Newell Brands Is Increasing Employee Retention With This New HR Technology

As we grow, you grow. That’s the message that greets job seekers on Newell Brands’ career site.

It’s no surprise, then, that the consumer goods leader values digital innovation and operational excellence as they strive to be an amazing workplace for their 29,000 employees to learn, develop, and thrive. When presented with the chance to completely overhaul their internal employee experience, they seized the opportunity — building a transparent, growth-centric talent marketplace with all the trimmings.

Their primary goals echoed those of many leaders across talent acquisition and management:

• Increase internal sourcing and hires

• Foster internal mobility and career development

• Support ways of working and wellness

• Retain more employees

Check out the full case study here or keep reading to catch the highlights.

How they’re illuminating actionable employee opportunities

Like many companies, Newell originally invested in their external candidate experience and used their ATS as a makeshift internal job board for employees. The problem? The entire experience paled in comparison — and their internal application numbers proved it.

When analyzing their existing experience, their Director of North America Talent Acquisition & Operations likened it to more of a “data dump” than a place to find relevant and timely internal opportunities.

The Newell team started searching for new employee-oriented tools that went above and beyond a standard internal job board. Already a thriving Phenom customer, Newell didn’t hesitate to use the same Intelligent Talent Experience technology that fuels their first-class candidate and recruiter experiences for their cross-functional internal employee experience transformation.

Implementing Phenom Talent Marketplace in combination with Phenom Referrals and Phenom Employee Resource Groups gave them exactly what they were looking for:

Personalized job search & recommendations
Quick and seamless apply process
AI-driven skills matching & job alerts
Enhanced referrals
Transparent employee resource groups (ERGs)

A convenient employee portal allows employees to easily log into the talent marketplace to search and apply for relevant internal opportunities, all recommended to them based on their experience, skills, and interests.

Employees can also conveniently refer candidates and share open job opportunities with their networks by linking directly to Newell’s career site or posting on social media. Not only can they easily track their own referrals, but the TA team can, too.

“Being able to see in real-time how many candidates employees refer — and for which positions — drives more accurate planning to fill roles faster with higher quality talent,” reported their Director of TA. Another measurement it illuminates? Employee engagement.

Building on its talent marketplace, Newell is also considering adding the following complementary capabilities down the road:

Phenom Mentoring, which connects employees with best-fit internal mentors that help them develop and evolve
Phenom Career Pathing, which helps employees think through their next career move by receiving AI-powered skills analyses, fit scores, and personalized learning options
Phenom Gigs to provide opportunities for learning and upskilling through short-term internal projects

Making an impact with Phenom Talent Marketplace

So what results is their talent marketplace driving? Impressive ones, including:

129% increase in internal applicants
89% reduction in time to fill
an increase in employee retention despite the challenging talent landscape

“We’ve absolutely seen an increase in internal moves and decrease in time to fill — and that’s huge,” shared their Director of TA. Instead of taking 45 days on average to search for an external candidate, recruiters are filling positions in just 5 days with a qualified Newell employee.

“Back when I was a recruiter at Newell, if I had 30 positions, I would maybe get one internal applicant. In just one month, we've had almost 400 internal applies. That’s a 129% increase, which is amazing for us,” she shared.

“Our employees are using it, finding roles, and making a move. It’s energizing and impactful to see,” she continued. “I’m thrilled that we can expedite and increase internal mobility because turnover is so expensive. We want to keep our employees and make them happy — and an internal move saves us a lot of money in the long run.”