ResourceBankTalent and HR solutions specialist, ResourceBank Recruitment, won the Best Embedded Recruitment Team category at the 2015 Recruiter Awards in recognition of its seven-year partnership with airport retailer World Duty Free Group (WDFG).

ResourceBank’s embedded team is responsible for recruitment at all WDFG’s 21 locations including permanent and seasonal customer service and leadership roles.  The team has assessed and reviewed over 35,000 individual candidate applications, completed 2,887 telephone interviews and hired more than 800 new recruits, and 2014 was its most successful yet in terms of Hiring Manager Satisfaction (100%).

WDFG first outsourced its recruitment to ResourceBank in 2007 when the business needed to recruit more than 150 team members for the opening of its new flagship store at the then brand new London Heathrow Terminal 5.

In partnership with the business the ResourceBank team made changes to candidate assessment and interviewing procedures to bring in individuals to match WDFG values, rather than particular fit for specific jobs.

Innovations introduced at WDFG during 2014 included an online assessment tool significantly improving the speed of candidate management and the quality of new hires.  The improved quality of candidates has had a direct positive impact on the customer service provided in WDFG stores.

WDFG have also had reason to celebrate, winning the ‘airport retailer of the year’ award two years running (2013/14) and increasing UK sales by 6.9 percent. Richard Pearson, ResourceBank’s Managing Director, “I am extremely proud that ResourceBank as been able to play such a significant role in delivering WDFG’s success.  As a client they recognise the value of their embedded team and the WDFG management team are passionate supporters of the value and benefits of the concept of RPO.”

World Duty Free HR Director, Geoff Hall, gave the best testament there is to an embedded team, “We would never contemplate taking back the responsibility – we have utter confidence in the abilities of the embedded team and cannot understate the importance of their role in delivering the success we have had over the last two years.”