People Centricity case study

Treat Hiring Managers as Customers: A Recruiting Strategy

159people managers surveyed, in 3 languages
35recruiters rating the same priorities
3days of design sprint, 14 people in the room
5pillars, from workforce planning to new-hire success

The situation

The question behind the question.

This company hires hundreds of people a year, in many countries. Its people strategy had made recruiting excellence a pillar, and a small global talent acquisition team had just been created to deliver it. In its 2 largest European markets, recruiting ran through an outsourced provider that had reached its limits: more steps, falling satisfaction, no way to scale further. The new team had a mandate, not yet a strategy. And the managers who hire, its first customers, had not yet been asked what they needed.

As it was asked

“Help us write our talent acquisition strategy.”

As we reframed it

Treat the managers who hire and the recruiters who serve them as the customers of the strategy: hear them first, design the answer with them, and fund the new model from the one it replaces.

How we worked

Four moves, one loop.

This engagement ran on the People Centricity Methodology™: four moves turning what people say and do into insight, insight into choices, choices into measured impact — and impact back into evidence.

01

Empathise

Data → Insights

Understand before prescribing.

We started with the people who use the service, and with the market around it. 159 people managers answered a survey in 3 languages; 35 recruiters answered its mirror, rating the same priorities and their own capabilities. Focus groups with managers and with the recruiting team added the reasons behind the scores, and the hiring manager’s path was mapped step by step. Outside in, we set leading recruiting practices and peers’ operating models against it. Read side by side, more than 750 manager wishes and the recruiters’ ratings narrowed to a short list of gaps: the problem statement.

02

Strategise

Insights → Strategy

Turn insight into choices.

Then 3 days in a room with 14 people, run as a design sprint. Only priorities that at least 40% of respondents ranked in their top 3 made the agenda. 2 journey maps of 8 steps, the hiring manager’s and the candidate’s, framed the choices; ideas were voted on, the leader who owned the result made the final call, and the rest were filed as maybe-later. 5 design principles held the line, among them business-driven, data-driven and a deliberate balance of global and local. The result: 5 pillars, 4 enablers and 12 initiatives for the first 6 months; 2 more waited a year.

03

Realise

Strategy → Impact

Make it real, and make it yours.

Then the decision and the model. HR leadership shaped the strategy at its own offsite, approved it, and wrote 3 of the initiatives into its own scorecard. The change reached hiring managers too: one recruitment policy, one requisition process, and training in how to recruit. In place of the outsourced provider came a hub serving 4 European countries, staffed by language rather than by country and funded by the contract it ended; further waves would need their own funding model. Each initiative got a charter, a sponsor and a core team. 2 of them, candidate assessment and recruiting KPIs, brought us back that autumn.

04

Analyse

Impact → Data

Measure, learn, return.

Value was mapped before it was promised. Each pillar got its indicators, from time to fill and offer acceptance to probation pass rate and first-year attrition, so progress could be read pillar by pillar. The hub’s case rested on cost neutrality, not on projected savings. And early attrition, already on the company scorecard, became the strategy’s test of hiring quality: the clearest sign of whether better recruiting produces people who stay.

The instrument

Designed from the customer’s journey

Map. 2 journeys, the hiring manager’s and the candidate’s, each in 8 steps, with every gap from the surveys and focus groups pinned to the step where the customer feels it.

Sketch alone. Everyone drafts solutions on their own before any discussion, so the loudest idea does not set the agenda.

Decide once. Ideas are shown and voted on, the leader who owns the result makes the final call, and each winner becomes an initiative with an owner.

A strategy designed around the customer’s journey, not the function’s org chart, and chosen by the people who will deliver it.

What moved

What changed, and what didn't.

12initiatives chartered within weeks of approval, each with a sponsor and a core team
Evidence Decision taken Adopted in practice Measured impact
What moved

HR leadership approved the strategy in the summer of 2022, and it went straight into delivery: 12 initiatives were chartered within weeks, each with a sponsor, a lead and a core team. The European hub went live at the end of the year, in place of the outsourced provider, at no extra cost.

What didn't move

The value case stopped at cost neutrality: the gains of faster, better hiring were mapped to indicators, not priced. Candidates and new hires were represented through journey maps, not heard directly, and limited capacity in the recruiting team and in HR IT put the full first-year plan at risk.

What we'd say to a peer

A recruiting strategy is judged by the managers who hire. Hear them first, set the recruiters’ view beside theirs, and let the people who will deliver it choose in the room. Then fund the new model from the one it replaces, and agree how value will be read before anyone promises it.

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Method note:

People Centricity Methodology™; mirrored surveys of 159 managers and 35 recruiters; focus groups; 3-day design sprint; indicators by pillar.

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