Permanent-Hire Program Reduces Turnover

Moen, Inc., takes an extremely formal approach to its third-party-recruiterrelationship. Unlike most companies, Moen works with only one recruiter, andit has a clearly defined set of guidelines about how the relationship ismanaged. Fortune Brands, the consumer-products company that owns Moen andseveral other major brands,requires all of its operating companies to work with Adecco to recruit allhourly temps.

“It’s a partnership,” says Bart Rovins, HR manager at Moen’s NewBern, North Carolina, final-assembly plant. “We view Adecco as a key part ofour business strategy. The primary goal of the relationship is that Adecco doesa better job recruiting than we can,” he says. This goal is regularlyevaluated and rated to ensure that the partnership continues to be profitablefor both companies.

On any given day, the New Bern facility has between 175 and 200 hourly temps,all of whom are provided by Adecco. The recruiting firm keeps two of its ownfull-time employees on-site at the plant to oversee all of the human resourceissues for the temps, including benefits administration, training, and generalperformance management. The on-site people aren’t involved in recruiting, butfocus solely on managing their temps, Rovins says. “If a company is big enoughto have this many temporary employees, it should be able to leverage itsrecruiter relationship to require on-site management for them.” Thanks to theon-site support, Rovins is able to have two fewer people on his own HR staff,which saves the company about $200,000 per year.

Adecco provides the service and quality that Moen expects. Rovins meetsregularly with the Adecco recruiters and on-site people. Once a quarter hereviews a series of metrics designed to rate Adecco on its performance,including time to recruit and turnover rate. If the Adecco team isn’t up tohis standards, they brainstorm improvement activities. For example, in a recenteffort to step up recruiting efforts, Rovins and the Adecco team made plans tohost job fairs, provide radio ads, and increase their outdoor signage.

Adecco and Moen have also built a unique full-time placement program calledAdecco To Moen, which goes beyond the typical 90-day trial period. Every hourlyperson who gets hired at this plant begins as a temp and goes through theprogram.

“It starts with Adecco’s recruiting activities,” Rovins says. They havetheir own system of evaluation, and Moen added some steps to define specificcompetencies required for success at the plant. For example, employees should beteam workers, require limited supervision, and be flexible and deadlineoriented. “They need to be comfortable working in a high-pressure environment,”he says.

Once they are hired as temps, they receive points based on their performance, attendance, safety, anddiscipline. The on-site Adecco team keeps tabs on temps’ scores, and when theyscore high enough to be eligible for full-time employment, their names go into apool of candidates. When Rovins needs to hire, he looks at the score reports provided by the on-site Adecco team and selects the topperformers. “It takes the emotion out of the hiring process,” he says. “Ourchoices are based entirely on the point system.”

It also weeds out weak performers and reduces turnover. Temps who don’tscore well on the tests know that their chances of getting hired are remote, sothey usually quit before their assignment is over, he says. As a result, sincethe program was implemented a year ago, turnover has dropped 10 percent, from12.4 percent per month to 2.4 percent. While Rovins hesitates to attribute allof the reduction in turnover to the placement program, he feels it’s had asignificant impact. “It’s reasonable to assume the program has helped usmake better hiring decisions.”

Workforce, July 2002, pp. 74-77 — Subscribe Now!