the challenge.

The merger created immediate complexity across hiring operations.

Different business units inherited different recruitment processes, approval structures, vendor relationships and expectations around hiring timelines. As restructuring progressed through 2025, hiring requirements changed frequently, making coordination harder across teams already operating under pressure.

The organization needed to manage two hiring demands at the same time:

  • High-volume retail hiring with tight turnaround expectations
  • Specialized digital hiring for cloud, data, analytics and enterprise technology roles

Key challenges included:

  • Inconsistent hiring workflows across legacy organizations
  • Delayed stakeholder feedback affecting time-to-hire
  • Frequent changes in role definitions and hiring priorities
  • Competition for digital talent in North America and India
  • Limited standardization across intake, approvals and recruiter coordination
  • Candidate drop-offs caused by slower decision cycles in high-demand roles

The organization needed a hiring model that could scale across multiple brands while improving consistency, responsiveness and execution speed.

how randstad digital helped.

Randstad Digital partnered with the client to stabilize hiring operations during the integration period and support ongoing retail and digital workforce expansion. The engagement focused on creating a more standardized hiring structure without slowing down delivery across business units with different priorities and staffing demands.

  • embedded hiring team support

    A dedicated team of six recruiters, supported by one onsite representative at the client location, managed coordination across retail, corporate and digital hiring functions. The team operated via a hybrid onshore–offshore structure designed to maximise efficiency through a clear division of responsibilities:

    • The onshore team acted as the primary interface with hiring managers, managing intake discussions, stakeholder communication, hiring governance and escalation management.
    • The offshore team focused on sourcing, candidate screening, pipeline development, interview coordination and recruitment reporting across retail, corporate and digital hiring requirements.

    This model combined high-touch stakeholder engagement with scalable recruitment delivery, enabling faster and more consistent hiring outcomes while maintaining recruiter coverage across time zones.

  • specialised digital recruitment capability

    Dedicated recruiters were aligned to niche technology hiring across cloud, data, analytics and enterprise platforms. This reduced dependency on generalist hiring teams and improved responsiveness for hard-to-fill technology roles such as Intermediate Software Engineer – Supply Chain and Engineering 2 (Voice Infrastructure), competing in a tight talent market.

  • standardised intake and hiring workflows

    Randstad Digital introduced a structured intake framework across multiple business units to eliminate variation between legacy hiring processes. Coordinated by the onsite team member acting as the primary liaison, this framework ensured alignment between hiring managers and the offshore recruiting team through targeted operational practices: 

    • Structured intake calls: Launched at the start of every requisition to align on role requirements, interview processes, hiring timelines and stakeholder responsibilities.
    • Weekly hiring reviews: Conducted to monitor open positions, pipeline status, ageing requisitions and hiring priorities.
    • SLA targets: Established clear timelines for candidate submission, interview scheduling and stakeholder feedback (typically within 24–48 hours of interviews).
    • Governance and escalation: Regular reviews and escalation mechanisms to resolve bottlenecks quickly and maintain hiring momentum.

the outcome.

The engagement improved hiring consistency across the organization while helping the business manage both operational hiring demand and digital workforce expansion.

Key outcomes included:

  • 37 candidates successfully onboarded across retail, corporate, and digital roles.
  • An average 15–20% reduction in time-to-hire, achieving average closure timelines of 30 to 45 days (including candidate notice periods).
  • Faster turnaround across high-volume retail hiring and improved closure rates for niche technology positions.
  • More consistent hiring workflows across legacy business units, reducing delays caused by fragmented stakeholder coordination.
  • Lower candidate drop-off rates achieved through faster feedback cycles.
  • Better recruiter alignment across retail, corporate, and digital hiring functions, allowing for greater workforce flexibility during ongoing restructuring efforts.

The engagement also expanded Randstad Digital’s role across additional hiring requirements and business units as workforce needs continued to evolve.