Report: Continuous Improvement and Innovation at Woodhouse Recruitment

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of continuous improvement and innovation strategies for Woodhouse Recruitment. It begins by emphasizing the importance of these concepts in addressing business challenges and adapting to changing demands. The report then examines the current trends and opportunities for Woodhouse Recruitment, highlighting the need to increase customer satisfaction and fill rates. Key aspects of the company, including operations, supply chain, and service delivery, are discussed, along with an assessment of the business's performance. The report identifies existing performance indicators and suggests the need for more, including employee satisfaction and customer retention metrics. Sustainability options and innovative business ideas in the recruitment industry are explored, with recommendations for continuous improvement and innovation within Woodhouse Recruitment. The report concludes by emphasizing the value of training, smart devices, and disruptive business models to enhance efficiency and growth.

Running head: REPORT
Report
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Author Note

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Table of Contents
Importance of continuous improvement and innovation as an essential element of business and
competition......................................................................................................................................2
Trends and Opportunities................................................................................................................2
Aspects of Woodhouse Recruitment...............................................................................................3
Operations........................................................................................................................................3
Supply Chain...................................................................................................................................4
Services Delivery.............................................................................................................................4
Performance of Business.................................................................................................................4
Existing Performance Indicators and Need for more Indicators.....................................................5
Sustainability Options......................................................................................................................6
Examples of Innovative Business Ideas in the Recruitment Industry.............................................7
Contact Details of References.........................................................................................................8
Recommendations for continuous improvement and innovation within Woodhouse Recruitment 8
References........................................................................................................................................9

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Importance of continuous improvement and innovation as an essential
element of business and competition
Continuous improvement and innovation help business owners and managers to have
better insights about the risks that a business might face and at the same time helps to cater to the
changing demands of people. These concepts are very important for any business as they help to
address the problems facing the business and also helps to deal with the problems facing the
organization (Rosemann and vom Brocke 2015). Further, it also helps the firms in reaching the
goals faster and more effectively while maintaining the quality of services provided. This
approach helps the firms a lot in decreasing the total amount of costs and increases satisfaction of
the employees and this in turn helps in reducing the friction amongst the employees in the firm
(Goetsch and Davis 2014).
Trends and Opportunities
From the statistics provided about Woodhouse Recruitment, it can be asserted that the
major area of opportunity for the firm is to work on the customer satisfaction as 60% of revenue
generated by the firm is dependent on the repeated usage of the services provided by the firm by
the existing number of clients. To ensure this, the fill rate which is currently at a level of 40%
should be increased. Further, the percentage of employees recruited in the marketing and sales
team should be increased too.
Moreover, the most important change that the firm needs to work upon and set is the
level and definition of the service standards and performance indicators that will help the firm in
understanding the success rate achieved by the firm and that remaining which will help the firm

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to reach the objectives faster and with greater precision. To increase the amount of employment
happening in the firm, the firm should increasingly use the digital forms of marketing and digital
platforms for posting jobs instead of only depending on existing databases and online job posting
websites. Further, the firm needs to provide proper training and development to the employees
hired as it is an important part of the continuous improvement processes applied at different
firms.
The firm also has immense level of opportunities and scope when it comes to the
question of innovation as mentioned by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The Business
Characteristics Survey (BCS) has published reports that show that the total percentage of
businesses in Australia that have used the mechanisms of innovation include almost 44.5% of the
total businesses operating in Australia with 38.3% of the total businesses that newly included
innovation in the year 2016-2017 (Abs.gov.au 2018). This proves that there lies immense
opportunities for Woodhouse Recruitment to use innovative approaches for meeting both client
requirements as well as finding out the best fit of candidates for the different firms in which it
provides its services. The statistics also show that 29% of these businesses have collaborated
with other businesses that are similar in nature to increase the level of innovations undertaken
and make them successful.
Aspects of Woodhouse Recruitment
There are mainly three aspects of the company that need to be discussed in detail and
these include operations, services delivery and the existing supply chian of the firm.
Operations

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At the operational level, the firm needs to improve the training facilities provided to its
employees. It also needs to set a scheme that will provide the appraisal details for the employees.
It also needs to set goals in terms of objectives that need to be reached and the performance
indicators that will help the employees to realise the parameters that they should adhere to for
reaching the objectives.
Supply Chain
In the context of supply chain of the firm, much improvement is not required or needed
as it is a recruiting agency. It needs to improve the contacts established with the best universities
or other firms that provide specialised professional courses and internships to the cohort of best
talents and skilled labourers in the country. This will help in finding the best fit for the clients
existing and also open up opportunities for increasing the market share of the firm.
Services Delivery
In the context of delivering services, the firm needs to increase the fill rate substantially
so that customer relationships are bettered and improved. In particular, the number of contracts
which are permanent and executive should be increased. Moreover, innovation in the form of
catering to the changing demand trends and patterns of the customers should also be focussed on.
Performance of Business
The major business performance statistics portrayed in the report, assert that the amount
of sales revenue calculated on an annual basis has been increasing at a rate of around 10% as
compared to the previous year. This means that even with a small cohort of customers the firm is

