Editorial

The Digital Marketplace Contenders, 10: WCN

‘I think businesses looking to get onto the marketplace should make sure they are prepared for the work it entails’: experienced e-Recruiter and G-Cloud veteran WCN offers its perspective on how to make the most of the opportunity

Posted 30 May 2017 by Gary Flood


In the latest of our profiles of IT service firms opening themselves up to the public sector via the G-Cloud and The Digital Marketplace we meet up with UK and US-based recruiter WCN, in the shape of its Founder and CEO, Charles Hipps.

Welcome to the Digital Marketplace Contenders, Mr Hipps. Let’s start by you telling us about your company; what is your value proposition?

We’re a leading pioneer in the field of innovative recruitment technology. With over 20 years’ experience, we provide solutions that help organisations rapidly find the best talent by managing their entire hiring process, creating a more engaging and transparent relationship between brands and applicants and considered ‘best-in-class’ by the top industry analysts. We create highly engaging, intelligent and virtualised talent acquisition technology so recruiters engage and hire the best before the rest.

However an employer works and whatever the sector, our configurable solution puts great talent engagement at the forefront nurturing and managing relationships with talent across all experience levels. Additionally, it crunches high volumes instantly, increasing efficiency, drivig transparency and significantly cut time-to-hire.

We specialise in delivering positive candidate experiences throughout a campaign offering dedicated solutions for emerging talent, public sector and high-volume recruiters. Post-implementation, 100% of new customers we surveyed said they would recommend WCN.

Sounds interesting. What is the relevance for the public sector?

Over our history we’ve developed market-leading capabilities in the public sector, working with governments, intergovernmental organisations, defence and arms-length bodies and emergency services providers. Our experience working with recruitment teams in the public sector means we’ve incorporated standard features into a solution that offers a comprehensive e-Recruitment system built specifically for public sector recruiters.

I’d also say that in addition to all this our pedigree in this sector includes extensive large scale project experience, outstanding customer service, commitment to innovation and its proven track-record in creating significant savings and transformational difference for its customers. In the UK for example, WCN is a government-listed provider of e-Recruitment solutions across the Civil Service, and is accredited to the high standards set by the Risk Management and Accreditation Documentation Set (RMADS) to provide full accountability for risk management decisions. Security and data protection is a high priority for many of our clients and as such is something we prioritise and take extremely seriously.

Why are you on The Digital Marketplace now, and what do you hope to achieve?

WCN is enabling resourcing teams and line managers to efficiently recruit and re-deploy experienced staff and provide a view to internal and external job seekers of the career opportunities available across more than 150 public sector organisations, cumulatively employing almost half a million people. Applicants using WCN systems have continued to give us useful feedback over the years and 97% have expressed satisfaction with the processes we use. Judges of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development People Management Awards have highly commended the solution and hailed it as ‘ground-breaking’ in helping to ‘streamline’ HR processes.

The solutions incorporate and monitor compliance to diversity and inclusion policies ensuring standardisation of HR policies and adoption of best practice across any public sector needs, e.g. “Guaranteed Interview Schemes”, highest levels of accessibility adherence and real-time diversity reporting. The WCN-tailored approach is able to incorporate cross-departmental design demands and extensively works with stakeholders to meet the varied needs of specific public sector posts and help to encourage incremental savings in the process. Support is offered throughout the process.

Embedding new processes that automate recruitment and redeployment has the potential to equate to millions in spending efficiencies in the long-term, especially when there are thousands of posts with manual administration processes needed to filter applications being replaced with highly sophisticated automation techniques that do not jeopardise the quality of recruits hired.

How did you find the process of on-boarding onto the Marketplace? Do you have any guidance or others on the basis of that experience?

WCN is an experienced Digital Marketplace player. Our heritage means we are proud to have been a partner of G-Cloud since its first incarnation, and as such are used to the ways in which the Marketplace works. On that basis, I think businesses looking to get onto the marketplace should make sure they are prepared for the work it entails thereafter. G-Cloud brings a step change in the way government buys IT. It’s quicker, cheaper and more competitive, open to a wider range of companies, including a majority of SMEs, and offers more choice and innovation.

Finally, if ThinkDigitalPartners.com came back to talk to you in a year, what would you like to be able to say you’d achieved in the public sector?

Many government departments already use WCN and we are the leaders in e-Recruitment software across the public sector. We hope in a year take-up of our offerings will have seen more growth and we have played a part in helping to accelerate the adoption of Cloud across the public sector to maximise its benefits. The Cloud First policy – if continued post-election – will embed the skills a modern civil service needs to meet the demands of 21st-century digital government and help the UK get ahead in the global race.

Thanks for your time, Mr Hipps – and good luck on The Digital Marketplace!