by an expanded, talented workforce.

Since 2006, Shell's business strategy has emphasised finding more and different types of energy. People are a key enabler of this strategy, and an unprecedented capital expenditure investment has been accompanied by an emphasis on recruitment. We need large numbers of new highly skilled employees, in highly demanded disciplines such as engineering and finance, in new and competitive geographies such as India and China.

The business set us challenging targets. In 2005 we had recruited 2,697 employees. In 2006 our target more than doubled, to 5,440 new recruits.

The three-year picture was even more pronounced: 14,000 new recruits were needed between 2006 and 2008. But only less than a third of that (4,151) had been achieved in the previous three years, 2003–2005. It was the job of the recruitment marketing team to attract these new employees, and motivate them to choose Shell over other multinational competitors. It was a massive challenge. Shell's employer brand equity was weak, we had no significant employer brand proposition beyond salary packages, and our customers – potential candidates – were ever more demanding. The best were spoilt for choice as the recruitment market had grown hugely competitive (McKinsey's War for Talent).

We had to double our results while reducing our costs. The business expected us to demonstrate costeffectiveness and maximise its return on investment.

We faced a classic marketing dilemma: 'In the face of strong competition and weak brand equity, how can we cost-effectively recruit double the number of new candidates?'

SHARPER SKILLS REQUIRED

Working with the specialist marketing capability consultancy Brand Learning, we created a pioneering capability programme: Shell 'xchange' – a blend of marketing skills development, process creation, and knowledge management – for non-marketing specialists.

By interviewing business stakeholders within and outside of marketing, and by analysing the issues raised in the new marketing plans, we identified two priorities; First we needed to develop an exciting and differentiated brand positioning which allowed us to attract the best candidates with relevant and differentiated benefits (reducing reliance on factors like salary). And second, we needed to create a motivating experience which would help us retain candidates.

DEVELOPING A DIFFERENTIATED BRAND PROPOSITION

Why would someone want to work for Shell? We needed a shared understanding of what makes a motivating employer brand proposition and to identify what we wanted Shell to stand for in the hearts and minds of current and future employees.

This involved qualitative and quantitative research in six countries to probe people's attitudes towards Shell as an employer, studying both internal and external audiences. Based on the insights this generated, we created an Employer Value Proposition (EVP) for graduates, with a new brand idea: 'Achieving More Together', stressing the support candidates expected from their employers and companies with Shell's market leadership position.

The rollout process involved enhancing the marketing capabilities of several hundred employees. All recruitment marketers and hiring managers needed to understand the proposition, why it was important and how to use it in their markets. However, to be effective, it also needed to be understood consistently across the business. We had to build brand understanding among all involved in recruitment – from engineers in Aberdeen to lawyers in Malaysia. We delivered this with an extensive multi-channel programme including virtual classrooms, conferences, and brochures.

We followed the successful implementation of the graduate EVP with the development of an EVP for 'experienced' professionals in 2007–8 – tailored to a different target audience with different motivations and expectations.

Our EVPs were then actively used to develop new communication campaigns, refine recruitment tools and processes, and to guide the messages everyone gave candidates.

To ensure we managed costs effectively, we introduced the 'Ad Creation Tool', which allowed local markets to create tailored versions of the global campaign using a simple website. It ensured the new EVP was consistently communicated to candidates without incurring excessive creative agency costs. Markets could tailor messages and use targeted channels which, we learned, delivered better quality applications, and reduced costs per recruit compared to national press on which we had previously relied.

WHAT MOTIVATES CANDIDATES TO STAY WITH SHELL?

It's not enough to tell candidates why they should join Shell. We needed to demonstrate such reasons through the interviewing process and the whole candidate experience.

A motivating candidate experience – from the moment someone hears about Shell to the moment they have joined us – requires a coordinated approach across all the recruitment disciplines: marketing, operations, recruiters and line managers all need to work together.

To do this required a leap from our typically 'Shell-centric' perspective, to becoming 'candidate-centric'. That may sound obvious, but for an operation with 300 people, working across five continents and receiving up to 600,000 applications each year, it was no easy feat.

