Ever-growing, household name Client
Since opening their first UK stores over 30 years ago, our client maintains their status one of Europe’s leading supermarket retailers. Nevertheless, they remain dedicated in continuing their growth within the industry. While our client is considered a household name brand, they are dedicated to establishing ways they can continue to break boundaries and engage their customers and employees.
This is exemplified in their aptitude towards their status as a business who continue to embrace our people insights to shape their attraction strategies. Our client engaged with us to conduct Labour Market Skills Research to support with their planned move of their Central London based Head Office to relocate to a purpose-built office in Greater London, an area which would also ensue reduced costs to the business and be more accessible for employees.
Challenges Within a Relocation Process
While relocating a Head Office undoubtedly offers various exciting prospects, it also can serve to be a complicated process, to the point that many which requires the consideration of a range of variables. Relocating such a staple in the business’ function requires an extremely thorough planning process, clear communication with employees throughout and an understanding of the labour market within the prospective area – without all of these, it could jeopardise the success of a relocation project.
Whatever the reasoning behind a companies’ decision to move, it would undoubtedly have a big impact on staff, requiring them to commute further or even move house. While relocating a Head Office is an exciting prospect, it may be a process that all employees may not be on board with, to the point that they may decide to begin looking for a new role closer to their current area. Therefore, before our client made the move, they needed to understand if their new location had the talent pool that would be able to support the business’ continued growth. This was important as if this was the case, they would need to consider ways in which they could make opportunities to work within their Head Office more attractive, otherwise they could consider ways to retain their current Head Office employees.
Our client connected with us to support them by providing labour market insight which would empower them to have a full understanding of the availability of skills within the new Head Office area. From this, we would inform their HR and marketing teams to support future recruitment.
Process
We conducted an extensive external labour market research programme to understand the labour market within the new Head Office area. We started our process by identifying and approaching candidates who skills and experience matched those of the skills our client identified within six departments within their Head Office:
- Marketing – Marketing/PR/Communications
- IT/Digital – IT/Digital
- Property – Property
- HR – HR
- Procurement – Purchasing/Buying/Procurement
- Finance – Finance/Accounts/Tax
If we were going to assess professionals from these functions, it was important for us to ensure that we were interviewing the full scope of professionals within their respective field, failure to do this could find us misrepresenting a field. Dividing these professionals into also would allow the business to understand if professionals from a specific job level or function would have requirements in their process of considering a new role:
- Junior/Admin – 0 – 2 years of experience
- Specialists – 2 – 10 years of experience
- Team Managers – Currently occupying a management position
Our research primarily involved directly engaging with potential candidates within a 30-mile radius from their new Head Office location to determine interest in looking for a new role and the potential of working for the client.
360 individuals were interviewed throughout this process (60 per job function and 20 per job level).
Our research encompassed the following:
The Labour Pool
Knowledge of the labour market in relation to the job role prerequisites would allow our client to understand to what extent the skills are available in the new location along with each labour pools’ current perception of the business and their expectations if they were to move role. Providing our client with this information would allow them to understand what it is future candidates would be looking for if they were to work for the business, putting them in a favourable position when advertising for future roles in their new Head Office as they would be able to adjust their proposition to be a more attractive employer. Our labour market research enabled us to present the following insights:
- Current and Desired Pay
- Likes and Dislikes regarding their current role
- Motivators from a new role
- Ability to commute to the new Head Office location
- Maximum commute factors
- Flexible working requirements
- Propensity to move
- How they would source their next role
- Awareness and Perception of client
- Awareness and Perception of respective job function at business
- Interest in working for the business and within the retail sector
- Awareness of our client’s relocation program
Research Pool Skills
It was important for our client to understand the capabilities within the new Head Office location talent pool based upon specific role requirements, this would help them understand the standard of talent available to them and see if the this talent pool would enable them to maintain or exceed their standards within each department, these included:
- Language Skills
- Qualifications
- Skills supply
- Hiring Demand
- Industry Background
- Years’ experience with role
Labour Market Intel – New Location vs London vs UK
As a growing business, it was important for our client to understand the Labour Market data within the new Head Office area. This would empower them to understand the availability of future employees, particularly if they are looking to maintain their status as an equal opportunity employer with a diverse workplace. We provided our client with Labour Market insight and compared the new location with the average population of both London and the UK, encompassing:
- Working age and population by gender
- Gender/age statistics
- Unemployment rate
- Ethnicity, Education level and occupations of active labour market
Output
At completion of our 360 telephone interviews, we were able to present our insights to our client and also offer recommendations, indicating to what extent people would be ready for this relocation project, as well as offering a broader understanding of the market.
Our research was an essential stage of our client’s relocation process, as it afforded them the foresight to make the appropriate preparations prior to their move. Our research allowed them to understand how easy it might be to recruit the desired skills and suggest strategies on how they could improve recruitment marketing to attract people to work for them.
Relocating a Head Office is arguably one of the greatest commitments a business can make, however with our support, our client was able to be in a position where they were best prepared for their continued growth.
