The client saying ‘We couldn’t have done this without you’ is when we know we’ve succeeded in our client relationship.

BECOMING OUR CLIENT'S SOLE SUPPLIER FOR A LARGE CONTRACT:

Over the course of the past 7 years, we’ve been partnering with our client to supply between 60 and 70 casual workers per day for their site in Tullamarine. Our client is one of Australia’s leading Transport and Logistics companies. They specialise in domestic freight solutions, 3PL and supply chain management, as well as providing an international delivery service.

Before our client moved to a purpose-built facility in Truganina, they won the contract to fulfil the e-commerce orders for a large department store in September 2020. When they were awarded the contract, we consulted with them to find out what the growth was going to look like and we worked out we’d need another 100 people working on their site each day. We were proud to be their sole supplier, which is unusual for a contract of this size.

AN EVOLVING CHALLENGE:

We had several preparation meetings with our client where they shared their planning and implementation schedule with us. We were privy to their planning with their client so we knew when the stock was coming in and we had an intimate knowledge of what they needed to achieve.

So, we started planning in the background and getting ourselves sorted to provide the 100 extra people per day. We needed pickers with RF scanning experience, packers, reach forklift operators and LO Operators. We started giving them trial shifts in the existing departments so they could get a feel of the warehouse and so that our client wouldn’t have 100 new people starting at the same time. We also needed to adhere to our high standards of following the full recruitment process including police checks, drug and alcohol screening and functional capacity assessments.

But as we headed towards Black Friday, which was at the end of November 2020, we were told that the number of people they needed would increase by another 50 people per day in addition to the original numbers we’d worked out. However, when Black Friday hit, the department store’s online sales went up about 400% from the year before. Even though the planning had been so thorough, nobody could have predicted the sheer amount of growth.

Within a 4-week period, we went from providing 130 to 420 employees per day.

INNOVATING TO SUPPORT OUR PEOPLE:

Our client was initially just running a day and afternoon shift, but because we had so many new people, they introduced a night shift as well. Although our client worked really well with us to train and facilitate new people, this all happened before we had our automated workforce management systems which take care of our online rostering, time and attendance, and payroll. Without this technology, we had to use a manual timesheet on-site where people had to write their name and start / finish time. This meant we had to be on-site helping with the timesheets, and our workforce needed to be manually rostered on a spreadsheet. Some of our office staff were working extending hours just to meet the demands of this project.

But the demands of this project pushed us to be bearers of solutions – we needed a better solution with clocking in and clocking out on-site and we needed support with rostering. Our solution was to create our National Contact Centre team who are responsible for rostering and provide our clients and external workforce with 24/7 support. We also launched our automated workforce management systems much sooner than we had originally planned - freeing up time for Account Managers to really engage and be present with our clients and candidates.

In March 2021, our client expanded their operations and moved from their original site to one in Truganina. Using our newly implemented technology and with the help of our National Contact Centre, we were able to bolster our recruiting to supply to Truganina. We’ve now streamlined our process to roster 300 to 350 people per day on this client site. By being agile and implementing new technology and a new team quickly, we’ve been able to meet client demands while making things easier for our Account Managers. At Zoom Recruitment, we’re proud to be efficient with our actions when facing a challenge – even when the timeframes are tight.

At Zoom Recruitment, we have e-commerce recruitment specialists around the country who are eager to help you grow your e-commerce operations.

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