About WPP

WPP companies exist to help their customers compete successfully in marketing strategy, advertising, every form of marketing communication, and monitoring progress. WPP is a FTSE 100 company and is the world’s largest advertising company by revenue. The business employs around 179,000 people in 3,000 offices across 111 countries.​

Project

La Fosse was chosen as the exclusive agency to create a new Application Development Management function for Coretech (shared service for the entire WPP group). This function currently had ~300 employees globally working for the WPP operating companies, and we were tasked with creating a 47-strong, brand-new retained structure with half retained staff and half externally hired. This spanned five main hubs: London, New York, Chicago, São Paulo, and Singapore.​

IBM was chosen as the outsourcer; everyone was moved over and we were engaged to attract, interview, and select the best-suited internal staff to be retained in this new structure. To achieve this we:​

  • Created global salary benchmarking for all positions – no grading scheme in place​
  • Designed interview framework capturing skills and competencies​
  • Captured internal interest​
  • Educated internal staff on best practice for CVs and competency-based interviews​
  • Conducted rigorous competency and skills-based interviews​
  • Provided extensive write-ups and scoring​
  • Carried out PPA psychometric testing​
  • Ensured a delicate rejection process​
  • Gathered feedback from internal candidates throughout the process to ensure a positive candidate experience​

Solution

Successfully completed on time and to budget:​

  • 101 interviews conducted in a two-week period by La Fosse​
  • 53 candidates shortlisted​
  • 23 hired across Chicago, New York, London, Singapore, and São Paulo​

Testimonial

“The service that I have been receiving from La Fosse is nothing short of extraordinary. They are responsive, attentive and provide great feedback along with productive suggestions in relation to the issues. As a bonus, La Fosse consultants are very good humoured and a call that I look forward to taking at any point during the day.” JOHN BROOKES – HR TRANSFORMATION MANAGER, WPP