We began by defining the candidate journey, applying a classic brand funnel approach to the world of recruitment. At a workshop run by Brand Learning with members of each recruitment discipline in Shell, we built understanding of the importance of seeing things from a candidate's perspective and then developed a Candidate Journey model, which is now described as 'the bedrock of our business approach'.

Having developed the overall journey, we identified the key moments of truth, insights into candidate needs at these moments, and assessed how well we addressed them. This was new territory for an HR team – and the marketing concepts and tools we used to build our capabilities at each stage of this journey proved invaluable.

We then invested in a series of initiatives to improve the candidate experience:

• We changed our organisational structure to put candidates first. Instead of operating in separately managed functions based on specialism (marketing, operations and recruiting), we created one function – recruitment – with strategic, structural and cultural emphasis on collaboration and joint ownership of the candidate experience.

• We refined and standardised processes to ensure cross-functional alignment along the candidate journey, with clarified roles and responsibilities to avoid duplication or candidates being 'lost'.

• We developed a web site and learning programme to help embed the processes and candidate-centred philosophy.

• We set clear KPIs in the areas that mattered to candidates, and established the 'Candidate Experience Survey' to measure performance and identify improvements. These became core KPIs on a 'Recruitment Dashboard'.

SPEEDING THINGS UP

Research demonstrated that candidates found Shell's recruitment process frustratingly slow – particularly between being assessed and receiving an offer. Several would drop out at this point, switching to more agile competitors.

We had previously justified this slowness by referring to the number of Shell stakeholders involved in hiring decisions and the number of candidates we needed to review. Now however, we challenged ourselves to overcome internal constraints, and improve the candidate experience. In Europe this was a particular issue for graduates. From 2007, when they had to wait an average of 81 days between final assessment and receiving an offer, we reduced this by 50% to 39 days by 2008, and our candidate satisfaction significantly improved.

While our main focus in 2006–8 has been on developing these two, crucial, capabilities, we also invested in developing other broader marketing skills.

In our capability programme, called xchange, we created a series of virtual classrooms supported by on- and off-line toolkits, to teach people marketing fundamentals. This built knowledge of the core principles of marketing among everyone in recruitment. It covered the skill areas of the candidate journey, insight, segmentation, brand positioning, brand activation and marketing planning.

Recognising the importance of strengthening our marketing leadership, we sent employees to the Marketing Society's Marketing Leaders Programme, which they found inspiring and practically helpful.

Our investment continues as our current capability priority is improving marketing effectiveness by better using data and analysis to prioritise and refine our activities.

WHAT WE ACHIEVED

We were faced with a huge challenge: to cost-effectively double the number of new and highly skilled recruits to Shell in the face of strong competition and weak brand equity. But our HR team had little marketing experience, and the business was hungry for new talent.

By building our marketing capabilities and pioneering the application of classic marketing approaches to recruitment marketing, we have achieved impressive results.

• We beat our recruitment targets every year between 2006 and 2008: and delivered massive growth.

• We attracted 1.66 million applicants to the Shell brand.

• We reduced the marketing budget and the marketing cost per hire by focussing on our customer, 'the candidate', and finding efficiencies in communicating our EVP.

• Perceptions of Shell's employer brand are improving. Our latest research shows that our EVP is motivating more people to consider Shell as an employer, against competitors and they are now more likely to recommend Shell to friends. (Source: Brainjuicer, 2008.)

• Enhanced marketing capabilities are enabling people to be developed and promoted into other marketing roles across the business.

Since 2006, 20% of the recruitment marketing team has been promoted into other marketing roles – from marketing Shell lubricants to corporate communications. We have overcome the perception that we are not 'proper marketers' because we are in recruitment marketing, which is very motivating to the team.

• Our people have found the investment in building their marketing capabilities highly motivating.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Navjot Singh is Global Marketing Manager – Recruitment & Global HR Communications Manager.

[email protected]

Ana Maria Santos is Partner at marketing capability development consultancy Brand Learning.

[email protected]