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succeeding in accruing decent amounts of profits. This is the same reason that has led to the
increase in the profit rates by about 9% in the firm. It is also reported that 60% of the revenue
generation of the firm is from customers who are trusted and regular. Hence it can be asserted
from this particular statistic that the firm is performing well in providing services and building
trust and that the firm should use this to their advantage to accrue higher amounts of revenue
generation and profits. The rates of recruitments should also be increased in the different sectors
using smart devices and disruptive business models. These models and devices will help to
collect, evaluate, synthesise and analyse information so that the firm is able to push past the
limits existing and contribute more to the industry as a whole. Thus, it can be asserted that the
amount of progress made by the firm has been substantial but it still needs to increase the amount
of services while maintain and improving the customer relations and customer services.
Existing Performance Indicators and Need for more Indicators
As is mentioned in the report most of the performance indicators used in the firm are
primarily financial and includes the levels of profit generation and sales revenue that the firm is
currently reaching and the levels that the firm ideally needs to reach (Parmenter 2015). The other
performance indicator monitored and evaluated by the firm include the fill rate as well as the
industry average. Thus, it is visible that the firm needs to include more indicators based on a lot
of attributes. These attributes include motivational factors that increase the satisfaction of the
employees, intensity of applying the notions of diversity and inclusion, productivity rates of the
employees, attrition rates of employees, customer satisfaction levels and market share of the firm
in the recruitment industry. There is ample scope for the firm to expand its total operational
volume and increase the reach of the services provided by increasing the size of the target

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market. These can be ensured by ensuring that proper training and development programs are
provided to the employees. This can also be ensured by using the right type of smart devices and
analysing the data collected by these devices using disruptive business models. Further, training
also needs to be provided at the management levels in order to ensure that changes are
introduced into the system existing in the firm and these changes are dealt in such a way that
they are slowly anchored into the system while being flexible in the long run.
Sustainability Options
Sustainability for any firm means that the firm utilises the resources in such a way that
while the firm is able to provide for the existing employees, the firm also has enough resources
to provide the best standard of living for the future employees that it is expecting to hire in the
upcoming years (Chang et al. 2017). In this particular context, the report suggests that there are
no initiatives taken to ensure sustainability of the operations taking place in the firm. Thus, there
is also a scope for the firms to increase the total amount of sustainability being practiced in the
firm. This includes practices that will help in protecting the community in which the firm is
operation from an environmental context. The practices introduced should also be such that the
production and other costs incurred by the firm are reduced. This can be done by decreasing the
volatility of operations of the firm. For this, Woodhouse Recruitment will have to increase the
total size of stakeholders that the firm already has. It also involves increasing the total amount of
employee engagement in the organisation. The firm can avail this and implement proper
sustainability practices which will increase employee engagement by catering to the needs and
requirements of the employees. This includes trainings given to the human resources department

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for setting proper standards based on which appraisals and recognition will be given out to the
employees.
Examples of Innovative Business Ideas in the Recruitment Industry
The three most common forms of ideas used in the recruitment industry if identified
carefully boil down to the following three examples:
The first strategy that can be used to attract both cohorts of employees as well as
customers include using the best tools and techniques used to make a profile on LinkedIn. This
helps in gaining attention of the talent pool in general and also helps to hire employees belonging
to different sectors and required by clients operating in different industries. The building of this
kind of a profile helps in brainstorming which not only helps in increasing the potential of the
employees but also helps in continuous improvement monitoring. This will in turn help to make
the tool interactive which will help the firm to grow further.
The second is in the context of employer branding innovations wherein the firm tries to
use social media platforms and other digital platforms to advertise the brand so that the brand
value is built. This in combination with the already existing customer trust can help both the
employees and the firm to grow.
The third technique involves the use of smart devices and automation using disruptive
business models for providing training to the employees so that the productivity for the firm
increases and the potential gaps facing the firm are substantially reduced. Though this involves
some amount of investment, it will help the firm to overcome most of the hurdles facing the firm
in terms of reaching its objectives.

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For Woodhouse Recruitments all of the above mentioned innovations would be
applicable and will enable the firm to improve from where it is currently located in the industry.
It will also help the firm to increase the amount of customer satisfaction. Further, this will greatly
help the firm to stand out from the rest of the competitors in the industry.
Contact Details of References
Recommendations for continuous improvement and innovation within
Woodhouse Recruitment
Firstly an innovative programme should be conducted for the employees in order to train
the employees for change and continuous improvements should be conducted. These
programmes should take place twice a year for a period of one month so that the level of
transparency is also maintained in the firm.
Secondly, smart devices should be used for learning the strategies and techniques that are
being used in start-ups operating in the same industry so that the firm can use the same to keep
the employees informed of the existing trends in the industry. This in turn will help the
employees to feel more motivated and contribute in greater amounts to the firm.
Thirdly, customer feedbacks should be given the most amount of importance so that all the
trainings conducted within the organisation are based on these. Further, the trainings should
incorporate and slowly anchor the changes decided by the management so that the company as a
whole is able to evolve as per the changing scenario and the changing demand patterns of the
customers.

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References
Abs.gov.au. (2018). 8158.0 - Innovation in Australian Business, 2016-17. [online] Available at:
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/8158.0 [Accessed 26 Oct. 2018].
Chang, R.D., Zuo, J., Zhao, Z.Y., Zillante, G., Gan, X.L. and Soebarto, V., 2017. Evolving
theories of sustainability and firms: History, future directions and implications for renewable
energy research. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 72, pp.48-56.
Goetsch, D.L. and Davis, S.B., 2014. Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper
Saddle River, NJ: pearson.
Parmenter, D., 2015. Key performance indicators: developing, implementing, and using winning
KPIs. John Wiley & Sons.
Rosemann, M. and vom Brocke, J., 2015. The six core elements of business process
management. In Handbook on business process management 1 (pp. 105-122). Springer, Berlin,
Heidelberg.