Bio Products Laboratory’s growth plans were held back by inefficient recruitment processes and difficulties sourcing the right calibre of applicant on time to meet its production plans. Bringing on-site business partner Randstad Inhouse Services on board has resulted in instant cost savings – and a better quality of match.

Chemistry is an integral part of professional relationships and the recruitment process – as well as being at the heart of everything Bio Products Laboratory (BPL) does. As a manufacturer of life-saving blood plasma products for the past 65 years, it is committed to both current and future patient care, and is well known for its innovation and professionalism. Employing almost 650 people at its Hertfordshire base – and a further 1,700 in the US – the business is experiencing significant growth. However, its recruitment processes were not delivering the required volume of production, scientific and support staff to keep pace with its rate of expansion.

Having taken the reins as Chief Human Resources Officer at BPL in March, Darren Cox was immediately confronted with the task of growing the workforce by almost 25% and reducing the time to fill the advertised vacancies. In fact, time to hire was far above optimal levels. “Our hiring managers were spending almost a third of their time sitting through speculative applications, many of which were from unqualified and unsuitable candidates – there was no quality control process in place,” Cox says. “The conversion rate from interviews to actual hires was as low as 10%... But there was no clear plan to affect change.”

Cox then approached Randstad Inhouse Services (RIS) Managing Director Sally Cleary about potential solutions to BPL’s recruitment dilemma.

A plan was swiftly drawn up. The first step saw an on-site workforce management team from RIS set up at the BPL complex. With the Randstad team of Black Belt Lean Six Sigma-trained workforce analysts supporting the on-site team, they first audited the current situation, then created a project plan, and started to overhaul the existing processes.

BPL saw immediate results. Hiring managers’ time was freed up instantly as they no longer had to sift through poor quality applications. “Assuming control of applications through one central point and pre-screening applicants immediately removed many of the inefficiencies in the system,” says Cleary.

Employees compared the change to switching off a leaky tap that instantly freed up more time for doing their day jobs running BPL’s business.

Time savings weren’t the only benefit to BPL; the business calculates that it saved over £50,000 in the first four months alone. “The impact has been so immediate, that the rest of our business is desperate to work with this solution so that they can see a similar result for their teams,” Cox said.

In fact, he pointed out, “we’ve had to manage line manager expectations about how quickly we can roll the proposition out to the broader business because we want to make sure that we bed down this new way of working first. It’s been like holding the reins of a runaway horse.”

 He adds, “Given the issues we’ve faced previously, it’s a great problem to have.”

The time taken to fill the vacancies has been significantly reduced. The quality of interviews has dramatically improved, and BPL is pleased with the speed at which RIS has brought about positive change. “We see this as very much a long-term relationship and regard the on-site staff as an extension of our own HR team,” adds Cox.

In terms of successful chemistry, the relationship between BPL and RIS clearly has all the necessary elements.