Case Study – Enhancing Stagecoach London’s End-To-End Recruitment Process to Increase Driver Acquisition in A Highly Competitive Industry

About The Client

Stagecoach are one of the largest bus operators in the UK. Since 1980, they have run express and local bus services across the country and continue to play an essential role in helping people access work, education, health, shopping, and leisure. This initiative was trialled in its London operation, where the business operates contracted bus services in a tendered market on behalf of Transport for London.

The Challenge

Stagecoach London first approached Adecco in February 2023 to provide support with enhancing their acquisition process and supporting with the bus driver application throughout.

Despite investing in multiple attraction channels, the client required additional resources to source candidates, as traditionally, there is a high drop-off rate within the recruitment process. With the UK reporting record-high numbers of employment vacancies, the marketplace was competitive and challenging.

Common issues identified included:

• A need to expand external marketing and advertising to attract more quality candidates.
• A need to prioritise candidate communication and reduce dropouts, particularly amongst late-stage candidates whilst waiting for their license application.
• A desire to sustain process times and reduce backlogs due to talent acquisition increase in required numbers.

Stagecoach London initially asked Adecco to support their Rainham garage on a three-month trial basis. At the time, the garage had a deficit of 100 drivers and needed a partner who could work with their internal recruitment team to expand the talent attraction process and reduce inefficiencies to gain a better return on investment.

Following a successful trial, Stagecoach London appointed Adecco to assist with two more garages in Plumstead and Catford in May 2023. Our permanent recruitment service was expanded further to include the Stratford garage in June 2023 and the Bromley garage in November 2023.

Our Solution

Adecco visited the Rainham garage for a full scoping session to understand the challenges related to driver acquisition and gain insight into working at this location; a follow-up meeting was held at their London hub in West Ham.

Working with Stagecoach London’s leads and the local managers, our team highlighted areas of the recruitment journey that could make a difference, focusing on speeding up timeframes and streamlining processes by drawing on our extensive internal resources, infrastructure, and knowledge.

We subsequently implemented a range of solutions to support the existing work-streams across multiple garages, including:

• Using robust market insights to enhance attraction, recruitment, and selection.
• Incorporating more captivating language and unique location perks into job adverts.
• Supporting with the client’s essential questions to filter out unsuitable candidates during pre-screening.
• Maintaining a consistent talent pipeline, including directing applicants to the most suitable location and reconsidering past applicants.
• Enhancing communication at all stages to keep candidates informed and engaged.

Our partnership is overseen by an Account Director and supported by a range of Adecco colleagues. Alongside recruiters and business partners, these include colleagues from our UK-based delivery centre to help manage activity peaks, a marketing executive to support with recruitment advertising campaigns, and our local branch staff to help source specialist roles as needed.

Over a year-long partnership, we have worked with Stagecoach London colleagues to support their recruitment processes. This collaboration has consistently provided additional applicants for the driver pipeline and freed time for client stakeholders to devote to other strategic initiatives, demonstrating the tangible benefits of our outsourced recruitment solution.

“Working with Adecco has allowed us to process a greater volume of preferred candidates, which has been crucial in enhancing our driver resourcing pipeline, ensuring that we maximise every opportunity in the high volume and competitive recruitment market we are in,” said Sarah Rennie, Head of HR Services at Stagecoach London. “The team at Adecco have worked with us and the local depot managers to really understand our requirements and adapt the approach to meet the specific needs of all the stakeholders. This is a great example of a partnership in action that is not only innovative but offers external perspective to supplement our existing channels.”

Key Results

• Managed the attraction and selection of over 220 FTE staff members within 12 months.
• Maintained time to hire.
• Expanded the RPO contract to five sites and over 450 vacant positions.
• Implemented tailored attraction materials for each location.

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