Adecco moves to up engagement with temps via loyalty scheme

Scheme offers discounts on products at select retail outlets to those who stick with Adecco for six months or more

Global HR solutions major Adecco, with its India headquarters in Bengaluru, has set out to increase employee engagement and retention. It has launched a loyalty programme for its associates and staff members for this.

The company, which has about 100,000 associates (temps), has embarked on the loyalty programme that one often associates more with the retail sector.

The new country manager and managing director of Adecco for India, Angelo Lo Vecchio, who took over towards the end of 2014, has charted out a three-pronged strategy for the company that includes increasing sales intensity, a new delivery model and increasing permanent placement and professional staffing.

Adecco’s ‘Adecco Life’, the employee loyalty programme, gives employees who sticks with Adecco for six months or more, discounts on many a product at select retail outlets with which Adecco signs up. Currently, it has signed up some 20 partners, Lo Vecchio told Business Standard. With its huge number of associates, it could over time give good business to many of the businesses such as apparel retail or others. It may be extended to insurance, food and health, among other services. “Adecco will be the first HR solutions company to have such a programme in the country,” he added.

However, he said the actual results of the programme would be visible only by June next.

Organic growth strategy

Meanwhile, the company which had till a couple of years ago been looking at inorganic growth as a means of expansion in the country, has now changed its strategy. It wants to now only look at organic growth path. Some of the earlier acquisitions of the company in India had turned out to be an unhappy experience as there had been issues, including those pertaining to HR and difficulty in infusing the company’s culture into the acquired entity.

As part of its growth plans, it has started verticalisation of its talent pool. It has opened two verticals, one focussing on banking, financial services and insurance sector and the other pertaining to health care and pharma.

“We are having a separate focus on the verticals,” said Lo Vecchio.

The permanent staffing business is about $600 million in the country today. However, it’s highly fragmented with many small players and Adecco is pushing to gain a major chunk of their business.

The company is planning to increase the number of its staff in six months from 350 to 500 to focus on its permanent and professional staffing business.

Meanwhile, the company is planning to hold roadshows from the second quarter of this year to make companies aware of compliance and laws of the country.

With its expansion plans that it has charted out, it is taking up more office spaces in major cities across the country. The company, present across 55 locations, is now in the process of extending more solutions to Mumbai and Chennai.