eSift - Case Study

eSift.co.uk Customer Case Study: Treatment 4 Water

Background:
Treatment 4 Water is one of the UK’s leading suppliers of chemical equipment and services for water systems in industrial, commercial and institutional property. The company
offers a fresh and innovative approach towards cost effective water management. Treatment 4 Water customers include Hospitals, Prisons, and the Ministry of Defence. The company’s core business involves managing the risk of Legionnaires’ disease and is managed by a small team of senior executives focused largely on service innovation. The business has annual revenues exceed £500,000.

Challenge:
Treatment 4 Water has less than 10 employees and is a small business. With a small team, the business has limited human resources support and as a result, senior managers are regularly involved in day-to-day human resources issues without any formal experience/training.

Without dedicated internal human resources support Treatment 4 Water has traditionally relied on the senior management team to draft job specifications and write advertisements. Relying on senior managers for day-to-day human resources tasks has meant vital management time being utilised on non-essential tasks. This has also meant that the time taken to draft the relevant documents has increased and has significantly lengthened the entire recruitment process.

Kevin Williams, Director at Treatment 4 Water comments, “Traditionally Treatment 4 Water has always found recruitment difficult. We do not have a dedicated HR team so senior managers are often tasked with writing job specifications. We are a busy team with many customer priorities; as a result non essential tasks can sometimes slip.”

Issues:
One of the most important recruitment issues for Treatment 4 Water is time. Kevin Williams, Director at Treatment 4 Water comments, “The impact on the business of not filling vacancies quickly is huge. With a small team of employees servicing over 90 customers, every member of the team has an important role to play - when we are missing a team member the whole business feels the effect.”

Within the current economic environment it is not surprising that budgets are an issue. However, this is not for the most obvious reason, comments Kevin Williams, Director at Treatment 4 Water. “In the past we have used a traditional recruitment agency to fill vacancies at Treatment 4 Water. Although this reduced the amount of time we spent on recruitment the service we received was questionable, and at the end of process we received an invoice for over 15% of the salary we paid - costing the business thousands of pounds.”

Solution:
In November 2008, Treatment 4 Water approached eSift.co.uk, the UK’s first on-line recruitment advertising, response management and CV sifting business. Treatment 4 Water urgently needed to recruit a contract administrator to focus on customer relations and manage the progress of contracts.

Geraldine Cole, director at eSift.co.uk comments, “We spoke with Treatment 4 Water on Monday and by Tuesday afternoon we had the job specification drafted, the advertisement written and approved and had placed the vacancy onto job boards including Monster, Total Jobs and Reed.

Kevin Williams, Director at Treatment 4 Water comments, “One of the areas that impressed us most was the speed of delivery. eSift.co.uk had a team of experienced recruitment consultants ready to act, they worked with us to take a brief and drafted all of the relevant documentation quickly, effectively and to a high professional standard.”

Having received over 80 applications within four days eSift.co.uk presented Treatment 4 Water with each applicants full CV and a list of recommended candidates to interview for a single fee of £450.

Having fulfilled the original brief, Treatment 4 Water asked eSift.co.uk if they could continue to assist with the recruitment process. Having reviewed the recommended CV’s, eSift.co.uk then handled all of the candidate telephone interviews, as well as responding to all of the applications received and sourced and managed the references of the successful applicant.

Kevin Williams, Director at Treatment 4 Water comments “The entire recruitment process took less than two weeks from start-to-finish. The quality and speed of service was outstanding leaving myself and the senior team to focus on our core business.”

Williams continues, “The return-on-investment from eSift.co.uk has been remarkable. Traditional recruitment agencies previously charged us 17% of a candidate’s salary, which worked out at approximately £3,400. eSift.co.uk charged less than 14% of this, delivering Treatment 4 Water an amazing return-on-investment.”

Personality

I completed a few questions to find out what colour my personality is and what that tells me, I have to say it is quite accurate here is what it said:

As a High Yellow you are friendly, enthusiastic and gregarious. Youlike being where the action is and thrive on admiration,acknowledgment and compliments.You are an eternal optimist with an abundance of charisma. Yourstrengths are your enthusiasm, charm, persuasiveness and warmth. Youare an idea person that excels in getting others excited about yourvision.You can be more effective by learning to use your left brain more tobecome more objective, concentrate on tasks, follow through, take amore logical approach and more.

Anyone who knows me will be smiling to themselves having read the above, I always look at the glass half full and do need the odd compliment to keep me happy!

London

I spent the day in London yesterday, Marc was taking part in the Vertical Rush for Shelter the race up Tower 42 so we decided to make a day of it. Congratulations to everyone who took part and well done for raising so much money for such a great cause. Following the race we took the tube and went to the Science Museum it was the first time both of us have been since we were young, it was great fun. They now have so many interactive activities which were great fun and we enjoyed learning a few facts. Following lunch we went to the Natural History Museum (we had a very educational day!!) again so much fun!!
It is so different going to London for social reasons rather than business, I always laugh at myself when I go to London on business as something magical seems to happen on the train. I get on at Ascot walking at a normal pace smiling and talking to people, I get on the train I sit and look out the window watching the world go by not aware of any changes that are happening. Then the conductor announces we are arriving at Waterloo... I get off the train my head is down and I can't look up and I am walking faster than I can normally run!!? My day is spent like this there is no stopping this until I get off the train back in Ascot. Please tell me this happens to you??
So it was good to be relaxed and enjoy London and really see it like a tourist, to stroll down the pavements looking around at all the people and the buildings, we sat and had a long lunch watching the world go by. It was a great day.

Friday the 13th!

Despite it being Friday the 13th today (I am a little superstitious) has been another good day. The aim at the moment is to raise awareness of eSift and the services we provide. I feel like a proud parent each time I speak to a contact and they are really interested and have positive feedback. Don't get me wrong there have been people who for one reason or another feel that they want to stick with their current recruitment solution however even their feedback helps us to develop the brand. It is from this feedback that we decided to offer a Flat Fee Recruitment service to compliment the original Response Management. The two allows us to cover nearly every clients requirement.

On a personal note we are in the process of buying a new house, I am so excited about the thought of moving currently we have a one bedroom flat so all I can think about is all that extra space and the shopping trips I will be taking to fill it! I have been very good so far again because I am a little superstitious I have not been out to buy anything for the new house I don't want to until we have exchanged contracts just in case!

eSift

Since the launch of eSift I have been on a huge learning curve despite having a background in recruitment and a work hard attitude nothing can prepare you for running your own business. The stress and the worry is there all the time there is no switching off when you leave the office but then the excitement and the thrill of speaking to clients getting great feedback on your service and then in turn sales out ways that 100 times over!

Whilst on my learning curve (and I am probably only a quarter of my way round!) the biggest thing for me to get my head round has been the Internet. Don't get me wrong I thought I had a strong knowledge of the Internet I have a Facebook account can shop over the Internet and can search for things on Google with ease, but then came the challenge of the online networking sites and blogging!! It took time to research into which ones were worth doing and which would leave you inundated with emails. Having decided which ones were the best you then have the challenge of creating profiles and remembering to keep them updated. As for blogging as you can see I am getting there and I am sure after a while you will see my posts get better but I thought that this should be the starting point!

Thank you to everyone who has given me guidance and support during the past 6 months it is greatly appreciated.

Please let me know your experiences and any advice is always welcome