Adidas is in the process of bringing its global recruitment activities in-house as part of a bid to improve staff retention rates.

 
Following a comprehensive review, the sports shoe giant, which employs more than 40,000 staff worldwide, decided to introduce an integrated strategy for both internal and external recruitment across its portfolio of brands, which comprises adidas, Taylor Made and Reebok.
 
The aim was to standardise recruitment processes in order to reduce the admin burden on HR teams. A further goal was to build up talent pools and improve staff mobility within the group by gaining more of a handle on internal opportunities, particularly at the mid- to senior management level.
 
Steve Bonomo, adidas’ global head of group recruiting, said in a statement: “In the past, we relied heavily on headhunters to find and acquire talent, which led to a considerable amount of our recruitment budget being spent on headhunter fees. With this in mind, we made the decision to bring our recruitment back in-house, with the aim of reducing our annual recruitment spend and improving our processes as a whole.”
 
The use of headhunters will not be eradicated entirely, however. It will simply no longer be automatic and take more of a supplemental role, being employed only when internal activity has drawn a blank, he told PersonnelToday.
 
To support the move, adidas is currently deploying JobPartners’ ActiveRecruiter software across 100 locations worldwide and roll-out has already taken place in 45 of them. The project is expected to be completed by the end of this year.
 
Recruitment leaders will be given responsibility for the initiative in each location and train local teams in how to use the software.