IT Talent for Emerging Technology

As one of the world's leading clothing manufacturers and distributors, the client has more than 100 years of experience in the industry, more than 10,000 employees globally, and generates more than $3.5 billion in revenue. The company delivers across the entire value chain of clothing production—supplying retail customers in more than 150 countries. By taking a data-driven approach to sourcing, recruiting, and process improvement, Kelly® drove the client's most successful peak season on record. We can apply the same methodology to help overcome your business challenges.

The challenge

The company was experiencing limitations in fulfilling its peak season staffing needs. The client had achieved only 70 percent of its most recent deliveryrequirements, while enduring 39 percent turnover. They had an immediateneed for flexible, external expertise to support their hiring processes forpeak season staff.

In the years preceding the Kelly team’s involvement, the customer had consistently fallen short on its staffing requirements, although utilizing three different staffing providers. Two large and highly competitive distribution centers were also located within 15 miles of its main distribution center, driving the local unemployment rate to below 3 percent. With this fierce local competition offering remarkable peak season pay and incentives, and declining throughput, the role of Kelly Services was to devise the right recruitment and retention strategy in an extremely tight recruiting environment.

The solution

The primary focus of the program was to deliver an end-toend peak season solution that would support the distribution
center’s talent requirements, while also improving delivery and reducing turnover. The solution began with building out support
resources using forecasts based on the previous year’s data.

The final Kelly team featured:
• On-site account talent managers: each leading a team of supervisors to drive engagement, support retention activities, drive compliance, and mitigate co-employment risk
• Branch recruiters: to ensure that every requisition is managed in a timely and efficient manner
• Recruiting assistants: to manage the full candidate application lifecycle, including liaising with individual candidates on specific questions
• On-demand “ninja” support resources: supplemental recruiting resources available on demand, to deploy in the event of unanticipated spikes in demand

The team built a co-branded recruiting campaign that would leverage the company’s excellent local reputation. This comprehensive effort included a refined presence on online job boards, as well as social media campaigns, billboards, radio ads, signs, flyers, job fairs, and walk-in events. The team also implemented retention efforts such as stay surveys and prize raffles.

The result
The Kelly program delivered immediate and dramatic results within the client’s first peak season. Some major achievements
included:

• 2,367 interviews for 1,362 placements from just October to December
• 96% delivery (26% improvement)
• 23.2% turnover (15.8% improvement)
• 80% customer satisfaction; measured for the client’s end-user satisfaction with their Kelly employees’ performance

Ultimately, the Kelly team contributed directly to record throughput, and the client’s best season ever. And by moving
away from working with multiple suppliers for talent to a singlevendor solution, the company also reduced its complexity,
invoicing, and management costs.