Hammonds Furniture

The UK's leading fitted-bedroom company is pioneering an online recruitment software programme to advertise its vacancies nationally within a matter of minutes.

Hammonds Furniture, which employs around 1,000 people nationwide including 450 staff at two sites in Hinckley, has been working with FlexPlus to develop an innovative online toolkit.

The cutting-edge technology allows Hammonds – and other FlexPlus clients – to manage applicants' responses to their online vacancies, post multi vacancies on a number of websites extremely quickly and integrate the system into its own website.

Barry Dow, Head of Human Resources at Hammonds Furniture, said the system had been in operation for three months at its busiest time of the year for recruitment in the lead-up to Christmas.

"We wanted a system which was fully integrated, consistent, cost-effective and met the requirements of our business which has to react quickly when advertising vacancies," he said.

"We have placed over 100 adverts in the last three months for a wide range of jobs such as production operatives, self-employed designers and sales staff all over the country. The new system makes the whole process more joined up from the instant placing of vacancies on major job boards to the increased speed in which we can deal with responses electronically."

Barry said a one-year deal with FlexPlus in Wheatfield Way had been agreed and he was confident that if the initial results were anything to go by he would be looking for a long-term partnership with FlexPlus.

"Adrian Hobbs and his team have been absolutely fantastic with the support we have been given," he added. "I believe that it will continue to support our resourcing requirements and processes."

Adrian Hobbs, Managing Director of FlexPlus in Wheatfield Way, Hinckley, said the system allowed HR departments to view all the applications from a variety of sources in one place.

"We believe this is the first total online recruitment package of its kind in the UK with scope to be integrated into a client's own website and we are really excited with the early feedback we have received," he said.

"Talking to Barry and his team allowed us to adapt the programme which we have been working on for the last two years from an employer's perspective.

"It reduces the cost of advertising vacancies substantially as well as making the whole recruitment process less time consuming which is a major plus for busy HR departments."