This is how SARIA made the leap from cost center to profit center

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SARIA, a leading global company in the recycling of organic waste, employs 13,000 people worldwide, 2,600 of them in Germany. With a broad portfolio in recycling, environmental services and renewable energy, SARIA focuses on sustainable innovations to make efficient use of resources.

Despite its strong market position, SARIA faced major challenges in recruiting. By Implementing the Direct-to-Talent Strategy (D2T) In collaboration with talentsconnect, however, a remarkable transformation was achieved: The HR department went from a cost center to a measurable profit center and made a significant contribution to increasing the company's margin in 2023.

Challenges: An industry environment full of hurdles

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SARIA operates in a competitive environment in which attracting and retaining qualified talent over the long term is a growing challenge. Particularly in the blue-collar sector, for example among professional drivers and production employees, stressful working conditions and intensive competition for skilled workers make recruitment difficult. In addition, there are high hiring costs of an average of 1,800 euros per new hire due to dependence on external channels such as job boards. These burdens result in a Fluctuation rate of 26%, which means that almost the entire workforce must be replaced every four years.

The situation is caused by a Early fluctuation of 12% aggravated: Many new employees leave the company during the probationary period, often in favor of better offers from competitors. At the same time, the lack of standardization in onboarding hinders rapid integration, meaning that new employees need an average of 6.5 weeks to become productive. These challenges were further reinforced by falling raw material prices and increasing economic pressure, which forced the HR department to clearly justify its costs and contribution to the company's success.

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The solution: direct-to-talent strategy

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To overcome these challenges, SARIA relied on innovative direct-to-talent strategy from talentsconnect. This approach, inspired by direct-to-consumer models, focuses on Direct contact with potential talents, data-based decisions and optimized processes, which were specifically tailored to SARIA's needs.

The most important components of the strategy were:

Technology and innovation
SARIA implemented the JobShop by talentsconnect as a central platform for organic job branding and target group-specific campaigns. This was supplemented by the introduction of WhatsApp application from PitchYou, which significantly increased the number of applications, particularly in the blue-collar sector. The application process was also optimized by the “Fast Application”, which removed unnecessary mandatory fields, which significantly reduced application cancellations. An internal job market also created transparency about internal career paths, promoted mobility and reduced external turnover.

Data and return on investment (ROI)
A newly introduced HR dashboard made it possible to measure all measures and calculate the ROI. This not only provided the HR department with data-based insights, but also allowed it to clearly quantify HR's contribution.

Standardised processes
Uniform recruiting and onboarding processes led to more efficient processes and lower costs. The structured onboarding day, combined with a buddy system for professional drivers, reduced training times and increased the productivity of new employees.

Courageous leadership and visions
Sebastian Mosch, Head of HR Management at SARIA, established an in-house consultancy with 20 experts, which acts independently and presents data-based arguments. His goal: to position HR as the company's central value-added unit and to sustainably increase its contribution to business success.

Results and successes

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The implementation of the direct-to-talent strategy and the job shop led to impressive results, which sustainably improved both profitability and corporate culture.

Overall, the The company's profit margin is increased by 740,000 euros.

Specifically, these savings consist of the following measures:

Reduction of talent acquisition costs:

Through organic reach, optimized conversion rates and simplified application channels via WhatsApp and “Fast Application”, the costs per recruitment were reduced from 1,800 to 1,214 euros. With 583 hires per year, this equates to savings of around 341,000 euros per year.‍

‍Reducing early fluctuation

Early fluctuation was reduced from 12 to 9 percent as candidates received fewer parallel offers after signing the contract and were better pre-selected through more authentic job advertisements. As a result, only 52 people leave the company during the trial period instead of 70. With an average salary of 40,000€ and an average value added factor of 2.5, each of these people minus salary contributes 60,000 euros to the company's profit annually. For 18 people, this corresponds to an added value of 1.08 million euros.

Shorten onboarding

The onboarding time was reduced by an average of half a week (from 2.5 to 2 weeks when driving, otherwise from 6.5 to 6 weeks) thanks to the introduction of the onboarding day in White Collar Jobs and the introduction of an onboarding buddy in the Blue Collar sector. The reduction in onboarding corresponds to an increase in productivity of 1,000 euros per hire, which corresponds to 583,000 euros for 583 hires.

Reducing fluctuation

The promotion of internal mobility through transparency about internal career paths has meant that employees stay with the company longer. Fluctuation was therefore reduced from 26 to 22 percent. With 13,000 employees, 520 fewer people had to be hired externally. This corresponds to savings of 631,280 euros (with talent acquisition costs of 1,214 euros per hire).

Conclusion and outlook

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The introduction of the direct-to-talent strategy shows how innovations and bold decisions can make the value contribution of HR measurable.

In the future, SARIA plans to further automate data collection and implement AI-based processes to become even more efficient. The expansion of international recruiting campaigns and the introduction of a “Happy Leaver” program are also on the agenda.

With its direct-to-talent strategy, SARIA has not only revolutionized its own HR department, but also created a model that serves as an inspiration for the entire industry.