In January 2022 I made the leap into my first in-house head of talent acquisition and employer brand role with wagamama. With 20 years recruitment experience, 12 years of which in #recruitmentprocessoutsourcing, and eighteen months in #transformation and #change, I wanted the opportunity to put my skills and experience to the test, taking on a #talentacquisition transformation project. I’d long been a wagamama fan, I mean, who doesn’t love a katsu curry or a ramen right?! So when the opportunity arose, I jumped right in.

Colleagues, friends and family thought I was mad! Why would you choose to join a hospitality business, whilst the final stages of the #pandemic played out? #layoffs, #furlough, we’re opening, we’re closing…I heard it all. yeah, I got it. but, what an opportunity. the opportunity to build back, something special for a brand that I admired!

So, after joining wagamama in January 2022 through a thorough pre boarding and onboarding experience, including back to floor shifts both front and back of house in the #burystedmunds restaurant with Greg Hrechanyk and his team at the time. I was left in awe at the amazing work our teams do to deliver the world renowned wagamama experience for our guests. fired up by this, I knew that we had to deliver something special. and it had to align to our values: zig when others zag, it has to be fresh, kaizen at our heart, treading softly and mindfully and we’ve got each others backs.

After a few weeks, lots of conversations, the size of the task became clearer:

• +1000 live vacancies (team member and middle management) across the entire estate,
• +130 senior restaurant manager roles that included general managers, assistant general managers, head chefs and senior sous chefs.
• re opening restaurants that had remained closed or on reduced hours through the pandemic as well as our airport restaurants in Gatwick North and south, Heathrow Terminal 3 and 5 and Manchester Terminal 2
• planned new restaurant openings that year including Braintree, Harlow, Marble Arch, Southend,

in addition to:

• #labourturnover that was around 80% 3 period proxy, later increasing in the summer of 2022 to over 100% for a period.
• the impacts of #brexit , and an increasingly competitive labour market as well as the vast majority of of hospitality firms all looking to do the same thing….#recruit.
• rebuilding the talent acquisition team and function

Crazy times! so whilst trying to keep the wheels turning to deliver businesses recruitment needs day to day, my team and I undertook a diagnostic to understand what infrastructure, eco system and processes were needed to deliver a truly sustainable recruitment strategy for the future. And from this diagnostic our 3 year talent acquisition + employer brand strategy was born.

On a journey of discovery we’ve explored how existing and new partners could help us realise our vision. Alex Hanson-Smith and his team at inploi have really helped us transform our front end candidate experience, with a new careers hub, conversational apply and diversified our channel mix for attraction, allowing us to reduce our candidate cost per acquisition and cost per hire.

We also engaged Adam Gordon previously CEO Candidate.ID, an iCIMS company to help fill a gap with candidate relationship management, allowing us to build and tap into candidate talent pools. whilst all of this was going on, we kicked off an applicant tracking system review in the summer which then led to a competitive rfi and rfp process. In January this year we selected Talos360 as our new applicant tracking system provider and in the next week we will go live with a pilot across 3 areas in the UK with a UK wide rollout planned for end of August. Along with many other benefits this will provide us with our first ever internal careers page and pre boarding/onboarding portal.

In the summer of 2022, alongside the applicant tracking system we reviewed our assessment and selection platform, ahead of a collective people project to re define the wagamama behaviour and competency framework. In May this year, we worked with Nick Shaw and Carys Law 🦓 to enter a partnership to develop both our noodle hq and operations assessment tools, shifting our assessments to a skills based approach. built on this and our new behaviour and competency framework, being able to connect these external selection tools with our internal development ‘stepping up’ programmes, is critical to the success of the wagamama brand as we look to reignite our culture and deliver on our people promise. Seeing all of this come to life alongside the applicant tracking system and other achievements:

• volume of senior and middle management vacancies reduce by 80%
• cost per hire reduce by over 50%
• time to offer reduce period on period by circa 30%
• labour turnover reducing by <35%

to date will be some of my biggest career achievements. But this has only been possible with the support of a truly amazing, committed, dedicated and supportive team made up of Martin Wonham Melony Gouna Grace Harris Assoc CIPD Alberto Panni Tom Raymond Danuta Tkaczyk and Ana Gavriliuc. A massive thank you to you all.

I’m sure the journey wont end here though. In true Kaizen spirit, the wagamama talent acquisition and employer brand will continue to evolve and flourish, just as wagamama has since 1992. One thing is for sure, we have certainly zig’d when others zag’d, keeping it fresh with kaizen at our heart.

In a time when other companies have been cutting back, wagamama has invested in its people and employer brand. And I’m sure this investment will pay back, time and time again.

In recent weeks I have seen many talent acquisition professionals laid off in anticipation of a slow down in the economy. Yes, things may be slower than they were last year. but it will pick up again. If you’ve found it difficult to attract the talent you needed in the last 3 years, can you afford not to make that investment? As the Latin proverb says “Audentes Fortuna Iuvat”.

So what are you waiting for?!