ArcelorMittal modernizes global staffing with Oracle Cloud

Formed in 2006 from the merger of Arcelor by Mittal Steel of India, ArcelorMittal is the world’s largest steel producer—ranked 197th in the last Fortune Global 500. ArcelorMittal produces steel for the automotive, construction, household appliances, and packaging industries, is present in 160 countries, and has primary steelmaking facilities in 17 countries.

The company’s key HR challenges included an aging workforce plus an intensifying war for talent, as well as disparate technologies and practices across its various locations. It recently launched an HR Excellence transformation program to ensure stability and growth for the future. The company was looking for a robust technology platform to better support its HR goals, beginning with recruitment.

In the past, ArcelorMittal managed staffing through decentralized recruitment teams, using a mix of insourced, co-sourced, and outsourced staffing models, including a fully engaged recruitment process outsourcing setup in France. The company sought a sophisticated and comprehensive requisition management system that could cater to its multifaceted staffing needs while also enabling standardization and automation of recruitment processes.

In addition, the steel giant wanted to improve employer branding as well as its careers website while standardizing and enhancing its candidate experience to attract young talent in competitive European markets, where it often received only one or two applicants per vacancy. Also, the company required a single database of candidates to optimize the global talent pools and improve sourcing for hard-to-fill positions.

Lastly, ArcelorMittal sought comprehensive and harmonized recruitment reports across a range of metrics to improve decision-making regarding global staffing strategies and to reduce the use of external recruitment agencies.

ArcelorMittal turned to the Oracle Cloud HCM suite of HR applications because it needed an enterprisewide solution for recruiting, onboarding, competence management, learning, succession planning, performance management, and strategic workforce planning. After considering offers from Workday and SuccessFactors, ArcelorMittal selected Oracle Cloud HCM as the most suitable solution.

“Oracle was the only vendor to demonstrate an unwavering commitment to a successful partnership. Furthermore, the basics, like those built into Oracle Cloud HCM, were much stronger than those of the competition. Oracle clearly understood how things should work," says Koen Mols, the company’s HR Excellence program leader.

ArcelorMittal streamlined global staffing processes, increased recruitment efficiency, and enabled full transparency of all requisitions and candidates globally by deploying Oracle Recruiting, part of Oracle Fusion Cloud Human Capital Management. The implementation boosted productivity for the company’s variety of staffing teams, while also enhancing the candidate experience and increasing its competitiveness in the war for talent.

With Oracle Recruiting, ArcelorMittal standardized the recruitment process for a variety of roles—from factory workers and logistics coordinators to sales executives and mining specialists. The common staffing process enabled by its unified platform improved collaboration among recruitment teams while streamlining processes. For instance, recruiters have seen an 80% decrease in queries from stakeholders, while about 90% of applicants from the company’s referral program are hired.

ArcelorMittal significantly increased its competitiveness in attracting young talent by using Oracle Recruiting to boost its employer brand as well as the overall candidate experience. Job applicants now access a single branded career site that lists all open positions worldwide. They can easily apply for vacancies, track the status of their applications, and receive a consistent, high-level candidate experience—regardless of job type or location.

The smooth and modernized applicant experience is particularly important when recruiting for crucial but hard-to-fill high tech roles, such as data scientists. The results since using Oracle Recruiting are outstanding. For example, in Poland, which is home to many high-tech companies and startups, ArcelorMittal received 1,000 applications in the first six weeks after the launch, increasing to 1,400 applications after eight weeks.

Standardizing recruitment processes on a modern, comprehensive platform improved the productivity of ArcelorMittal’s staffing teams in each country and for every job level. In Liberia, for instance, where the company recruits mostly for positions in the mining sector, staffers now save time by using Oracle Recruiting’s automated requisition management and applicant tracking tool instead of using spreadsheets. In the highly competitive market of Belgium, staffers benefit from a worldwide candidate database that greatly extends their candidate sourcing reach.

A unified recruitment system also allowed ArcelorMittal to improve its strategic staffing practices. Recruiters in different locations who are working on similar job types can easily exchange location-independent candidate information, or pool external advertising resources.

Furthermore, by being able to report on time to hire, numbers of applicants, and applicant-to-interview ratios per geography or job type, the company can better decide when, where, and how to engage external agencies. This includes determining whether to use contingency or retained agency services for specific jobs, or whether to deploy additional recruitment process outsourcing models for high-volume staffing.

Thanks to Oracle Recruiting, ArcelorMittal’s multilocated recruiters now have full visibility into all recruitment activities. This includes visibility for all requisitions, which helps avoid duplication. It also ensures that the company presents a united front to all candidates, further enhancing the brand. The new platform increased transparency among recruitment teams and some 100 hiring managers. They can review their requisitions and track the progression of candidates at any time without needing to contact HR.