Measuring the Effectiveness of Recruitment: The Case of Safe Water Advisor Project

Abstract

Unilever Pureit, the world’s largest selling water purifier is the signature brand that falls under the life-essentials category of Unilever Bangladesh Limited (UBL). One of the key drivers of this business are the Safe Water Advisors (SWA) who act and advise the people as the face of the brand in different retail, whole-sale, modern trades, and other regular and occasional touchpoints. So, efficiency in recruiting and managing these SWAs are very crucial for the success and growth of Unilever Pureit. In this study, the recruitment process of Safe Water Advisors, recruitment frequency, training modality and process, the returns on investment (ROI) from these recruits, relevant problems and solutions have been identified and illustrated along with some recommendations for the future. On an average, it takes around a month to complete the recruitment process including application screening, interviews, selection and training. So, if the right candidates are not hired or trained through an effective recruitment process, the recruited SWAs will not be able to perform well in their roles or help to achieve the sales targets. As a result, the attrition rate will be higher than usual and the employee satisfaction level will be lower. Moreover, when these SWAs will not be able to drive revenues, the cost related to the entire recruitment process will incur financial loss as the return on investment will be negative or significantly low. This is why the effectiveness of recruitment process for the SWAs is very important to measure on a regular basis. In addition to driving the effective recruitment process, it is also important to identify the new avenues by conducting research in order to maintain the recruitment efficiency based on rapidly changing business and human resource skills requirements. In order to keep the recruitment cost lower which is an important factor for recruitment, it is essential to determine the best medium of sharing hiring advertisements, organizing assessments at a rented space or online, assessment process and structure, training process and modality, etc. in such a way so an organization can find the most suitable talents in a cost-effective way.