Moving from a paper-based system to an online recruitment process has yielded KFC impressive results, according to the company’s HR manager for the UK and Ireland.

Sarah Beauerle (left) told the Chartered Institute of Personnel (CIPD) annual conference in Manchester last week that the transformation that began in 2007 has produced the following results:

• 350,000 applications a year for KFC’s 800 UK restaurants

• savings of over £400k a year in agency fees through not using them to hire managers and assistant managers

• annual staff turnover reduced from 80% to 59%

• candidates no longer have to travel to restaurants to pick up application forms

Beauerle told the conference: “To be fair, we felt were a little behind the curve.”