Building a cost effective recruitment function

Client: Royal Automobile Club
Headcount: 600 FTE
Sector: Luxury Leisure & Hospitality
Objective: Build and embed a scalable in-house recruitment function to reduce cost, improve quality and create a consistent candidate experience.

• • Recruitment was managed reactively by HR, with heavy reliance on external agencies and high turnover of staff.

• • Each summer brought a seasonal surge in hiring demand, but without any plan or process to manage it, the Club was consistently short-staffed or paying premium rates to contingent suppliers.

• • Annual recruitment spend exceeded £200k, with limited visibility of ROI or hiring performance.

• • Candidate and hiring manager experiences were inconsistent, and the employer brand was fragmented across channels.

• • Leadership lacked access to reliable data or reporting to inform workforce decisions.

• • The Club needed to build an in-house recruitment function from the ground up, one that could operate efficiently, deliver measurable savings and scale in line with business growth.

Like many organisations, the Royal Automobile Club was experiencing ongoing recruitment pressures without the infrastructure or capability to support effective delivery.

Hiring was ad-hoc, expensive and reactive. Agencies filled the gaps, but costs were spiralling and HR was stretched thin managing operational recruitment alongside wider HR responsibilities.

The lack of technology, process and reporting meant hiring decisions were made without insight or consistency. Seasonal peaks, particularly over the summer, only amplified these challenges, leaving teams short-staffed and reliant on costly contingent suppliers.

To move forward, the Club needed structure, strategy and scalability underpinned by data, process and capability.

Working as an embedded partner, I designed, operationalised and stabilised the Club’s first in-house recruitment function, transforming hiring from reactive to proactive.

The goal was to create a function that could scale, reduce reliance on agencies and deliver a consistently high-quality experience for both candidates and hiring managers.

This involved:

• • Designing a recruitment operating model and governance framework aligned to business needs

• • Implementing an ATS and integrated careers website to centralise hiring and strengthen the employer brand

• • Introducing a Preferred Supplier List (PSL) to improve control, quality and cost efficiency

• • Delivering seasonal attraction campaigns and assessment centres to manage peak summer recruitment effectively

• • Training hiring managers to embed consistency and accountability

• • Embedding reporting and insight frameworks to drive continuous improvement

Within months, the Club’s approach to recruitment had completely transformed.

• Agency spend and total direct recruitment costs reduced by over 50% in the first year.
• Quality and retention of hires improved through structured, data-led processes.
• Candidate and hiring manager experience enhanced with measurable satisfaction improvements.
• Reporting and data reporting mechanisms embedded for data-driven decision making amongst leadership teams.
• A sustainable, scalable recruitment function established to support long-term growth.
• Developed an ongoing Recruitment Strategy and Board Paper to embed continuous improvement and guide future recruitment evolution after project completion.