Paving the Road to Success... with Better People.

The “Before” Picture

In the summer of 2007, HiringSmart was retained to set up their online selection system for Capital Paving, a road building and aggregate production company based in Guelph, Ontario. At the time, the system was implemented as a means of maintaining efficiency and orderliness during a period when the company needed to operate without a Human Resources Manager.
 
The system was recommended to Capital by Sue Edwards, President of Development by Design.  Sue had been working with Capital Paving on a long-term cultural change process and knew how important proper talent attraction and selection would be to the ongoing growth and success of the organization.  In the near-term, however, the immediate need was to ensure that candidates had a means of applying to the company, being assessed by the organization and being treated respectfully with online communication-- all while there was no specific individual at Capital Paving assigned to handle recruitment and selection. 

Enabled Remote Support for Recruitment & Selection Process

In spite of the owners’ concerns about whether the construction labour market would respond to an online employment system, Capital were willing to give it a try on a “pilot basis”, since they were midway through construction season and the bulk of the hiring for the year had already been conducted.  As a consultant, Sue Edwards was able to support the portal from arms-length and ensure efficient and effective coordination with the relevant hiring managers at Capital Paving.  This enabled the organization to handle the ad hoc recruitment needs for the remainder of the construction season.

It wasn’t long before the clear benefits of the system were evident to the owners, managers and employees themselves.

• Significantly Enhanced Efficiency of Seasonal Ramp-Up
  Road construction is a seasonal business in Southern Ontario.  In the off-season, Capital Paving maintains a core salaried workforce of less than 30 people.  In April of each year, over 100 hourly employees are typically added to the team over a few short weeks.  2009 was the busiest start-up in the history of Capital Paving and the company currently has 170 employees on payroll.
  
  For the start-up of the construction season for 2009, Capital Paving brought in a contract Recruiter for the 2 month season start-up to manage the employment portal and seasonal hiring process.  Despite being the largest seasonal crew ever hired by Capital Paving, the 2009 has set a new standard for excellence in smooth and efficient ramp-up.

• Dramatically Reduced Cost of Advertising
  HiringSmart and Development by Design supported Capital Paving in identifying non-traditional ways to attract candidates to its website. Business cards were created using the company’s URL for the hiring portal. Applying the HiringSmart philosophy of “fishing where the fish are”, these were left at industry trade shows, community clubs, exercise and sports facilities as well as local colleges with programs in heavy construction and engineering technology. An employee team worked with a graphic designer to develop a high quality brochure referencing the employment portal.
  
  Capital Paving learned to make use of websites such as Kijiji and local government job sites to spread the word about specific positions. For about 10% of the cost of a traditional 3-day newspaper advertisement, online postings were placed with specific professional associations to narrow the pool to only qualified candidates for key roles.
  
  Perhaps the most innovative means of attracting candidates to the hiring portal was in leveraging one of the company’s most readily identifiable assets—its trucks. Capital Paving is known in Southern Ontario for its distinctive yellow and royal blue branded company trucks that stand-out in what can be a “dirty” industry for their cleanliness and excellent condition. For less than $25 a truck, a large professionally printed, clear, stick-on label was created with the URL for the hiring portal and placed on each company truck. Aligning the employment portal with a positive and tangible icon of the company made great sense!
  
  As a result of these initiatives, Capital Paving was able to slash its employment advertising budget to the low hundreds instead of several thousand dollars each season. What’s more, the number of applicants dramatically increased and the calibre of the candidates soared. “Grader Operators”, which had been next to impossible positions to fill each season, were hired through the portal in 2009 with no direct advertising cost.
  
  At the launch of the pilot, the company owners were highly sceptical that the process of online application would be appropriate for a seasonal, hourly workforce, many of whom are unskilled labourers and individuals who speak English as a second language. In actuality, Capital Paving went from having less than 200 applications on file, with varying degrees of quality of information, to 1800 completed online interviews in just one hiring season.

• Reinforcement of Company Brand
  Capital Paving has long been known for excellence in quality road building and the aggregate material it produces. It is the only company in Ontario to have won the prestigious Ministry of Transportation Ontario’s Paver of the Year award three times (2000, 2006, 2008).
  
  In 2009, Capital Paving established an employee team with accountability for Employment Branding and Company Promotion. The owners of Capital Paving as well as this employee team see the HiringSmart system as one of the key elements of reinforcing their employment branding around “Quality Construction by Quality People”. By implementing a quality process of talent attraction and selection, Capital Paving is able to stand proudly behind employment processes that are of the same high calibre as the work they produce.

• Enhanced Reputation and Candidate Experience
  Another invaluable result of adopting the HiringSmart system for Capital Paving has been that as the company has evolved its culture into a more empowered and highly engaged environment. Continuing to grow its reputation as an employer of choice, the system has kept pace with the evolution in the company’s standards for talent, interaction with candidates and brand building.

A big dividend for this client was that even as they asked more than ever before from candidates in terms of time invested in getting hired (remember, they went from a one-step process to a four-step process that required candidates to invest 20-25 minutes in an online interview and the same again later in the process to complete an online assessment of their attitudes towards Integrity, Reliability and Work Ethic), both the number and the quality of candidates they attracted went through the roof.

Here’s a comment from an engineering graduate who was hired through the HiringSmart process and found the approach differentiated Capital Paving’s professionalism, even when compared to larger, more well-known companies in the industry:

Capital Paving’s online interview was the best process I’ve seen of any of the companies who advertised on campus, including the large ones. It was much more interesting and I can see how it would give you better insights into people. I especially enjoyed the question about the funniest thing that happened at work; it brought back a memory that I hadn’t thought about in awhile and I had fun with that. It was a very positive experience.

The above comment was received during the initial telephone interview. This same candidate’s positive experience continued to build through the face-to-face interview where he indicated that he was able to have a richer dialogue than other first interviews he was having with competitive organizations at the time. Many of the basic questions had already been covered online, so the experience with Capital Paving stood out as much more personalized.

The candidate subsequently completed a Step One Survey II and a Profile XT. A full debrief of the Profile XT was built into the attraction and selection process. Sue Edwards, a professional coach and onboarding expert, met with the candidate at pre-offer stage to support the candidate in understanding how he would be apt to “fit” with the culture of the organization, with the job and with the manager based on his own Profile XT responses. The HiringSmart tools enabled a rich conversation that was grounded in the candidate’s own input.

Once the candidate accepted the position at Capital Paving (declining other opportunities), the Profile XT reports formed the basis for an ongoing conversation to support the manager in engaging the new hire based on his unique profile.