Division: Human Resources
Role/Assignment: Talent Acquisition Specialist / Multiple Roles
The Challenge
A charitable organisation faced an ongoing recruitment challenge because of its remote geographical location.
Situated some distance from major public transport links, requiring employees to attend the office significantly restricted the available candidate pool.
After years of organisational stability, the charity was also entering a period of change. As part of a wider project looking at its future direction and financial sustainability, the organisation recognised that its approach to attracting and recruiting people also needed to evolve.
As a charity, the organisation was initially cautious about making significant changes to established working practices.
The challenge was therefore not simply finding candidates. It was helping the client consider how its working model was affecting its ability to attract the talent it needed.
Our Approach
We worked closely with the organisation to understand its recruitment challenges and provided market insight based on the candidates available.
Our search identified candidates with relevant charity-sector experience who were well suited to the organisation but lived too far away to consider a fully office-based position.
Rather than discounting those candidates because of geography, we used the evidence from the search to demonstrate how introducing remote or hybrid working could significantly widen the available talent pool.
We also encouraged the client to consider candidate motivations more broadly.
Flexibility, working arrangements and the overall employment proposition were becoming increasingly important factors in candidates’ decisions, particularly where the organisation’s physical location created additional travel challenges.
By presenting suitable candidates who would otherwise have been excluded because of distance, we were able to demonstrate the practical recruitment benefits of changing the working model.
The Outcome
The client embraced a more flexible approach and subsequently entrusted Bond Williams with multiple recruitment assignments.
By widening the geographical candidate pool and considering remote and hybrid working, the organisation was able to access candidates who would previously have been unavailable to it.
Bond Williams successfully filled critical positions for the organisation and developed an ongoing recruitment relationship with the client.
Key Results
✔ Helped the client reconsider the impact of location on recruitment
✔ Remote and hybrid working introduced into the recruitment strategy
✔ Geographical candidate pool widened
✔ Candidates with relevant charity-sector experience identified beyond the immediate area
✔ Multiple recruitment assignments entrusted to Bond Williams
✔ Critical positions successfully filled
