The client’s challenge

An organisation within the built environment sector was experiencing high employee turnover on one of their projects. As a result, costs were spiralling, operations were being stretched thin, and productivity was low.

The company was consistently losing professionals within months of their start dates due to a lack of communication and misunderstanding over the scope of certain roles. These roles were typically field-based for the sector, but that was not the case on this particular project. The differing environment and work were not being adequately understood by incoming candidates, who then were leaving within 2-3 months to pursue roles more typical of their skillsets.

This constant conveyor belt of team members was repeatedly delaying the project, due to a lack of consistent personnel. With extended periods between team members leaving and the hiring process producing replacement employees, there was a severe lack of momentum. This was causing a severe knock-on effect on morale and company culture, making it even harder to retain employees and stay on-track with the project timeline.

Actions taken by VIQU Energy

The VIQU Energy team was brought in in the hope that specialist recruitment could identify what was going wrong.

The team ascertained the organisation’s retention challenges were due to a core issue. There was a lack of consistent communication with candidates regarding the specifics of the roles, and many were leaving a few months into employment to a different company that suited them better.

With the VIQU Energy team understanding the challenges the client was facing and the fundamentals of what was going astray, the team took the following actions:

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  Completed a full audit of the client’s recruitment processes, everything from job specification advertisements to the types of interviews taking place, to find out where miscommunications were occurring and where improvements could be made

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  Undertook market mapping to see whether the organisation’s EVP was competitive and attractive to new candidates

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  Interviewed current employees, with a particular focus on recently hired personnel, to understand the key day-to-day pain points in order to report back to management and offer recommendations to minimise the chances of a future high turnover

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  Created a bespoke recruitment and resourcing process that focused on personal and cultural fit in the organisation, so that the factors that caused previous employees to leave would not be repeated

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  Conducted first stage and competency-based interviews in order to ensure that every candidate fully understood the scope of the role and hit the criteria fully before being put in front of the business

The outcomes

By focusing on assessing candidates based on a combination of soft and hard skills and cultural fit, and the organisation making changes to their EVP, as per the team’s suggestions, VIQU Energy were able to identify the candidates that would be the best fit for the roles. Due to the expertise and cultural fit knowledge, 50% of the candidates who were put forward for interview were placed.

Thanks to all the work that VIQU Energy did, 100% of the candidates they placed were retained after 1+ years and 67% of candidates placed were retained after 2 years. This brought stability to the project and reduced costs for the client by not having to replace employees every few months.