Case Study

Situation

In early 2001, a large financial institution specializing in loan origination and servicing had an enormous spike in business brought on by the sudden drop in interest rates. This customer had been a client of SPARKS for many years, however the staffing needs were fairly level. Now they were faced with the enviable but difficult challenge of how to adequately ramp up with the numbers of people needed who had the specialized skills required to perform within their environment. The internal resources were limited and furthermore, their business model was not scalable to address the dramatic changes facing them. They needed to build a current organization of 100 people to over 700 people and they needed to do it quickly.

Solution

They needed an approach to recruiting qualified people, how to effectively acclimate them to their environment, train them on their processes and ensure the retention of their new hires. They needed a resource rich organization that would provide tactical support on these items, but also a strategy around providing a system-wide solution for their center. SPARKS installed an on-site Account Management team who brought the specialized skills needed to perform these requirements. SPARKS provided alternatives around shifts that allowed the increased workload to be distributed throughout different periods of time. . In conjunction with their team leaders a process was put in place to hire the right talent. On On-site trainer was added to the program and that individual provided support to both the core staff and temporary help. A comprehensive HR program was developed to handle the full cycle of responsibility for recruiting, orientation and employee performance monitoring. Exit interview strategies were instituted to provide feedback for future retention and as a by-product of our on-site presence, co-employment concerns were alleviated.

Results

The solution provided by SPARKS achieved all the objectives of recruiting, orientation, training and staff retention. The relationship now spans in total nine years and the company’s needs continue to be met with an on-site SPARKS representative acting as a partner to major decision makers at every step of the process. While the Account Manager focuses on the day to day staffing duties, management is free to address other business related matters as they continue to grow. SPARKS continues to have a major presence in the company’s workplace and remains invested in their expansion plans as their workforce staffing solutions provider.