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Heijmans case study (pdf)

_Heijmans

Heijmans builds a solid recruitment foundation

"PeopleXS drives us to treat our candidates adequately, and that’s exactly what we wanted."

Jasper van der Heijden, Recruitment manager

Laying the foundation for centralised recruitment

Specialised in construction, infrastructure and property development, Heijmans holds a solid position as one of the major leaders in construction on the Dutch market. With a total of 9.100 employees the company is also active in other European countries including Belgium, Germany and the UK and expects that by 2008 roughly 20% of all its activities will be realised outside of The Netherlands. As an organisation, Heijmans aims to contribute to the infrastructure of the countries in which it operates. In order to achieve this, Heijmans operates as a full service construction- and property development provider in order to focus on all the activities in the value chain, from consultancy and design to maintenance and management. The organisation’s experience, knowledge, versatility and transparency towards stakeholders make it a powerful business partner.

In the last 6 months, Heijmans has dramatically increased their focus on recruitment. Jasper van der Heijden, recruitment manager at Heijmans, explains: “Our goal was to centralize and professionalize recruitment within the Heijmans construction division. We wanted Heijmans recruitment to be sustained through our own company brand and company image and rely less on recruitment agencies where possible. This is particularly important with regards to the current economy where candidates enjoy the benefits of a booming job market. Naturally we needed a flexible solution that would help us to achieve this”.

Selecting and building the recruitment solution

In selecting their recruitment solution, Heijmans made flexibility, efficiency and quality their main priorities. When asked about the orientation process for a new recruitment solution Jasper comments: “Initially we approached 3 different organisations for more information on their recruitment solutions. What stuck out about PeopleXS is that they reacted a lot faster than the rest and this immediately left a professional impression with us. Other companies reacted much later, and by that time, we were already familiar with PeopleXS and what it could offer”.

Heijmans chose the PeopleXS Professional edition together with PortalXS to allow for a seamless integration between their vacancy portal and the PeopleXS database. What followed for Heijmans was a fast and efficient 5 day implementation process which included training, workshops and customization of PeopleXS to Heijmans’ needs.

The solidity of online recruitment

The results of PeopleXS on Heijmans recruitment can be seen in 4 different areas:

Administration

PeopleXS has reduced the administration load for the recruiters at Heijmans. No longer do recruiters have to keep track of the status of  candidates through several databases. Processes are optimized, automated and handled centrally, which results in an extremely time efficient recruitment system.

Quality management

Perhaps the most important benefit of PeopleXS for Heijmans, the new online recruitment system allows Heijmans to treat their candidates fast and with great care. The system helps recruiters in their work to make sure that candidates receive a personal response within 2 days after sending in their application. The reporting tools, and dashboard functionality allow Heijmans recruiters to create reports about many aspects of the companies recruitment department, including details on all the processes that PeopleXS handles per month

Campaign management

Fares can be a great tool in recruiting new talent and Jasper explains how PeopleXS helps Heijmans to get the maximum out the campaign management tools that are available: “Heijmans recently visited the National Construction Fare in Utrecht where we creatively profiled ourselves as an employer. The setting was that of a anthracite construction shed where projects were displayed and an impression of working at Heijmans was created. We used a laptop to immediately register our 250 visitors in PeopleXS through an online form. We now have a database of all these candidates and can follow up with them in a fast and professional way”.

Integration

Heijmans uses 7 separate vacancy portals to manage all the applications from the different departments of the company. These portals contain dozens of vacancies that are linked with PeopleXS through a standard plug-in functionality. As soon as a candidate applies online for a job at Heijmans, he is added to the PeopleXS database and a Heijmans recruiter is notified about the new application so that contact can be made. This way, a seamless integration between the Heijmans website and PeopleXS is made.

In conclusion, Jasper summarizes PeopleXS as “a comprehensive tool which helps Heijmans recruitment to be more efficient and professional. The application contributes to the building of our network and is so much more than a static database”.